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It was a beautiful weekend in the forested hills of the Idaho goldfields, with temps in the low 70’s and plenty of sunshine and cool breezes. I took full advantage of the 3-day Labor Day weekend to continue working some old spots with the Minelab Equinox 800 in Gold Mode with the 6-inch coil. Saturday and Sunday saw a combined total of 24 bits with the Nox; I’m more amazed with the performance of this machine each time I use it. I switched gears on Monday however, and decided to swing the Gold Monster instead of the Equinox. It’s taken a back seat this summer, as I’ve been swinging the Nox almost exclusively. So much so that I’d nearly forgotten how good the GM 1000 is; even running the sensitivity at 10, it was much quieter than the Nox in hot ground. Between that and the Monsters simplicity of operation, along with its amazing sensitivity, I found myself falling in love with the machine all over again.? Definitely going to start using it more often, and not just because it found an additional 12 bits of yellow. So all up, 36 pieces for the extended holiday weekend, with a combined weight of 3.1 grams.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-45468159

A year or so ago a mate of mine gave me a camera and I have had varying degrees of success with it. I finally today worked out what I have been doing wrong with it and this is the small stuff I have found in the last couple of weeks. Thanks very much for the camera Steve ?

Hit some nice spots this summer, got an interesting class ring that looks like from 1932? No markings but it tested 14 karat, which is uncommon for class ring which I normally 10 karat. Has two hearts for Sacred Hearts and the letters SH on the side. Got my 3rd Indian head in a month, nice V nickel, and some other cool finds. Pretty dry soil out here this summer so nothing very deep, but that's not what I used to nox for anyway.

Had a heck of a time getting there these last 2 weeks but finally made it today. Pretty big deal for me at my early stage of nugget shooting. Got 6 today and here's a pic of everything so far...should be 104(?). Over half ounce but well shy of 1 ozt. We'll keep pluggin away and hopefully I can get maybe 1 ozt by end of season???? Yellow rocks come from 4 different locations...2 in Idaho and 2 in Montana... STRONGLY thinking about a PI machine in near future....hmmmmm?????? BIG THANKS to ALL for the help, info, and Steve for maintaining such and great and informative website!!!!!

In the last 7 years I have gone to Bealiba on 5 occasions. The areas there where I have detected are all re-cemented gravel and very tough to recover targets because of how hard the ground is. I expected this to be another bit of wire or something and was pleasantly surprised when it turned out to be a little nugget. This one goes a whopping 0.14 g I suspect it will also be my last Bealiba piece.? Dave

Last month, Reg Wilson detected this pretty 50 gram colour in pipeclay at about 20" with his QED: Last fortnight, while we were detecting a remote area in the far west of Victoria with limited success, He also scored the Edward 7th medallion (above) The week before, while working together he scored a Chinese coin (no image) and this naval button. Any speculation as to nationality welcome: During the same time period, apart from some gold, I managed to score enough munitions to start a military campaign Now, despite many decades of detecting goldfields, I've never found a Chinese coin. How come some people find interesting stuff while detecting? Not holding my mouth right perhaps - - ?

Has anybody seen anything like these? Is it just iron staining or something?

Don't get out much at the moment, so this was a welcome surprise. Come in at 14.5 grams.

Hi all , and wasn't it great to see the sun shine for a day in Victoria on Sunday.? My gold buddy the dog and i took the Z and SDC for a run and came up with these little rippers last Sunday. Good luck to everyone. Cheers Rod

My brother and I drove to an old heavily detected patch on Friday and between us found over a dozen pieces/nuggets. Although we had our Minelabs with us, we just used the Gold Bug 2's as we immediately found a couple. Most of the pieces were within two inches of the surface, but the larger specimen (5.7grams) was down about 4 inches and was loud. My point is, I guess, don't give up on old patches especially if some time has passed to allow wind and water to alter the ground a bit. And we do have wind and thunder showers here in Eastern Oregon all the time. As usual stay tight to the ground and swing slow.

I posted earlier in the summer about a new spot that I was using the Monster and my Puffer drywasher at; well, I went ahead and claimed it so I could have a place to go play all the time?The process was a great learning experience, and the guys at our local BLM were really helpful to a newbie like me! I finally got the quarter mile of brush, downed trees and rocks cleared so now I can get in there with my side x side....a bit gnarly still, but doable. I initially attacked the old timers stackings...here’s one that was a screamer in a small depression, seen to the left of the Monster in 2nd pic: I continued to move rocks, detect, then drywash.....here’s the area now, and a sample of a good day’s detecting: I explored other areas of the bench, and Woo Hoo, got my biggest piece....a whopping .43g lol! It was almost 5” deep and pretty faint...pic doesn’t look that deep, but it was: Here’s one scraping/dig hole that had 6 pieces in it! Good thing I kept checking it, for sure: If you zoom on the scoop you can see all them little babies? So the pup and I have been having a fun summer.....nice utv rides along the creek and in the pines, picnic lunches at the claim, and I’m finding a bit of gold while she’s chasing chipmunks all day! Life is good??⛏

Tarnagulla has always been hit and miss for me but more often miss, but I rock in there the other day and get these 2. ? Dave

I headed for the hills today to try out a recovery speed of 4 on the Equinox Gold mode, with the 6” coil, and I must say I was gobsmacked at the performance gain. I was also running the Iron Bias at zero and the sensitivity at max. I chose to grid an old spot that I’ve gridded with every machine I’ve ever owned. I hit the first flake right away, and the fun didn’t stop until quitting time. The last dig of the day was a whopper...0.7 of a gram at 5”...I was absolutely incredulous that A) the EQX hit so strong on it, and B) none of my other machines ever hit it; a real head scratcher!

About this time last night I was loading up the 4Runner and starting my 3 hour drive to the goldfields of Barstow, California. (I did this same trip last week and got a skunk!) What has changed since last week? Well, I bought a Chromebook and now I can watch metal detecting videos and learn some techniques I had not learned. The first one was lower sensitivity and lower recovery speed. (When I first got the Nox and used it on the beach I had experimented with this but now it was time to use it in Gold Mode.) I arrived about 1:30 AM to a full moon desert which is great all by itself. I spent an hour with the Nox and the 11 in coil and then went to the 7000 for an hour. It was time for a nap and I woke up about 6 AM as the moon was just setting. Soon thereafter I broke my skunk with the Nox. I got a .09g little flake in a well hunted spot. It was not deep. I went back at it a bit later with the 06 but to no avail ... again. You can't hear what is not there. I kept the sensitivity between 15 and 20 ... mostly 17. Recovery speed was 4. It was time to go to a spot Swifty had told me about and about 11 he comes rolling in and tells me I'm in the wrong spot! (I went to the wrong spot last week also.) He gets out there with his Monster and 7000 and quickly puts me to shame getting 2 nuggets for .61g total (one of his nuggets was just to the right of mine). We've taken so many nuggets off this area that they are tough to find now with any coil/machine combo but we'll keep trying.

Unfortunately, nothing much to brag about this winter . The weather, in sharp contrast to last year, was wet and miserable and all the properties targeted were under crop. Anyway, enough excuses. Managed to scrounge an ounce reworking last years shallow leads which were now free of long grass, allowing the coil to run at least 4" closer to the ground. The three rough bits were detected by Reg Wilson and I on an excursion to a patch of forest way out on the western edge of Victoria's gold bearing zone. The larger 5 gm piece (found first by Reg) got us excited but only had two more small companions. All found with the very latest QED which Howard graciously supplied for testing. The unworked shallow lead discovered last year and I reworked this year. Reg and I recovered many ozs off it last year, including 19 and 53 gram pieces. It begins at the small ironstone hill in the background and extends for well over a kilometre with the gold thinly scattered along its length. Looking down the lead the other way. It runs directly down the centre of the image and (hopefully) beyond the distant tree line onto the next property currently under crop. Detail of the rough 5 grammer:

For quite a few days I have been detecting around a surfaced area with the 7000 and for about 3 hours I detected in the surfaced area with the 2300, and this is what I managed to get. The bottom 6 came from the surfacing and the top 7 came from outside the surfacing. It is a long time since I have found a nice piece at depth and I don`t understand why, but any day I come home with a rattle in the jar is a good day ◕‿◕

Western & Eastern Treasures magazine does a Silver & Gold Annual issue and another customer of mine was featured. Many of you saw the photos posted earlier this summer. Some gobstopper saves/discoveries are in this issue, so I recommend you order one online. Congratulations to Duane and Sarah on their Golden Treasures and thanks for allowing me to earn your detector business again.

