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Fred Mason has a story in the new ICMJ. Check it out at your local news stands or get a subscription from Chris Ralph. Let me just tell you that Fred has a picture of a nugget that covers a half-dollar coin. You can see some of the pictures here: https://www.icmj.com/ Mitchel

Was working one of my go to areas in the Southern Calif desert and managed to get 4 little ones for one gram total. Just as was packing up my gear I almost stepped on this little guy out for a later afternoon crawl.

This is 10grams from a hillside with multiple sources. This is some specimens total weight about 12g(Cleaned)from a single deep hole below the reef line.Found with the 5000+14"round Elite.

I forgot how long it takes to get to the campsite in the Dale. The wind was howling much of the time. Anyway, I found a five gram bit of the San Bernadino Wash meteorite...I had sold all the first pieces I found , so this is just big enough for me to cherish... I also found a 1.2 grain nugglet...in an area that had not yielded any before...it is all good. We had a good time for a very short trip... fred

Deus rules maybe 25cm deep..clear sound and vdi number..

Got out Saturday for a day hunt at Gold Basin, Arizona. Ended up with 3 Gold Nuggets, and a few meteorites, wish the weather stayed like this all the time ..... Dave.

I realize these are nowhere near as impressive of some of the great finds that are shown here, but I got these three in a 4½ detect today with the 7000 ◕‿◕. Dave

Hi everybody, finally got around to giving a few iron coated bits an acid bath, They look alot better than the ugly bits that went in initially. Cheers Dave.

Hi all, I want out yesterday to an area that has some gold , but also lots of trash....i dug a lot of trash. Deep nails were my nemesis with the GPZ, but I did manage to dog up these 5 nuggets. Largest was 2.7 grams. Thanks, Chris.

Got out Friday, and decided to use the good ol Boat Anchor 19 " coil on the ZED. After finding the Specimen Gold, and into it 2 hours, my Bungee broke, and I had to go to my backup bungee, and also switched back to the 14". I was using the High Yield Mode with the 19" coil, since the soils here are not to bad, and I seem to get a little more depth using the 19" with High Yield. Dave.

I got out to Tarnagulla today for a detect and I got 2 little specimens and then I finished off the day with this beauty. I was using the 7000 with JP`s recommended conservitive settings and this sounded like a very deep target. I was surprised when I moved it about 5" down. What really excited me about this one was I did some testing and the 2300 can get it at about 8" and the 7000 can only get it at 6". That in itself told me there was a fair bit of gold in it. I suspect a 5000 would struggle to hear it. This speci is predominately quartz but it has a thin layer of ironstone around it. In the first 2 photos are the only two pieces that are readily visible but under high magnification there are at least 100 pinpoints of gold visible all around it. I have no idea how much the ironstone mucks up the SG, but the sg for quartz says there is 28.649 grams of gold in this piece. I`m not going to drop this one in acid till my mate waves his 5000 over it. I`m hoping there is going to be a heap of gold visible once the ironstone is gone. cheers Dave

This is a specimen I got last week with the 7000 and 14" coil at about 5-6" and it readily sticks to a magnet. The total weight of this piece is 0.85 gram so there is not a hell of a lot of gold in it, and I figured the 19" coil would struggle to hear it, but with JP`s deep gold settings, the 19 can hear it about 4" away . It should look good when it`s been acid cleaned.

So some of you may have seen my piece I put in the thread about 'What are your detecting goals' as I was happy I had reached the goal of getting a nugget over 1 gram (it's sad but you have to start somewhere ). Well 24 hours later and I've got another. 11 grams is the big one. 6 is the littler one. And 3 smallies which have been my standard fare. Its been a beautiful weekend here in Northeast Victoria for Easter. These beauties have topped it off. Happy Easter everyone.

Hi all, just thought I would share my find for my first day detecting of 2017, nothing big, but it's a start Cheers Dave.

Today I went to an area that I recently gained access to. I looked at imagery to see where the old workings are. I picked a spot where a drag line and wash plant had been though. As I was driving in I noticed a lot of the ground had all of the rocks racked off. I figured who ever did it had to have found something. So the tailings will have to wait. I decided to run the SDC 2300 over that ground. After digging the 10th piece of shot I got another signal about a foot away from one I just dug. It was real hard to pinpoint and find but the sun hit it right on the coil and I knew it was a little piece. Finally I found a nugget in New Mexico. Nothing like others recently on the forum but I was pretty jazzed. My first desert piece.

