Search the Community

Thursday I went out to a Southern California gold location with a couple of friends. The intention was to prospect hard all day but things didn't work out quite that way. We did get a chance to hunt on an old patch that had raked hills and then another area where a quartz stringer had been chipped at many years ago. My friends attacked the raked hills which they thought had been detected with GB2s. They had 7000s. (I had my 7000 with me but I wanted to swing something different!) I started out on some of the same little hills but quickly tired of nothing good and I headed for some areas that had not been raked. We spent about an hour at this location and we were about to leave when I got a signal on my 800. It was a 1. I did a bit of a foot scrape and pick scrape and it was still there. This time it was not foil. I scrapped a bit more and was encouraged by its depth of 4 inches. I came upon a piece of quartz and got it out of the way and the signal was gone. I swung and the signal was in the quartz but the rock was dirty. I put it in my pouch with the other trash. It weighs about a pound and a half. We left. About 2 hours later we stopped at another place to explore and I had time to pour some bottled tea on the quartz. I looked and tested and my friend had a loop and he said it is definitely gold. I looked and sure enough it is. I haven't been able to do a specific gravity test on it yet but I don't think there is much gold. Upon further testing the 7000 can see it from about 15 inches above on an air test and the 800 can see it about 8 inches. There are a couple of more dense masses in it somewhere but I'm just glad the 800 could see it. I was in Gold 1. Mitchel

After being tied up last weekend, I was finally able to get out into the hills with the Equinox today, and decided to spend some time fine-tuning the settings on the Gold Search Mode. I also decided to give max sensitivity a go on the mildly mineralized areas and, while it made the Nox quite sparky, I had no problem sorting out the various noises and homing in on the gold. While gridding a small area that has been hit hard with various VLFs, the Equinox hit a solid, repeatable target that read 1-2 on the display - right in the small nugget range. Upon recovering the target, I found that it was indeed a small nugglet. ? I checked the dig hole before backfilling it and still heard a nice, crisp 1-2; a little more digging and BOOYAH: another golden goodie! This process went on 3 more times, for a total of 5 pieces of gold out of the one hole...I like it when that happens! And just inches away, the EQX snagged 2 more nugglets. Needless to say, I’m astounded by the performance of this machine at locating some pretty tiny gold. Total weight 0.38 of a gram:

some noogies since last post and I also got some coin shootin in last weekend for about 3 hrs. Gold has been slow with a few skunks including today plus I got rained on and soaked....lol. First time I've had the etrac out for coins in over a year...wished the gold was as easy as coin shootin!!!!! Gold was got with the monster.... Coins were 1921s/1935 wheats,1919s Merc, 1899 V nickel,1898 Indian.....

I just saw a picture of a gold nugget found with an 800 that is a specimen greater than 15 ounces and it has more than 5 ounces. (I know exact numbers but it is not my nugget.) This is the largest nugget I've heard about so far. Has anyone heard of a larger nugget? Mitchel

Better than the skunk, but not by much of a margin. Worked an old tertiary river bench for a few hours and managed to pull these two pieces from behind a protruding knob of bedrock. Both were only between 1-2 inches deep in compacted gravels. I continued to work that immediate vicinity with no success; they didn't have any other friends, at least not that the SDC could find. Combined weight is 0.17 grams.

found these little guys and had fun! thanks RT for all the help and info!!!!!!!!!

I haven`t been putting up any finds lately because I`ve been in a bit of a drought but I like posting pictures of gold so here is a couple of quartz specis I found about 200 yards and 4 years apart out at Moliagul. The one on the right total weight 980 grams with about ½ gram of gold and the other 250 grams with about 1 gram gold. Dave

I like some of the creative photography experiments here with gold nuggets and more.... https://www.instagram.com/goldsweeper/

With summer on it’s way, its back to work for me at my seasonal job. ? But the combination of Minelab’s Gold Monster 1000, GPZ 7000 and the warm, sunny weather of the desert southwest all made for a nugget shooter’s paradise this past winter. Super-sensitive VLF technology along with the deep punching power of ZVT made finding gold of all sizes, types and depths a wonder to behold - and all from old patches. Total weight: 6.5 ounces troy.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFgzy3yZCA1FdeJcOEbOYMQ/videos Just thought i would post this up, i have been watching his clips for a while now, He is the most prolific gold finder with the monster i have seen, certainly shows how good the monster is at pinging those specimens and tiny flakes. I have been loving the posts by Kiwijw & Phrunt who have been doing well with the monster in NZ but i haven't seen much of the monster in Australia and more in the more mineralised ground until i came across this guy. Cheers,

stumbled onto this bad boy about 4 hrs into yesterdays hunt. Today was all lead , lead, and more lead.....

