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I haven’t had much luck on the gold so far this year, a few days of nothing but junk, so today I gave up exploring and went back to my best patch find for another try. I was there a few days ago with the 6000 and 10x5 and spent the day to find nothing and wanted to move away from the patch into the deeper ground but all the 10x5 will do there is find me pellets so today I tried the 12x7. The detector ran perfectly, such a contrast to prior to the EMI fix. I had spent half a day or so in this deeper ground area a year or two ago with my GPZ and 15” CC and found a few bits, one very deep one too so I had hope there was more if I spent some time there and after plenty of pellets my first 2024 gold, only shallow and small but a notch on the belt. In the hole with it a tiny pellet, not sure if I first found the pellet or the gold 😁 What I like about the 7000 and DOD coils I really miss on the 6000, the double blip it does on close to the coil pellets, saves so much time. With the 6000 I have to scrape the ground clear of grass then check it, faint target ok then scrape more soil away in this rock hard ground even though only less than an inch the faint target is now loud, and of course being so shallow a pellet, all of that avoided with the GPZ double blip. It’s truly odd how faint targets improve so much on the 6000 with so little soil removed. I gave up on the deep ground as I was only finding pellets and even larger bits of metal were quite shallow yet started off rather faint and brighten up quickly with some soil removed. I was in normal max manual sensitivity and well ground balanced. I decided to go back over my patch that I tried the 10x5 on the other day with no success, hoping the 12x7 may find something but an entire afternoon of nothing, I guess the 15cc and 8” got it all that I can find, you may remember the videos of the patch with those coils a year or so ago, ended up about 16 grams over 40 or so nuggets I think it was. I think I’m done with the 6000, I’ve given it a good chance but just prefer the 7000 especially with the 8” and 15” concentric coil so next time that’s what I’m using, hopefully my luck returns for a good 2024 on the gold.

Just got back today from a trip to Nothern Nevada with my son We got several nuggets on this trip but the most interesting was the one pictured!! After my son got a very weak signal he dug out both the nugget and the scorpion at about 10 inches 1.2 grams and the biggest scorpion I have ever seen in Nevada--He was in hybernation and very much alive --but the cold slowed him down to almost a stop. We put him back in his hole unharmed --hope we dont run into him in the summer.

I think my last days detecting for 2023 is now done. Gotta head off to catch up with Family for the next 2 weeks and take stock of what I'm doing next year. Single again, homeless and unsure of what direction to take. 2024 is gonna be interesting! But, my gold take has been an eye opener....almost exactly the same weight as last year, around 5.25oz but the number of pieces of gold has skyrocketed! Last year I managed to find 774 pieces...this year its 1604! Over double.....no doubt attributed to the GPX6000. Next year, I'm gonna dabble with getting a Legacy Minelab PI modded up and using CC coils or anything else that gets me depth on the big stuff. By this time next year, I'll see how that has panned out. Think I'm gonna need the money somehow lol. Just putting up a few pics of just some of the gold I've found this year. How has everyone else done? December is 'pic time' 😉 Merry Xmas everyone, and here's wishing you all a golden 2024!

This time, with the newly arrived hooka compressor, I went exploring for another bit of coastline. At first glance, there was little to be done, given the imense amount of new sand underfoot and that horrible feeling of tender ground. At that point I adopted for the only decent opening, just a few meters wide and...Again a surprise✨ https://www.instagram.com/reel/C01lqe-qYcc/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

My Buddy LuckyLarry’s little 9x5 coil has been on Fire, since the No-Where Patch Story! We both swing this little guy on our 6000’s. It’s very sensitive and has fair depth, for Northern Nevada’s shallow placers. But, in open Country it’s like Paddling your Life Boat in the middle of the Ocean. This hunt we started hitting the old Horse Dung Ridge Patch. It’s a Mile long Ridge that I never swung the entire length only stopping at its first patch. Larry, has some legs I’m about to the end of Horse Dung Ridge I pulled my second nugget about 10 ft apart. I turned to signal Larry of the fast two nuggets and head my way. He wasn’t on the ridge hunting the left side as I last seen him. I dug up 4 more nuggets very fast and looked for him again. I just caught a glimpse of him swinging over another Ridge way out of voice range! Back to digging nuggets and it seems like the next thing I know someone’s voice scares the hell out of me. It’s Larry with a big smile on his face. He said, looks like you found a patch as I settled down from the scare of being lost mind and tuned into my detectors sound for the next nugget. Larry, said he thinks he found a patch too and produced some very nice Quartz with ample showing of Gold. We walked back to my Buggy leaving my little patch to hunt the newly named Big Specimen Nugget Patch! Upon arrival he showed me the shallow hole that all the pieces came out of and we set off grinding the area. We swung that Ridge for 1 1/2 days with little joy! We know and inch is a Mile in this Hobby and haven’t giving up on this depleted Quartz Vein. Larry’s Specific Gravity weigh in for these 3 pieces was over 45 dwts. Mine on the left received and honorable mention 😂 But, when Two Lucky’s are on the hunt, finding that Needle in the Haystack is possible! Until the Next Hunt LuckyLundy