Got out with my buddy Dave today to do some detecting. We had the plan to try a new area, and if that didn't pan out we would go back to the area I had had some luck the last 2 outings. We struck out in the new area, and headed to the old one. I went out trying to expand on the new patch...no luck. Dave hung around the area where I found the patch 2 weeks ago. I started exploring a bit looking for good ground when Dave radioed me that he had found a couple nice nuggets. I made a beeline to meet up with him, still working my GPZ when I hit a great mellow signal. Turned out to be a 2+ gram nugget and the start of a 5 nugget patch. Biggest being 3g. We had lunch a made another run for no luck, but a great day nonetheless. My nuggets 6.4 grams Dave's score, with a nice big nugget. Chris

I decided that since it's been a while from my last visit to one of my favorite gold hunting locations It was time to charge up the batteries, brave the heat and find some gold. Only managed to dig up these 3 little ones but still it was a good day ?

Found this past weekend with the GPZ 19 coil at 2 measured feet. JP 20 grams

I took the GPZ 7000 out for its maiden voyage today. I tried the bottom of the claim where we have not found much. Partly because of deeper float sand and not much luck with nuggets. Only a couple have been found down there, however one of those was a 6 gram. So I went over my gold corner first. This place only has small nuggets .25 gram all the way down to .01 gram. So as the title says I found my first two nuggets. The first one was my biggest of the day and biggest ever at 1.16 gram about the size of a pinto bean. This one was down about 6 inches inside schist bedrock. When I located it I thought it was small, so I grabbed the tweezers. Boy was I happy to see the real size. The other one was .18 gram just a standard flat one. It was odd however in that I got a double sound off it. I think it was because it was standing upright smashed between bedrock fingers, down about 2 inches. I will update with my settings later so I can get input from you guys.

Its been a tough year so far. Many a skunks. My Buddy Dave and I have been trying to think outside the box, looking for new areas with very little luck. Our old areas are pretty damn pounded by us. Dave had some family obligations so I went out this past Sunday myself for a short hunt to beat the Nevada heat. I decided to go back to an area where i found 2 random nuggets about 30 yards apart. One was 1.5 gram in a tiny negligible small dry tribal. The other was a nice three gram solid found in a flat spot over a foot deep. I got to the area and hit a couple of nearby washes for nothing. Working back to where I found the nuggets I started grinding the area, working up hill from the nuggets. I was just about to the point where I had planned on quitting when I got a trashy chirpy signal. It moved on the first scrape with my foot, and I figured trash (this area has very little trash, almost none) got it in the scoop and it was a tiny specie. It was in the trailing of a rodent burrow so I wasn't sure if it was from deep. I started slowing down and overlapping my swings and got a solid signal next to a creosote brush. Turned into a nice sub gram nug. Made a circle around the Bush and got a screaming signal that I figured could be a bullet. Only 4 inches down in some soft overburden came out the large 5.1 g nugget. I back tracked a bit from there working the same line down the slope and got a nice deeper signal next to another creosote. Nice 1.5 gram nug. All very rough with rock and quartz. I tried working the line up the slope for nothing else. Going to go back and work the bench at top of slope. I had been getting discouraged so it was a nice shot of adrenaline. I was supposed to be getting hip surgery today but insurance denied my claim last minute. Filing appeals and grievances so we'll see what happens. I was supposed to be on crutches for 3 months after 1st surgery then have the 2nd which is a hip replacement. So I would have been on the bench for a while. The surgery is supposed to be in Vail Colorado so I was thinking about doing so prospecting there before the surgery. Stay out of the heat! Chris

Hi all, had a half day to go detecting today, so I went back to that new patch and was able to find one more small rough nugget. Searched a lot tried to expand the area or find source but no luck. So I want of searching for a new area, looking on a hillside next to a wash where I found a few nuggets. No luck, but I did notice a steep wash up ahead that I couldn't remember detecting. Found some nuggets nearby so I figured it was worth it. Ended up finding 4 more nuggets in a new patch. All small, but way better than a skunk. The darker nugget was from last weeks patch. Chris

Some one found a nice little nugget with the EQ 800 using the 11" coil, John. See Post 978 on this page. https://www.prospectingaustralia.com.au/forum/viewtopic.php?id=23409&p=40