Search the Community

Got to go detecting on Saturday on good gold ground that was just recently clear cut. This area has been detected in the past but it is a huge area and the clear cutting has surely made more gold detectable. One of the guys who originally found this spot came with me. Having first hand experience on hand is always helpful. I was using the gpx 4800 with a coiltek 11 inch elite mono. I started off in normal and at the factory presets, after digging a number of hot ground signal, I switched to enhance and this removed the hot ground that was giving me issues. The first hour or so of detecting yielded normal small bits of trash, and one target that I thought for sure would be gold, but was a piece of rusty iron about a foot down in cemented gravels (that was a let down lol). We moved up to the logging road and began detecting it, after a few trash targets, I got a nice mellow signal, it was easily heard, and upon scrapping down about 3 to 4 inches out pops a coarse little 8 grain nugget, my first piece found with the gpx. I continued to detect this area of the road and pulled out three more small nuggets, the smallest being 5 grains and the largest just over a gram. By about noon the I was beat and the heat was almost hitting 90 with about 100% humidity. So we packed up and hiked back out. All in all I was very happy with the day, and it showed me what my gpx4800 is capable of, and now I have more trust in its ability to find small gold at pretty good depth. Then today I had to go down to my normal prospecting area and pull my dredge out, and while I was there I fired the gold monster back up and went to my little picker creek picker hole. Found some more nice little pickers with the monster, and finally got it over a larger nuggets. Man does it scream on bigger gold. The area that the bigger nugget was in looked like bedrock with no evident cracks. I had to bring the crow bar over and just ripped up the soft decomposing bedrock, and out pops a nice 1 gram nugget. I detected for about 1.5 hours and got 5 nice pieces with one being a little quartz and gold specimen piece. So all in all a fantastic weekend with gold from two separate locals, with two different detectors. Total gold was about 4.5 grams for the two short days of detecting in Virginia.

Currently camped on the job in central Vic where comms are difficult, but here's a progress report. Been at it for a couple of weeks (I think ) but there are some results to report. I've been working solo a lot of the time but also with Reg when he's not too busy. We started off testing the new Detech 32" coplanar concentric which Stinky Pete kindly loaned us for a few days. What a coil! Although we didn't manage to put it over any deep gold, it's easily the deepest seeking coil we have ever used, yet sensitive to small targets as well. I'm ordering an 18" to 20" model as soon as they become available. Howard is busy planning mods to the QED so it can run them as well. I'm pretty excited about these coils. My friend Tony has been winding and using them for years with great prospecting success. Needless to say, he isn't interested in owning a "Z" Hang onto your GPX's folks, they're about to penetrate previously unreached depths! Some of the properties we've been prospecting are familiar and some are new. Always a buzz to finally get onto new ground after meeting with the "Cocky" and negotiating a deal. In some cases the ground has been detected before by others, but with careful gridding we always manage more. On one property we worked yesterday a previously detected patch yielded an additional ounce and a half in chunky colours (young blokes we were told) Perhaps they were ignoring screamers, but we're not complaining First up, my solo tally so far. largest piece (front) over half an oz. All found with QED PL2: - and our shared tally to be eventually split 50/50 . Again, largest piece (front) over half an oz detected by Reg: All gold located in patches on eroded Tertiary leads. Some pieces still have traces of the cement matrix they eroded out from. A general view of one of the Tertiary patches with Reg's young foxy "Boo" photobombing. Reg in the distance: Posted elsewhere on this forum, my two largest pieces, found under 500kv powerlines: A 400mm dig for a 5 grammer. I love that 18" Elite, it even centered shallow flyshite that doesn't register on my scales: That's all for now. To be continued - - -

I checked that Tarnagulla specimen again today and it`s just about disintegrated, all that was holding the quartz together was the brown rock. You can`t really see it but there is a fair bit of powder gold in the pan. When I first sg`d it the sg said about 1½ ounces of gold but I doubt there is that much. I`ve put the pieces back in acid to get rid of the last bits of brown rock, then I`ll crush it all up and have a go at making my first ingot.