MY GOLDEN STORY; PART TWO! MY GOLDEN STORY(PART TWO) IF YOU HAVE ALREADY READ PART ONE SCROLL TO PART TWO!!! Hello my name is Allen, I grew up in Mariposa and I’m still here(I don’t think il ever leave) I’m 29 years old and I have been prospecting since I was 13, it all started when my dad took me to the gem and mineral show at the county fair grounds. There was a roaring camp Recirculating sluice box display and a man was giving tutorials on how it works. When he saw I was curious in the item he gave me a quick demonstration. He then proceeded to try and sell me one(I was broke like most 13 year olds) I went to my dad and asked him to buy me a gold pan, I already knew he wouldn’t buy me a 100$ sluice box. he quickly said no, my dad was never into gold prospecting. Upon hearing that the man who was giving the demonstration of the sluice box came up to me with a brand new gold pan. He handed it to me and said go find some gold. I thanked him and when I got home that afternoon I immediately went down to the creek below my dads property. I dug out a pan full of material from the inside bend of the creek like I heard the old man explain earlier in his demonstration. That pan yielded me nearly 2 GRAMS!!! ADDICTED TO SHINY YELLOW ROCKS I was hooked immediately and in the first 6 months panning after school and weekends when I had free time I was able to pull 2 &1/4 ounces of placer gold from just that inside bend! All of the gold I had panned was sharp which at the time I never paid any attention to; but we’ll get to that shortly. When I was 15-16 years old in 9th grade I was really into prospecting, by that time I had been able to buy my own sluice box, 5 gallon buckets, and classifiers. I had gotten a few more ounces out of the creek and the alluvial placer deposit seemed like it would never end! BUILDING A GOLD TROMMEL One day I was told by a family friend that a nearby mine owner (it’s now a gravel plant) was told about my passion for gold prospecting and he offered to sell me a cinnamon grinder which I could turn into a trommel for scrap price. I paid 2,000$ for the 26 foot long barrel and I- beam contraption I knew nothing about. We got it home and the fabrication work began. Over the next 8 months my dad (who was now seeing I was actually pretty good at finding gold) taught me how to weld and how to make anything I ever needed from scrap iron. He is a real McGuiver, the hopper is made from welded together propane tanks, and the cut 4 foot x 2 foot slabs of 1/4” steel that came from the areas where the 3/4” expanded metal screens now are. The trommel came with a 35hp 3-phase electric motor. “That won’t work”, my dad said. So I started. And I began my search on Craigslist for a gas motor. A week later I found a 65 horsepower Wisconsin 4 cylinder engine in Sonora for 150$. It wasn’t running and the seller had no idea if it would run at all. I got a ride to acquire the engine and upon arrival I made sure the engine wasn’t seized and took it home. Growing up riding dirt bikes on a dusty road I knew how to rebuild carburetors like a professional. So I did just that and the engine started right up! The sluice box and hopper for the sluice were then added. Everything fabricated by me and my dad based off of what we had learned and inquired from the internet. RUNNING THE TROMMEL FOR GOLD!! We got a 1602 permit after finishing the trommel and getting it set up, and we ran 50 feet long and 10 feet wide of the seasonal creek I had been finding all of that placer gold in. This task took us one weekend to complete and when we cleaned out the 2 sluice boxes there was an astonishing amount of gold in the first, and none in the bottom! How much did the first sluice box obtain? 27 ounces!! Most of which was very sharp nuggets/pickers and a few jagged eraser sized quartz specimens. METAL DETECTING; Metal detecting for me wasn’t very exciting in the first 12 (YES TWELVE!!) years… I had started with a Garrett gold stinger 2 and knew absolutely nothing of how to find areas good for metal detecting that have indicators for metal detectable gold. I gave up on detecting for a few months and went back to my prospecting in creeks with a gold pan/sluice box. MINELAB; if only I were had the knowledge of how to properly run the gpx5000. I bought and sold 3 whole sets of minelab gpx5000 due to me getting discouraged when going for months in a row nearly every single day with no return. Okay now let’s get to the INTERESTING part of this exciting stories of mine which are such great memories now. SAME MINELAB; COMPLETELY DIFFERENT MACHINE! I would try for the next few years repeating my buy-sell cycle. Looking back now I would tell myself not to get discouraged. Because you might just give up on the MOTHER LODE! on September 9th of last year(2022) I had gotten the itch to prospect with my gpx5000 and look for the famed “nugget patch” everyone is so eager to find. I wasn’t 500 feet from my dads doorstep walking behind his house when I got a signal. That signal turned out to be a 2.3 gram nugget of rough gold! FINDING THE NUGGET PATCH This is where it got tricky, I had a friend of mine come over and examine the area where I found my first metal detector nugget. He had a minelab gpz7000 with a gp19 coil. He also knew a whole lot about gold prospecting, hard rock mining, geology, and metal detecting methods. He was the previous owner of the famous colorado quartz mine. Located in Mariposa California. When he got here we spent three hours metal detecting 100 feet up the slope where the nugget was found; aswell as 50 feet on each side looking for the brothers and sisters of my exciting piece of gold. When he had gotten tired he decided it was time to go down the hill and give up. “That nugget must have fallen out of some poor miners pocket or slipped out of a burlap sack full of gold.” DONT GIVE UP!! The following week I would spend some time every day walking the hill sides while swinging my gpx5000 which I had finally gotten my college degree to know how to properly tune & use it. One day I had gotten another signal, thinking it was going to be trash again I slowly proceeded to dig it up from the ground. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I pulled out a solid round 1 inch quartz-gold specimen weighing in at 13 grams! The hunt was on.. I COULD GO ON… I could go on and recount every single one of my finds and the excitement that came with them, but I could write a book by then. Long story short, It has been 1 year and 2 months since my first metal detected gold nugget, and my specific gravity gold total is over 15 POUNDS!!!(gold weight only) most of which is coarse-big nuggets and crystalline gold quartz specimens. Very few are placers. My passion has always been learning something new. CONCLUSION so here we are coming to the end of my story. I will give updates and add a few more memories a few days a week. Until then, REMEMBER, BE SAFE AND SWING LOW AND SLOW…..OH! and if your an alluvial placer lover; heavy pans!