one day field xp deus hunting

Got a text yesterday from my buddy Chris, who said dude, get your , and lets get out there !!!! ( Well something like that , hehe !!! ) . I told him I can only hunt a half day, even though today was just a great day for a full day of hunting today, darn it !!!! Ended up finding almost 10 grams today.. :) . The large piece was a little more than a foot down, and just made a break in the threshold, I kicked some dirt out of the way, and it made the nice mellow weewoo sound, and I was like . Some digging in the side of a wash a little more than a foot down, and got a ..... maybe a foot away I found another small nugget right on top of the ground, and found another small piece in another wash. I also brought home a new pet, and the good ol U.S. deserts give them away for free, as you can see in the picture, he is enjoying his new home.... I have been bringing baby dinosaurs home in the backyard for years, but they never grow up , they just make babies in my back yard and eat the spiders... Dave

This Rye Patch trip, I was fighting snow and wind going and heading back home! Pulling a 30' Toy Hauler in the windy flats of Nevada and the snowy Donner Pass has to be one of my favorite things, NOT! Geez, bring the drought back, lol. Rye Patch, is always a fun trip and you always run into some great people trying out their luck in the open vastness of the high plains. Our hunting party had 4 experienced hunter and one brand new prospector armed with and SDC 2300. This time of the year, we run around and detect tons of new spots with the hopes of finding a few in the wet, hot soil conditions of this desert region. Training a new gold detectorist on unproven ground is a challenge, "dig everything that beeps" as we cover hundreds of acres with our coils a day. By golly, if he didn't go home with 5 hard earned nuggets. No skunks amongst the Veteran Prospectors either! We eat and drank like Kings, oh Robin was our Queen and all of us slept like babies. Here's our poke...Until the next hunt LuckyLundy

This was a nice piece 5.8 ounce. On the big one and 6.1 Total. That was a find a while back. Really miss those days!

I was thinking about making the drive to Gold basin based on Jen's recent finds! Her skill behind the detector got me fired up. Instead I opted to stay in Nevada and headed to a closer spot. I decided to try a spot in usually drive by on my way to usually spot. I had check out a couple of times with my ATX, but there was an absence of bedrock, and what there was was mostly calichi. First signal in an area with no trash was a nice 1+ grammer up on a bench. Worked my way up a small drainage and got another both at good depth. I moved over to a bigger wash and worked up most of the wash for nothing then got a faint signal under the edge of a rock. Kept digging and the signal got louder and louder. Finally this plopped out of my scoop. .62g biggest nugget yet. I picked up a couple of smaller nuggets before I headed back to the truck to have lunch. After lunch I decided to head to some drainages coming off a ridge. Worked my way up one till I got a faint signal. Again it kept getting louder and louder. Finally getting it into my scoop! This specimen was exactly 3/4 of an Oz. I cannot believe what the GPZ is capable of. Total for the day. I'm 2/3 of the way to pay off my GPZ in the 2 months I've owned it! Now I have to break that 1oz barrier. Chris

I had the opportunity to detect for a private claim on some really good ground in Arizona. I had to share this. Here's 50 ounces I found in 31 days. I get a small percentage but the experience alone was worth it. I hope you enjoy.

Rain stopped about mid day so I shot out for a couple of hours in the arvo. Bang on 1/2 oz which brings the total for this spot to just over 5 oz so far. I can smell a big chunk hiding here somewhere.

Hi all Went for 2 days detecting in our famous Golden triangle. Had a great time and very enjoyable days. (Thanks Dave for a memorable detecting trips and for using your 2300- i will be back) I used 2300 and first day managed to get 3 and second day another 5. All together 1.25 grams of beautiful Aussie gold. This will be my last trip for a very long time as in 2-3 weeks am going for a holidays. (5-6 months) Wish you luck and hopefully will post some finds of different kind from Europe soon. Stay safe and good luck. GoldEN

I have just received my new camera that cost a whole $13.66 AUD. I think you are better off getting a lower power camera because you get a better depth of field with them. I have a 1000 power camera and it is so hard to work with to get a decent picture and this camera is only a 200 power. There are some restrictions with this camera though. I took this picture on a old 32 bit laptop running VISTA. I have a windows 8 laptop and a windows 10 desktop, both 64 bit and I can`t get this camera to work on either of them. I think with these cheap cameras you need windows 7 or earlier 32 bit. This piece goes a whopping 0.29 gram. cheers Dave http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/152346566053?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

I got out for 3 days to Gold Basin. The first day was a skunk but then at the end of the second a little color. I got up at daylight on Saturday and found a couple of meteorites before 8 AM. Then on a long walkabout I found a mini-patch of 3 pieces. Later on a 5 mile walk I found a 15g sunbaker meteorite. It is nice to get even small results with the 7000/14. Mitchel