Another of my customers wanted a light weight detector for his wife and one that could do it all (well most styles of detecting). So I told him the new Equniox 800 is the detector of choice for Multi Taks hunters. Here is her story of this amazing find. What was funny and not mentioned.. All the guys in camp were giving grief to her husband because she found the bigger pieces. Heck...I would be happy just to have my wife out there swinging with me. They did not realize how lucky he is. https://www.minelab.com/usa/community/success-stories/from-nugget-virgin-to-nugget-queen

About 100 yards from the piece I got yesterday I came across a raked area about 30x30 ft and just about every raked area in Victoria tells you somebody got gold there. This piece was about 10 ft from the raked area. Still not a great deal of weight but it looks nice and about twice the size of yesterdays piece ☺️

I got out to Tarnagulla today for about 2½ hrs and as I was detecting back to the vehicle I got a birdshot sounding signal where someone had done a light scrape of the ground. Down about 1" and I really thought I was chasing birdshot, but when I had it in my hand, until I put my glasses on, I thought it was a rusty piece of steel. ?

I have been scanning 35 mm Slides and came across a guy now resting closer to the gold. He was a real gentle man. He put a stop to my dredging when he let my wife wear his smaller 16 oz necklace. If I remember right that is a 30 plus oz in his hand. The third photo is my collection of coarse gold I dredged that year.

Most of my finds pale into insignificance compared to some of the great gold that is displayed on this forum, but it is what it is. I got out for a couple of hours yesterday and got this piece about 10 mins after I got there, then nothing. The good thing about this spot is there is not a great deal in the way of rubbish, so I`m going to spend a bit more time there and hope a few more pieces pop up. Dave

That speci I got a couple of weeks ago, I dropped it in Ali Brite about 5 days ago and it came up pretty good. After it was cleaned the SG came down a fraction, it now sg`s at 2.082 grams gold ?

The wife and I got out for a couple of hour detect today and about 1 hour in I got a really iffy signal with the 7000 and it sounded like it was down maybe a couple of inches. I was really surprised when the hole started getting deeper and deeper and the target was still there. When I was down about 8" in hard ground I got the 2300 my better half was using so I could pinpoint cause I really couldn`t tell where in the hole it was and down about the 12" mark this piece popped out. Looking at it from the side it pretty well looks like a rock but all around the edges there are hundreds of tiny pinpoints of gold. It sg`s at 2.1 grams gold and is my biggest piece in quite some time. ?

About 3 or 4 years ago I ran a post about a specimen I got at Tarnagulla at about 6" with pretty well no visible gold, and the sg for quartz said there was maybe 1½ ozs of gold in it, but because there was rock other than quartz, I really don`t know how much gold there actually is. At the time, I dropped it in acid and then promptly forgot about it till I came across it today. ? The main body of it is about half the size it started and there is now gold and gravel in the bottom of the jar. I`ve taken this photo of the biggest bit remaining, renewed the acid and dropped it back in. I wont forget it again (I hope). Sorry Mitchel, back to the dime ?

Soaked the 22 gram speci in some WINK and boy does it look nice. I think after it is smashed, sifted and melted, there might be 8 to 10 grams. The last photo is what it looked like just after I dug it and before cleaning.

Last weekend Spud Digger Johnson of the "Spud Digger" YouTube channel hosted another outing at the 1863 ghost town and gold mine located on private property near Idaho City. About 30 avid detectorists were in attendance, lots of goodies were found, and a good time was had by all. Two attendees found their first natural gold, needless to say they were delighted. My 9 pieces weighed in at 2.8 grams (GM 24k) but Craig's baseball sized chunk will far beat that in gold content. Several nice coins were found, among the ones I found were a Shield nickel and "fatty" Indian Head Cent, both "firsts" for me. Likely some video footage of the event will be posted on the "Spud Diggers" and "Tough Run Metal Detecting" channels. It was fun. HH Jim

Finally got the skunk of the Gold Monster! All small stuff but I've been in such a drought this year I'm happy to detect any gold at all at this point. The stuff on the right side of the pan is my oldest son's, he was using his Gold Bug II. He turned over a boulder and found 19 pieces under it.