I've noticed my gold finds are changing as the detectors evolve. Back in 1996 I think, the year the SD 2000 was released I started detecting for gold. It was all solid chunky pieces then. It took me years to find my first specimen piece, only thumbnail size but I was over the moon. As the detectors progressed my finds started getting smaller but more of them. For years I couldn't better the 39 gram solid nugget found very deep with a SD 2200. After an extreme, then a GP3000, I bought a GPX 5000 and it was game on. Probably found more gold with it than all others combined. I finally got a deep 78 gram solid piece with the 5000 and 18" nuggetfinder advantage coil , and it's still my best nugget to date. Here in central west NSW larger pieces are rather scarce, for me anyway. I get to the golden triangle in Victoria and tibooburra now and again but haven't been to QLD or WA yet. Now that I'm swinging a GPX 6000 and recently a GPZ 7000 the golds getting smaller, and lighter. Mainly porous spongy gold and lots of species. My mate hates me whinging about the species because of the work getting the gold out. He reckons he would take them any day. I only do it to annoy him LOL. I'm sure there's a decent nugget with my name on it, I just haven't found it yet. Some of the GPX 5000 gold and some GPX 6000 finds and the GPZ 7000 5 OZ of the processed species And another 3.5 OZ ready to sell.

We did our annual Baja trip a little early this year. We had all but written it off after last year, but Pacific hurricane Hilary this summer, gave us some hope that enough flooding occurred to open up some bedrock and loosen some trapped gold. We cleared the border at Algodones, just outside of Yuma with no problems. Our only other concern was the annual Baja 1000 offroad race and its associated racers, spectators and chase trucks. We made San Felipe and topped off our tanks. Many racers and their scout vehicles were already there warming up for the race, but we were still ahead of the pack. Our only misadventure was day 3 with me taking a bad step coming off a steep hill and spraining my knee. We made the placer zone by early afternoon, set up our camp and started scouting our old routes up the canyon. Hilary hit the Baja peninsula on the Pacific side within miles of this area, although the placers are technically on the gulf side. Still, plenty of water had come down the canyon as evidenced by the debris line of tree trunks up 8 to 10 ft above the bedrock. My Polaris RZR 900 was definitely going to get a workout. Our first obstacle was one we tackled every year, but things had changed from our last path. Up a couple ledges, straddle a bedrock spine and try not to fall into the abyss on either side. Fortunately, I had all new tires with some superior grip tread. Getting down off the spine was the most difficult obstacle we encountered. There just weren't enough flat rocks within carrying distance to build a proper ramp, so we used some of the Elephant tree trunks and put the best rocks in the most crucial tipping points. White knuckles the first couple runs, then learned to trust the RZR as a surefooted machine. One other ledge upstream required some ramp building then smooth sailing for a couple miles, but then full stop. The old route left the main wash up and over sandhills to bypass impassable canyon ledges, but the flood had wiped out the route. Where once had been a small sand dune was now a 12ft deep pit where floodwaters had blasted through and formed a whirlpool clearing out any hope of getting upstream in a motorized fashion. Back to old fashioned travel, and we didn't have any burros. Our friend Kevin the hiker, from past misadventures, met us later that afternoon for 5 days of detecting. Day 1 of detecting was remarkable for my friend Dennis. Since we were going to need to shuttle 3 of us in a 2 seater RZR, Dennis opted to get out at the first obstacle to avoid too many trips past the white knuckle zone. He decided to run the 7000 over bedrock that we had detected dozens of times in the past and wait for me to return. I ran Kevin up the canyon then returned for Dennis once he cleared the obstacle. He had already found 2 nuggets, one over 6 grams and another near 2 grams. He always celebrates his birthday, a week away, at these placers. A happy early birthday, and a great start to the trip. More later.

This is what I am finding with my 5000 in the Gold Basin/ Meadview area with my Gpx5000, three different days out detecting, recently.

During a recent detecting trip to the Rye Patch region of northern Nevada, I was intent on searching for the ever elusive large nugget at depth, wielding the Minelab GPZ 7000 equipped with the GPZ-19 coil, set to Extra Deep Gold Mode in Normal Ground Type. This combination of Gold Mode and Ground Type handles the local alkali ground very well, allowing the faintest signal responses to be heard; and good thing, too, as I would have certainly missed a couple of nice bits had the threshold been variable due to ground noise or EMI masking. They were buried at a depth of 18 inches and recovered from cracks within the weathered shale bedrock. A friend who was detecting with me swung over the undisturbed target zone with the Minelab GPX 6000 and 17-inch mono coil and there was no discernible response, so that added to the anticipation of deep, chunky gold…not exactly the large gold I was looking for, but at 3.3 grams and 2.2 grams, I'll happily put them in the poke any day!

Thought I would recycle a previous post from a now defunct forum showing a couple of detecting trips and the end results of getting stuck while crossing a steep and narrow creek in the Bradshaw Mts of AZ. Awhile back, a couple of friends joined me to check out a hand dug hard rock mine/prospect in central Arizona that I had recently located but not had a chance to detect. No claims records or markers could be located and it didn't appear to have been worked in years. The previous miners had crushed the ore and shoveled it onto the crude wooden ore chute that snaked down the side of the ridge to the creek below. The country rock of the prospect hole appeared to be a mushy red quartz conglomerate that looked unstable. No hard quartz lead was observed. After several minutes of examination, and detecting around a large, indignant pack rat that currently occupied the prospect, we decided to depart the area. No gold was found but in the interest of keeping morale up, we decided to drink some of the "we found gold" beer anyway. The next day, I soloed to an area where I'd previously had good luck. It had rained a few days prior to my arrival and the ground was dry on the surface, but still damp a few inches down. I got into the area OK at first, then ran into a heavily washed out cut across the road, so I turned around going back out and as I angled down to cross a steep "V" shaped creek where I'd had no problem coming in, the mushy schist bedrock crumbled and dropped my rear bumper down enough where the Pintle hitch of my military style cargo trailer buried up, causing the bumper to be high centered with no rear wheel traction. Bummer. I cleared part of the hang up with a sledge hammer and chisel but finally had to resort to a high lift jack and stacked rocks for clearance and traction. While I was gathering rocks in the creek, I noticed that part of the bank appeared to have recently eroded and collapsed, exposing a couple of large rusty, vuggy chunks of quartz which looked interesting. After I was able to get my truck unstuck and up the road a ways, I grabbed my EQUINOX 800 and went back and started detecting the stretch of the creek downstream from where I had found the rotten quartz. Most of the pieces were on a shallow compacted layer of gravel in the narrow stream bed, and a few were on top of flat rocks covered with sand and dirt. After I started finding those little dinks I forgot all about getting stuck!

when you are on crack in Montana

My last trip of 2023 to Northern NV was everything I expected and then some. On the last day, I was able to break the 1 ounce bar I had set. I actually had 2 goals for myself, at least a 1/2 oz and if the gold gods were on my side, then hopefully an ounce. After soaking my Nevada gold to remove caliche, my weight was 31.4 grams. Soaking results shows some totally unique and different variations of Au. Some nuggets with crystallized characters, a few weathered and smooth pieces, 5 leaf gold types a few bigger chunks and many smaller picker types. Even have a triangle formed prize. My biggest nugget of the trip was 6.6 grams and has a bit of chevron pattern. Majority of gold recovered was with a GPZ-7000, but I did find gold with 3 other models of machines (EQ-800 with 6" coil, Manticore with stock 11" coil and GPX-6000 with stock 11" coil). I took in trade while on the trip the 7 from a DP member, as I didn't own one (too heavy). One good thing about winters is early morning temps are too cold to hunt and the amount of light in a day is cut by 5 hrs. So with my thinking of starting to swing around 10AM and finish around 3PM with a lunch break, is about all my body can take of swinging a GPZ-7000. Plus I needed to test the detector before I sold it. Pics show just how interesting a small area of the region can have different gold patterns. Below is the gold right out of the ground and showing 32.9 grams. Has not been cleaned. Next pic is after CLR soaking to remove the Caliche (Calcite) that seems to form on many of my NV gold nuggets. Final weight was 31.5 grams so I only lost about a gram. Not as many chunky nuggets this trip (getting smaller each time) This next 2 pics are front and back of the biggest find and also my deepest dig a 6.6 gram at 15". Leaf gold is more rare than typical nuggets, but I still think Chevron is even more rare. Solid dense nuggets are always a treat as they are usually heavier than they 1st appear. The biggest of these is only (half a corn kernel) but weights .9 of a gram. The Triagon type nugget (in center) is really cool and collectible (only if it was a gram or more). Notice it also has a darker gold color to it. When I see those black cubes, I really start paying attention to my detector. They are Limonite cubes and come in many sizes. Last pic is all the gold again and showing a token I recovered in Nevada. It says NATIONAL, NEV. Wonder when the abbreviation for Nevada changed from NEV to NV? Well, I hit my goal for the trip and am proud of my efforts considering how hoard these places have been hunted. Actually, one of my good friends had asked if I found new locations that had not been detected and the answer is no. All gold was recovered from the same places I have known about and hunted. Sure I walked a couple washes I personally have not swing, but my staff have. If you are going to hunt Northern NV for gold, a great resource is "Placer Deposits of Nevada" by Maureen G. Johnson. Yes, each of the sites I hunted is mentioned in the above book. There's your "Nugget" of knowledge folks. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone across the globe this week. Gerry

If you’re not swinging a Coil in the Goldfields of Northern Nevada in the Month of October you’re missing the best ground conditions of the Year. My Wife Robin, broke her Ankle on Friday the 13th last Month. She finally got her leg into one of them Boots and has more mobility and told me to hit the Dusty Trails for a couple days. That’s all I needed as one of my hunting Buddies was heading out for a hunt as well. Driving on them gravel roads I could tell it rained since the last time I was out, but my truck was kicking up a cloud of dust you could see for miles. I met up with my Pard and loaded my RZR up and headed out to stretch my legs. We wanted to Patch hunt and looked for some dirt with some Colors we liked. We soon found a spot off the beaten path and spread out for the afternoon hunt. We both picked up a few before we headed back to camp. It was just enough sign of nuggets to hit it again in the morning. There was no signs of old dig holes which we wanted and the next morning we hit it again. We both hit a couple of spots that could bring more joy on a future hunt. But, we both had to head back home mid Afternoon. I worked on my disappearing Calluses on my hands from a couple weeks worth of washing dishes and look forward to more time on this new area to find its hidden bounty that we only got a sniff of. Until the next Hunt! LuckyLundy

Last Friday I went to my PCSC meeting in Downey, California and saw our panning contests for the year. We also had our displays of the month but I forgot to get the picture. Part of my display was telling everyone about the Golden Heart Return. Thank you for all that looked at that thread and made comments about gold was coming to me soon. That, a rocket launch and the tides motivated to get out to the beaches after the meeting on Friday night. The launch schedule was for 12:47 AM. By the time I made it back to Santa Monica is was almost 11 PM so I just went to the beach. There had been some nice waves come in, but the beach had been detected! I decided to continue anyway. Earlier in the day I had detected a park before the meeting using the Equinox 800/6. I got the quirky idea that I wanted to leave the small coil on as I had found 4 gold rings on the beach with it the first time I used it nearby. So off I went to see the rocket launch and detect. Detecting on the beach with a 6 inch coil as opposed to the 15x12 is naturally quite different. The lightness of it can make me swing it too fast but it is sensitive enough and can go 7-8 inches deep on a quarter. It is a bit fun. When it was time for the rocket launch there was a delay of 30 minutes. It caused me to walk up the beach closer to the Santa Monica Pier. I wanted it in my pictures with the rocket. I had seen one before by 'accident' out detecting one night when I didn't know the schedule. This one I had the schedule on my phone. I detected my way up the beach and got a few coins and then a nice high pitch. I had my light off but I could still see something hanging from my scoop. It turned out to be a 25 inch, 17 gram, .925 silver, round, box chain with a little pendant. It had been washed up with the waves and missed by some of the other detectorists looking further down the hill. I can only imagine what they got. Yahoo was all I could say. A few minutes later the rocket did launch and I made a video. It is a little long. The rocket becomes visible about the 1:50 mark. I didn't realize that the formatting would not be full screen. This video makes it very difficult to see. It looks much better on my phone. I've seen several of the SpaceX launches now from Vandenberg and Santa Monica. They normally head south so they get closer during the launch. These launches remind me of watching the Apollo launches when I grew up in Florida. After the launch I detected more and found the stainless-steel ring pictured. It was successful for the night. The next night, Saturday I decided to use the 800/6 on another beach. At first it was not able to find any targets. I wondered if I had the coil working correctly but then I found a 'wet patch.' I was standing in the waves with my boots on getting wet but finding just about all of the coins and trash within a 50 ft area. I had the right coil for this job. My calf boots were filling with water but I was still getting targets. A combination of wind, waves and tide moved this patch to a spot where I could detect it. I found 6 $1 coins which I don't normally find. All of it was shallow. Each wave would move something else up. These are rare times but I was glad I had the small coil. I walked away several times to find another wet patch but there were none so I returned to find more. That was my session. Sunday night I decided to see if more targets had been missed. I walked about 5 miles with very limited success. Detectorists must have known there was not much about because I didn't see anyone or any dig holes. At the end of the session I heard a 6 and it was solid. I was hopeful it would be a ring and it was. I didn't realize it was gold until later. As I was circling the spot where I found the ring ... the battery icon started blinking and the volume crashed. I had just found the ring before all power went out. I've learned a lot about the 6 inch coil in the last 3 days. I found one part of an aluminum can at 15 inches and if you go really slow you can find coins at 10 inches. It is easy to use on the slopes and cuts and it detects 'bigger' than its size. I can hear a target/break in the threshold by getting within 7-8 inches of it while swinging fast. Then it becomes like the moth to the flame of enhancing the target location. This small coil is a tool and if I know there are big waves and moving targets again I'll use it. I think it can also help on detecting a long cut where the wash downs and the wash ups are shallow and quick to recover.

After prospecting in AZ, NV, CA over the last 20 months I found my first big (big for me) nugget on a recent prospecting trip in S CA. Using GPX6+NF 12x7 coil. It was a faint signal from the surface but quickly started to get very loud as I started to dig. It was about 14 inches deep in the bottom of a wash with large boulders. I thought it would be a rusty piece of iron trash because at the end it was so loud but was surprised by a heavy lump covered in brown dirt. A quick mouth wash and it turned yellow. A Eureka moment for me since my previous best nugget was 1.4 grams. On the same trip I also found a 2.5 gram nugget and a few sub half gram nuggets.