I finally got out yesterday for the first time since February I believe, rain and other obligations have kept me away. It's a very strenuous hike into a secluded spot - rope is necessary in a few spots - every time I go here, I always tell myself I won't touch it again unless I overnight it. However the draw of the yellow, even when I rarely break even with the cost of gas is too much to fight off.The weather was perfect. By the time I made it to my hydraulic pit I had maybe an hour and fifteen minutes to detect, fifteen of which I spent scoping out the terrain for what looked like good spots. I settled on what looked like a ground sluice blow out, or, possibly the end of a sluice run? Hard to tell. The area was probably 100 square feet of loose gravels that seemed to have spread out in a rather precarious position 3/4 of the way up the hydraulic pit. I spent about thirty minutes digging boot tack, iron scrap, and finally got this little bugger. The SDC nailed it on (2) at about 5 inches deep - weight is about half a gram. The rest of the short time I had there yielded nothing but iron. I hope to get back soon and really work this pit as it seems to be a relatively untapped spot.

no longer a nugget virgin.....!!!! Pretty nice one too for my first imo....... VERY happy and it sure beats sluicing & digging!!!!!

Oldy but a Goody" Enjoy! Ig

Summer has come early here in the Desert Southwest, Sunny Yuma. Mid 90's today, approaching 100 through the week, must be a climate change kind of thing. I had time to spare this morning so I took the Equinox out to an area of old Dry Wash tailings I found recently. I found a number of small pieces last week with the Z7000, so I wanted to see what the Z had missed. I fired up the Equinox in Gold Prospecting 2, "made sure recovery speed reset to 6", Sens at 22, notched out -9 through -6 which covers most hot rocks down here. I moved through the old coarse and fine throw-out tailings, low and slow. I had to double check a number of hard black hot rocks that tried to blow through my notch. They generally sound off in one direction only and are easily moved with a boot scrape. I started finding these tiny nuggets about an inch or so down, resting on a layer of red clay. The Equinox was audibly sounding off with a classic "Gold Bug II" kind of Zip tone, though choppy and broken at low and slow. Unfortunately, the Screen VID could not keep up. It was generally showing -8 of the red clay, but the audible target tone was breaking through no problem and was so crisp and clear that I knew I had to dig. I'm using higher end EarBud earphones plugged directly into the machine. What I've learned so far: 1. Higher recovery speed helps control bump falsing. It's still there, but manageable. 2. Don't rely on the VID to identify gold. Even when these targets were out of the hole, the VID ranged from 1 through 9. 3. The 11" coil is plenty sensitive on small gold. I don't see a 6" coil in my future. A solid 5"X10", heck yes. 4. The Equinox is as good as any VLF gold prospecting detector out there, if you take the time to know the machine and learn it's language. As always it helps to get the coil over some gold to build confidence.

I've been laid up for over a week with the friggin flu, but JW's finds with the Equinox inspired me today. A sunny 78 degrees in the Desert Southwest, so I decided some fresh air and detecting were in order. I picked a spot for easy access and easy walking, not wanting too many challenges to my recovery. An old hillside placer that we had found a number of tiny nuggets with the 7000 seemed like a good prospect. I plugged my earphones directly into the the Nox and ran the Gold 2 program with no discrimination. I jacked the sens to max and just puttered along, low and slow. I picked up these 4 micro nuggets for about 2 hrs effort. None of them registered a VID, just a barely repeatable tone. The biggest was down maybe 2 inches and gave a nice steady hum. The others were less than an inch, just a squeak of a tone. The hillside was fairly flat, so I was able to manage some decent coil control, otherwise the Nox at full power will false with every bump. You'd have to be pretty bored to make this kind of detecting a habit, but it served its purpose today.

Well it’s not as good as last year, but here’s a couple pounds from this season.