I don`t wear my glasses when I detect and yesterday I got this little one, and at first glance I thought it was a piece of steel. Good thing I turned it over and looked at the other side. ? Not real big, maybe a 0.3 if I`m lucky ?

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-06/spectacular-rare-gold-specimens-unearthed-at-beta-hunt-mine/11174958

My friend with the connection to the gold and opal mine owner in Australia just sent us some pictures she got from another friend with a mining operation someplace in Africa, The 8kg of gold from this location tests out at over 98% purity. Our friend is visiting us on Tuesday and I hope to learn a little bit more about the details, enjoy!

Got a tip from a friend on some BLM land that has produced gold in the past. I spent 4 1/2 days (30 hours of detecting) while camping out there. Weather was quite good -- only rained intermittantly for part of one day; typical temps were 70's F daytime and 40's F nighttime. Got lucky to have had recent rains which brought out the flowers: I always try and learn as much as I can while MD'ing, regardless of the site/location and intended finds. I was hunting with the Minelab Equinox 800 with 6 inch coil in Gold 1 mode, White's Prostar headphones coupled to the WM08 wireless receiver. It was nice to get away from the EMI I typically deal with at home (coin hunting). However, the hot rocks more than made up for that! At the start of each day I adjusted my settings, taking advantage of what I had used previously but also trying to keep an open mind as to what would run the quietest. Over the 4+ days I tried gains (sensitivites) between 16 and 23, ran all metal or disked out just {-9,-8, -7}, notched in only {-2,-1,0,1,2}, tried all recovery speeds in {4,5,6,7}. I Ground Grabbed most of the time but did try tracking, which didn't seem to make any improvement at this particular site. The ground phase was locally pretty stable, only varying by about 1 or 2 typically. Regardless of settings there was always at least of bit of noise from hot rocks to put up with. Surprisingly sometimes the hot rocks ID'ed at 12. As if the Equinox needed one more object to read that value.... The biggest false signal I had to deal with was wet ground. This wasn't surface moisture but rather at about 2 inches and deeper. The ID's read right in the small gold range {+1,+2} and sounded pretty clean, although they weren't quite a sharp as the real thing. However, for me anyway, close enough to not ignore. Pictured below is my 'haul'. I actually found one more piece but lost it somehow in the process of putting it into the collection bottle. One more lesson learned. Bottom line is that I quadrupled my lifetime count but still haven't made it to my first gram. All read +1 TID and all were within 2 inches of the surface. One was in the grass, lying on the surface of the ground. I'm certainly appreciative of the lead I got to this location. Wish I didn't live 2400 miles away from it.

http://www.pmav.org.au/stories-a-reports/triangle-gold

It's been a good week all around. Dennis really got on the gold today, 15 nuggets total including a 3.4 gram piece. I'm going to rest up tomorrow, our flight leaves out of PHX on Sunday afternoon. We'll arrive in Perth on Tue, then meet up with Paul and Trent on Friday. We're just hoping our good luck hasn't run out. Tally Ho!

Paul ... where are you? This one is worth a bit less than $100,000. That won't change your lifestyle much. https://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/aussie-man-hits-the-jackpot-finds-100000-gold-nugget-004212339.html

I got this piece yesterday down about 6" and until I cleaned it I was 99% sure it was another bird shot. Over the years I have been surprised how many of my bird shot have turned out to be gold. ?

We've been out every morning for a few hours since Sunday practicing for the summer of Aussie Gold. Today was my day on the big gold. I was detecting a desert wash bench zone, and got what the Aussies call a Zed Warble. Down here in Sunny Yuma the Zed Warble usually means an old rusty bent nail. A bit of digging down to the hard pack maybe 15 or 16 inches. I switched detector down to Sens 1 to try and pinpoint, bit it was still overloading with the warble tone. Dennis and I took turns breaking up the hardpack and scooping out the hole till this nugget rolled on out. The small stuff I found over the past 2 mornings, I think I'm going to throw them back for seed on the big ones.

So I titled this as such because when it gets especially hot (here in Arizona) I start my hunts at midnight and go thru until the morning until about 8am. For me, this offers multiple benefits. There is more time with the family on weekends, which for me is #1; I cherish this more than gold. And secondly, if it is hot out, I cannot keep my ground balanced, as some put it. When it starts getting hot, I would tend not to look as hard and rush through areas. Anyways, back to the gold. I was in a wash last week when I ran into some pretty good gold. I found 11 small pcs adding up to almost 4 grams. Now, for my night hunts, I won’t go every weekend, I usually skip 1 or two so that I get my sleep cycle working again. But then there is Mother’s Day coming up and so my wife briefly mentioned that I should go this weekend, too. An hour later I am charging batteries. She walks by and says, “wow, you really have the fever don’t you”. I just laughed. She knows me. She has seen me prospecting for 5 years and put up with it for 5 years. One of the best decisions I made was marrying her. I explain all of this because it was nice to come home and show her the source of the fever. So I went back to this area with my GPZ and started walking through more washes I had marked out on my gps. Nothing for the first one, but the second one, I got a nice strangely shaped 2.75 grammer. Now, I can kinda see a patten on my gps when I look at my finds. I finish the wash and go to a wash that is in the direction of the gold distribution. Good topography … I am in. First couple of minutes of slow hunting in this wash yields, nothing. And then I start focusing on a bench that is maybe a foot higher than the rest of the wash… and I get a signal. A clear, still loud, but smooth signal. My heart jumps as I begin to dig. The dirt just fell away until 15-16” I hit gravel. By now the target was booming. I scrape the gavel back with my pick and I see a large piece of gold flip out! It replays in my mind over and over. Needless to say, you may have heard my scream at 2:15 in the morning (Arizona time). LOL. From there the gold kept coming. I got a couple more pieces farther up the wash and then came back and placered the area for a couple more little ones missed by depth. Wide range of sizes. THAT is why I love the GPZ. And it was nice to see my wifes face change to a smile when she felt the .86oz chunk fall into her hand. Priceless. All in all, my findings came to just over 1oz. Who needs sleep ... Andyy

My summer season consists of a lot of VLF detecting at some old tertiary channels with quiet ground and exposed bedrock. I’ve been using a Gold Bug 2 with a 6” coil for years and found thousands of nugglets with it for quite a few ounces. It decided to crap out on me and I thought it was time for a change after seeing a Gold Monster squeeze out some good gold from old ground. After researching I decided to go with an Equinox 800 I picked up from Chris Gholson. I can say it exceeded expectations with the 6” coil. I only had an hour to spend at an old patch that was hammered with GPZs, Gold Bugs and Gold Monsters. FIRST SWING popped out a gold bug caliber speck. In a half hour 4 more popped out and I decided to give it a try at a cabin site where I found some great relics and bottles and an 1872 seated dime and 1911 nickel. It was a wooded cabin with foundation intact and long period of occupation so the trash density is as high as you’d expect. I’ve hit it hard with an XP Deus but thought this 6” coil might have an advantage. The ground is incredibly hot, as in hot with a GPX and GPZ, it drove the Deus nuts and definitely was a chore with the Equinox but with patience I was able to get new and impressive targets. The cabin was built on gold ground and sure enough a foot away from where the nickel was found I picked up the biggest flake in the photo. It’s a flake at only 1.8 grains. I don’t know how this thing picked it up in that ground with that much trash. I also picked up a handful of birdshot lead and small copper sheet scraps amidst everything in the heart of the site. Needless to say this thing rocks. And yes it can find gold as well as a gold dedicated machine. It’s the first dual purpose detector I’ve ever seen that can perform at the top of the spectrum with both. No coins or relics this day but I only had a half hour to look and it found unbelievable targets in the most difficult of sites. I think it could excel on half dimes and $1 or fractional gold coins if they’re around. So many of my patches have cabin or town sites around them and now I don’t have to hike in two machines or spend the full day with only one. Can’t wait to see what more time will produce with this thing.