I saw this the other day. https://www.facebook.com/nikkovellios/videos/374401088251228

If there is one thing I deeply hate, it is mingling with the crowds invading the beach when with the harness I have to reach the hot area avoiding unnecessary wasting of time with questions I have answered hundreds of times. Now, to paint the picture in detail, imagine something like 81F in the shadow, in October, on a Sunday and the people like flies everywhere along the coast. This time, however, I had to give in to temptation and return to the spot where until Friday I had been scouting about 14 grams🧐... Having to keep away from the vicinity of the sandbar and fu##ng people swimming over my head, I lost at least 3/4 of the available air in the cylinder when on the way back leaving the beach, with now 20 atmospheres remaining, a perfect 40 interrupted me... As usual the camera died I don't know how much time before the almost two hours I've been downthere.🤬 So this is what remains about today🏴‍☠️

A link to channel 9 news article for the girls 15 Oct 2023 https://www.9news.com.au/national/gold-diggers-the-female-prospectors-chasing-riches-in-the-outback/8d43d590-e044-4d89-a0c2-6d5a8c76cb2b

Had an annual physical with my Physcian yesterday. He wants me to increase my exercise. So.....that means I have to prospect more often and longer trips. I like it! I met up with my buddy this morning for a North Saskatchewan River dig. Close to freezing with a cold blistering wind from the east. The river levels are dropping, allowing new territory to dig. I hit a decent spot today too! Here's the kind of day it was........

Does anyone know if this was a specimen or a solid? I've only been in the Piru area looking for gold one or two times over 10 years ago. I was told I would get into trouble there because they were protecting an invasive frog. I didn't know where to go. This history seems to say. Has anyone been there and had success? I've heard a few stories about people sneaking into some areas but don't know the details. SCVHistory.com | The Story Of Our Valley by A.B. Perkins | Part 5: Mining.

Not a Sole to be seen! Granted the Weatherman was calling for Winds from a mild Cold Front moving in from the North East. Condor, gave me a call stating he was heading out for a Hunt, I gave him the Weather report for the area and a turn down to join. It brought mild rain to my area of Reno. The next day another Partner gave me a Call, I told him I’ll watch Weather and told him Condor was supposed to be out there. Weather Report was perfect, I text my Buddy…Hunt’s on and to met at the October Patch (a gold patch in Rye Patch) to setup Camp. Perfect weather, Cool and Sunny as I unloaded my RZR and remember all the Bullets of Sweat of the hot Discovery Day of the October Patch. My Trusty Hunting Partner pulled up and geared up as I text Condor asking his whereabouts! He called back and said, he headed back home after his day hunt with limited success. Again, not a Sole to be seen with the perfect Fall Weather! Giving it some thought of where to start on the drive up, I remembered this long Ridge that I found a Patch of Gold at both ends, but few nuggets in the middle. Both of us feeling fresh legged at the Noon Hour we set off to the ridge. I dropped my Partner off at the edge of the well hunted end of Ridge Patch and I’d pull up 1/2 mile with the RZR and start there and head up Ridge and then when he reach RZR he’d pull up 1/2 mile ahead of me and I’d repeat to end the days swing for the Missing Link Patch. Well I’m swinging away, enjoying myself when I feel my stomach telling me to refill it. I turn around to see where my Mobile Chuck Wagon was at! It was at least a Half Mile back and my Partner wasn’t in view below it. I swung back to the RZR, picking up one dink nugget that lead to another One Nugget Patch. Refueling my growler, my Partner comes screaming up the side of the Ridge, like he is running from a Mad Coyote that was chasing him. He had something in his hand, but his Smile gave it away at 20 yards! He plopped one of those Legendary Nuggets into my hand. My eyes and smile matched his! 😳 Both of us with filled stomachs drove back to his 8 Nugget Bonanza! A small drainage feeding off the ridge with a Dink Nugget at the head and a dink at the bottom lead him into the Flats between a distant Ridge. I’ve always considered this a No Go Zone as a No Gold Zone…as I’ve spent more than few hours in that Sage Brush with No Joy. We reach his Discovery Patch, in the Middle of Nowhere! 100 yards off our target Ridge. We named it “The No-Where Patch” right then and there. Partner, found the sweet spot of his Patch and I circled it like a hungry shark extending the perimeter. The No-Where Patch had two gaps that anyone could have swung a coil thru the middle of it without a clue of a missed Payday. The length of the Patch is around 30 yards and maybe 12 yards at the widest. We pounded it with our 6000’s and the next day I went over the sweet spots with a very slow swing with my 7000 with hopes of some deep missed ones, zero missed nuggets. Which indicates the vast majority of this Placer, shallow patches. We did pick up a few on the very outskirts of the No-Where Patch, which may lead to the next nugget patch yet to be named! Wore out, we headed home at sunset of the second day. Partner’s Big Boy at 1.6 ounces and his other big nugget to the right of that was a near 1/4 oz at 4.9 dwts. My Big one was 3.6 dwts on left. The High Plain Deserts still yield its treasures to the hungry seekers! Until the next Hunt LuckyLundy

OK everybody.... let's see your favorite nugget that YOU found with your detector. Doesn't have to be biggest, etc. but your personal favorite? Maybe it's your biggest, or string gold, chevron type, or some character? Only one nugget, your favorite. Here's mine from Notellem creek.....

The following is more of a modest technical report than the story of my latest session on the seafloor. Days ago I posted my (negative) impressions of the impact of beach programs on thin or open targets, comparing stainless steel necklaces and bracelets to gold on the ID scale. Briefly summarized, I found no way to achieve an efficient and stable setting that could be reused underwater in a salty environment. Based on P12 and after several modifications, I arrived at the only final setting that allowed me to conduct effective research. Assuming a pair of frequencies (never stated), we still know a limit of 14/24/40 kHz in the menu. However, I got the impression that in the P12 the sensitivity was higher having slightly more interference though on 24Khz and reduced sensitivity down to 88. This makes me think of a second frequency (less than 24 kHz, coupled as 14/24 rather than 4/14 in diving mode. Again, I assume that in P11 the behavior is less responsive to thin targets in spite changing on 40 kHz. And to finish, I add that no particular filter changed the audio noise for the better outside of a high value of reactivity on 2.5 . Here is a quick summary of the program. Reactivity 2.5 Sensitivity 90 Salt sens 8 Pitch tone Treshold 0 B.caps 0 Notch 0 Silencer 5 Iron vol 5 Disc 5.0 Audio filter 5 GB tracking Magnetic reject and underhere a common fish finally audible among way too noise reduced.

Here's some of the gold found and also a mine tour. Unfortunately due to health I was forced to stop early this season. I did manage 129 bits this year and that helped put me over the 3,000 piece count. Five seasons total was 17.5+ ozt. from Montana and Idaho. Gold pan and jar pic is the same gold minus 1.5+ ozt. that has been given away and not in pics. Long story but I managed to hook up with the Co. and got permission to prospect on their ground. The Co. has never asked me for money or gold except for small samples to be analyzed but I have done the right thing and paid some cash and also gold. All they've ever asked for was information, keep an eye out for float, quartz outcroppings, etc. They have pretty much let me runamuck. They have treated me like I've been there for ever, best bunch of folks I've ever been around!!!!! In that 5 years I've only dug 1 nuggie over an ozt., and it was the world famous (my little world) "Butterball" nugget that weighed in at 3.55ozt. Here's a few shots from a mine tour the boys gave me and my neighbor last Wed. It was the coolest thing and literally ended with a BANG! We came across the boys setting a charge so we backed out probably 50yrds around a corner, then a side x side hauls by us and one of the Geo's says "there goes the guys that lit the fuse" then 20seconds later...BOOOOOOM. That was the neatest feeling that can't be described...Thanks guys!!! I gave the 15.5+ ozt. jar to the Co. as they've been so good to me over the years and the gold won't do me any good where I'm going. They tried to refuse the gold but I persisted they take it. Sad sack looking guy with the blue hard hat is me weighing in at 138lbs. Pic with me next to old cabin is from the beginning and one of Reeses' spots over by Helena, think I found 2 dinks that trip? Here's a couple specimens from Co. property. Shot of the buggy we all rode around in. Anyways...some random shots from the last 5 years doing what I love to do.....ENJOY it while you still can.....!!!