Last week, my son and I went on another “Treasure Coast” trip, this time armed with our new Equinox 800’s. Our last trip to St. Augustine had me finding the only “old coin”, an 8 Reale, that I was sure was authentic, but my 21 yo son had the opposite opinion. For the last 6 months, I have been hearing it from him about my “lead slug”. Fast forward to last week. It’s about 11:30 pm on 3/27, and he comes up from behind me and tells me he found a “fake” coin, and jokingly accuses me of planting it, so he could have the heart attack/heart break of finding a worthless piece of junk… So, Sam pulls the “coin” out of his junk pouch so we can both give it a better look. Upon inspection of the coin, its mint appearance gave the impression of a newly minted souvenir, but the coins details were so fine, and weight so heavy, we really did not know what to think. Back at the hotel we researched, compared pictures of actual coins, and did everything we could at 3 am to prove or disprove its origin. The next morning we went to the West Bay Trading Company in Vero Beach to have the coin seen by folks who know much more than we do. The guys at West Bay were really helpful, determined that the gold content is just under 90%. 21 carat (by all records we found, 87.5 % was what the coin were supposed to be), Both Ron and Scott looked at the coin in disbelief of the condition, and determined that it was indeed genuine, and Scott, with his loop, discovered that the date was an over stamp 1787 over a 6. We were advised to have the coin graded and slabbed, and that is where it sits now. Needless to say, we had a great trip. The Equinox has proved to be a great, fast, deep machine. Small brass/bronze/copper bits at 8 to 12 inches ring up VERY loud and clear on the wet sand (Beach 2), leaving no doubt that you have a non-ferrous item under the coil. Yes, aluminum rings up as well, but as we all know, that is just the cost of doing business… Battery run time is all of 10 hours plus, the wireless headphones worked well, the backlight on its lowest setting is perfect, and the machine preformed very quietly in the dry sand, and even in the surf. Very happy with the Equinox!

Out yesterday and found this nice little Yuma gold specimen ,not a big find but a nice one just a bit over 2 grams

While searching some ancient bench gravels with the GPZ 7000 in the Arizona desert today, my ears were met with a broad, mellow reversed signal from the wireless speaker. I took off six inches of soil with the pick, and the signal was a little stronger. Changing from High Yield / Normal to General / Difficult resulted in a fainter, but normal signal response...definitely a metal target and not a hot rock. Putting the coil on edge produced no discernible signal; all of this information together told me this was going to be a large, deep nugget...just how large and how deep remained to be seen. It was relatively easy digging, as the material was fairly clean, unconsolidated sand and gravel. Getting close to the two foot mark however, the material became cemented, and the target was now screaming off the tip of the coil. Time for a little finesse; using just the plastic scoop to dig with now revealed a small depression in the cemented gravel, and therein lay the target — a three and a half ounce gold nugget! The Zed scored a nice, deep fatty for me, finally. It’s still out there.

Yellow gold nuggets from mother earth are the white snow flakes from the winter gods. Each one of these discovered treasures has their own story. In the eyes of the owner, the descriptions of nuggets and the photos our minds make up are so varied. I have been fortunate to find my share and even more so to catch a few with my camera. Lets see some of your favorite digs and their respected names. My 1st is: Gerry's Giraffe

Went out today to an area that has several patches near Barstow, California. We've hit this area pretty hard the last couple of years and it is pretty much a mopping up sort of hunt there on open ground and with Prospectors Club of Southern California. We've had lots of fun with 7000s, 2300s, Monsters, GB2s and now the 800. About 40 minutes after I arrived I scored a little .1 g nugget in the first scrape. All of my targets for the day were in the 1st scrape it seems. I was using Gold 1 in multi with 20+ sensitivity. I would noise cancel and ground balance. Later in the day I played with 20 and 40 single frequency. After the first one it was a couple of hours before I got another one that was smaller. (I have added the picture 24 hours after the original posting. The one on the right is the first nugget.) I was glad to get these two nuggets because recently I've gotten skunks with the 7000. Later in the day the wind was picking up and I was at a different location when Swifty showed up. He had told me earlier if he heard one he'd call me over. Sure enough he had a signal and he came up with a .4-.5g nugget. A few feet away he got another signal and I swung on it just to see if I could hear it with the 800. I could not. We scraped a bit and I got a variable signal with -9 to 7. (I was in all metal to hear the hot rocks.) It was not a strong signal to me and the wind is now blowing about 30 so he finished finding the nugget at only 3 inches. He now had two nuggets much bigger than mine. It had been a wonderful day until he proved who was king. Swifty and the 7000 are too much of a match for me with the 800 and my first time to the gold fields. I'm sure I'll have more and I need to learn how to get some depth. I've collected some hot rocks for practice. Now I've found nuggets and gold jewelry. It truly is a versatile machine on small size targets. Bring on the big targets! Mitchel

Searching a new spot in the sunny Arizona desert this morning netted 3 small nuggets. While aimlessly swinging the mighty Zed back to the truck for lunch, a faint signal stopped me cold; what at first glance appeared to be a small magnetite hot rock turned out to actually be a meteorite fragment. After lunch, the Zed went to bed and out came the Gold Monster. While searching for more fragments, the GM 1000 signaled with a strong non-ferrous target response that turned out to be another small gold nugget. All in all, a fantastic day. More details here: