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I explored some new ground in Sunny Yuma this morning in an area that is not generally regarded as gold producing, more silver/lead. I had found some gold in the area last year with the SDC and figured the ZED should find some deeper ones. It turns out the last storms stirred up a bunch of old cans from a hard rock mine about 3 miles up the canyon. I quickly tired of digging trash and opted for a cross country trek. I hiked up and around a dry 30 ft waterfall to find a narrow gully with exposed bedrock. The gully was about 1/4 mile long and ended in a box canyon with 2 small feeder streams from the high ground. Halfway up the gully I get a screaming signal under a jumble of boulders. I had left the trash behind in the main wash and this little side canyon was pretty much undiscovered. I hadn't dug a single target so far so I was cautiously optimistic. I rolled a few big boulders and started digging,10 inches down the target was out. I had to turn the ZED sensitivity down to 1 to get the coil near the pile. On my second scoop into the pile I see yellow. Wow, a course nugget with host rock still attached. Whooee, I'm going to fill my pack with these babies, virgin ground that had never seen a detector. Well, I finished out the gully without another target. It was getting hot and I had a long walk back to the truck so I didn't explore the hillsides below the box canyon. Maybe next week I'll get up there and try to find the source.

Returned to Yuma to find that big one...no joy there. i did snag 6 little ones and hundreds of pieces of junk. I saved all the non-ferrous junk and photographed it.This will give some beginners a small glimmer of what the gold to trash ratio can be. Not in all places and not always but this is the usual reality of nugget hunting. Condor flew by and then went for a wander...a very chatty and good fellow. also some descendants of the old jack-ass prospectors came to visit me.

My Wife Robin and I, spent several days at Rye Patch at the end March and Beginning of April with some horrific weather that kept us busy at the casinos for two days and then fighting the wet ground noise after the snowmelt. We ended up with a 1/4 ounce of hard earned nuggets, but discussed we need to find some new spots, which I agreed. Well the weather looked great, so I loaded up my truck and headed out on 15 Apr and back home on the 18 Apr. This trip was getting back to the basics as I know them, as to finding productive ground. Sleep in the back of my Mega Cab Dodge, swings my coil for as long as I could stand it, eating cold fried chicken and a treat myself to hot coffee in the morning...I try to keep it simple...lol. I was joined by a couple of other prospecting Buddy's that stayed in town. They arrived to my spot by the time I washed down plenty of hot coffee to fight the morning chill of the high desert. We swung our coils low and slow for miles and ran into 3 small patches, that we can expand and piggy back off of for the next hunt(s)! I'm happy to be home where I can fully stretch out for a good nights sleep...getting old, for the Back to Basics hunt. But they can pay off in the long run. Below, is Joe from Colorado (Colorado Joe) SDC 2300 and my GPZ 7000 on the end of the first days hunt and then my end of trip poke, which just got over 1/4 ounce. I'm recharging for the next trip and more good times with our friends. Until the next hunt! Rick

Ive been Really busy as of late, so we havent been out in a couple weeks. We made it out this afternoon for a couple hours to clean up some deep and shallow ground with the Gold Racer and the gpx 5000 and Coiltek elite coil. we have detected the place for a few years, but weve been cleaning up all the signals by gridding little by little. we finally finished up today and found 2 deep pieces with the gpx and my partner found 1 shallow pieces next to a stump that I guess we missed all this time. She decided to try out the Gold Racer again and really likes it compared to her gb2. Didnt find alot left but 3 pieces for 1.5 dwt combined. but I think we did a good job cleaning up this pocket gold deposit once and for all. I did manage to video the Coiltek finds. Ill post them soon.

I bought a used DD coil for my SD2200 V3 and the first trip out I got a 21.4 gm nugget under a big rock down about 9 inches. That coil runs so quiet that all I heard was a faint good sound that I knew it should be gold. The last nugget that I found was at Ganes Cr. two years ago.

So with the weather warming and drying out (of course as I say this it is pouring rain at my house - but it is generally drying out), we finally got out to do a bit of real prospecting and my first nugget of 2016 is the larger one on the right. It weighs 2.3 dwt or 3.5 grams. It came out of the ground with a lot of caliche, but a little bath in dilute hydrochloric acid cleaned that off. All but the smallest one were taken with the GPZ 7000, the smallest was found with the SDC 2300. Total is 3 dwt or 4.5 grams. Nice to get back into the swing of prospecting season again. Looking forward to doing some serious exploring around for gold!

Stormy yesterday and for the next few days with a short pause today. I took advantage of the time between the storms, grabbed the SDC, and chased down 15 little nugs for just over three and a half grams. There are only 14 in the pic because I dropped one on the floor and couldn't find it . I just need to find bigger nuggets!!! Good luck! Dean

I went down toward Yuma las Tuesday, got setup by 3:40 and had my first/biggest 1.1 gram nuggie by 3:45...wandered all day Wed with high winds and got the littlest one 1.4 grains, then found the other two Thursday morning...my new trailer is very comfie for me and my wife...the detector is where the first nuggie was...

Today I'm one year older and the poke is seven nuggets golder! It's also a special day because I unearthed Quartzsite nugget number three-hundred. Who knew there were that many pieces of gold hiding in these old, worked-out patches?? Good luck out there!

Here's some placer gold found with my SDC-2300. Looks nice and sharp edged and I don't think it's traveled far. Next project is to find the source. Bob

My first nugget! Near Scot river. Now I am sure, this quite good beginning, for GPX 5000 and new coil Evolution 17 X 13". Alex.

Many of you know my Birthday is on St Patrick's Day! I usually have a Birthday hunt, but this day I'm going to be busy and had my hunt a day early. I wasn't having much luck with the extra wet soil and it seemed the worms wanted to dry out a little in the morning sun. Well I tossed one on my coil for a ride to some dryer ground. It didn't take long before I had a bite and out pops a dink, lol. I took a picture of my lucky worm and dug up three more for the poke, before I headed back to my truck. Well now you know what I use for bait...but not how I hold my mouth! Happy St Patty's Day, and have a beer and my your poke be full. Until the next hunt LuckyLundy

Gridding an old patch as usual with my GPZ 7000 the other day here in the sunny Arizona desert, I had to smile as the WM12 wireless module suddenly emitted a mellow, warbly signal. Typically heralding a deep, reasonable chunk of gold, this type of signal always gets me excited. The target was out of the ground after digging over a foot into the highly mineralized red soil-a beautiful 28 grammer! Several smaller nuggets were found within a 4 square foot area, for a total of 35 grams for the day - a rare occurrence these days. The grand total for this winters prospecting season is now up to 6.5 ounces; my goal was to hit 6, and with nearly 2 more months to go before heading back home in May it's definitely my second best season ever...so far. ? Good luck out there!

What am I missing? This nugget weighs just short of half a gram. SDC 2300 barely whispers on it at 1", GB Pro at 100 gain and threshold hum barely pick it up at about the same distance (1"-1.5" off the coil.) As is common knowledge, these detectors will (and have) picked up gold small enough to not really be considered a nugget (see bits in vial.) What is causing this nugget to be invisible? It is somewhat porous but not to the extent it should affect detection. What are your thoughts?

Hello, I headed back to clean up patch #2 where I found bigger gold last weekend. But before I made it all the way there on my hike, I was unfortunately tripped up by a low growing vine that manage to help me fall right on a rocky hill. I did save Fors plus from damage by hitting my knee right on a rock. after a few grimaces I was able to hobble the last 1/4 mile. I turned on Fors plus to all metal with a slight isat adjustment then proceed to ground balance. I was shocked to find out that fors plus would not balance. It made a strange noise that im not use to hearing. Ive ground balanced fors gold detectors probably a thousand times in the past. I finally discovered that you cant ground balance by pressing the pin point trigger. I guess the pain from my near broken knee cap threw off my detecting skill. I was happy to find out that Fors plus was ok it was just the damn opertor. So I started detecting and it wasn't long before I stood up from crouching to dig and I got jabbed right inside my left ear by a friendly manzanita stub. Was only seconds before I felt the wonderful feeling of blood running down my ear. Luckily it wasnt too bad. So I ended up gridding the 2nd patch and only getting a few more pieces. Total was 1.4 dwt. I was hoping for another decent nugget, but that was it. I did manage to find a 1800's black powder ball spill. There was 5 balls in one spot. Unfired. I collect those too. Well that is it for that little knoll, now it is time to try the other ridges where there is old diggins. Fors plus performed very well again and came home like a new car without a scratch. I posted pics of the gold area before, so I thought I would post pics of the local vegetation. This is where I spend alot of my time trying to track down new patches of gold.

Four of us loaded up and hit the much drier dirt at Rye Patch for a 4 day hunt! Our last trip was mid January to this area and it was the worse conditions with snow and mud throughout the goldfields. This trip had much better soil conditions, as I followed my month old truck ruts to my hunting spots. Sure, the soil was still moist and far from prime hunting in my preferred dry soil settings on my GPZ...but, my wet settings worked fine for me on this hunt and I just missed my 1/4 oz goal. Until the next hunt, LuckyLundy

Hello all, here are some pictures from one of the earlier outings with the 7000. The first picture shows one of the clay seams that I often talk about. These range in size from large ones like this on down to some that are less than an inch wide. These clay seams generally run with the shale. It seems that the larger nuggets have come from areas where the seams are very thin. I'm not sure what the silver pin is...several ideas. Look close and you will see the buttons of a large rattlesnake hiding in the rocks. Thanks, TRINITYAU/RAYMILLS TRINITYAU.COM

Hello everyone, here are some pictures from a Saturday afternoon a few weeks back. Got finished updating the website "TRINITYAU.COM" and headed out for a short four hour hunt with the 7000. Thanks, TRINITYAU/RAYMILLS More pictures at TRINITYAU.COM

Hello all, I got out the other day with some friends. Here are some pictures, thanks. TRINITYAU/RAYMILLS

Chasing gold is so much fun for me! Sometimes, I have so much fun hunting it with no luck my fun meter gets pegged out and I call it a day, with a skunk in tow. Today, was a Funner day with no skunks for our hunting party. Here's one I pulled out that hit the scale at 2.53 dwts...enjoying the Daytona 500 and a couple racks of ribs in the smoker! Until the next hunt LuckyLundy

My brother and i got out for some quality detecting time this January and February around Yuma and Quartzsite areas with our 7000s it was my first chance to use it and i got to say i like it found gold from .06 of a gram to 6 gram size as deep as 24 inches in all kinds of soil from hot to mild.Second photo is of our best day of 7 nuggets each for a total of 28.5 grams.

The mighty Zed responded with a faint signal through the wireless speaker this afternoon as I passed the coil over some large surface rocks. The bench gravels had been thoroughly detected in the past, but this nuggets hiding place was finally lit up by the power of ZVT. The water-worn, watermelon seed nugget, my 200th found from the Quartzsite regional placer area this winter, brings the grand total to 4 ounces. Good luck out there!

Finally able to get out with my new(used) zed I picked up from DOC at the Nov Nugget Shooters outing. Met up with Paul K down at Rye Patch for the long weekend......was working on a serious skunk until got a couple on Monday! What fun! And as a bonus, met a couple great folks, Chris and Wilma.....thanks for your hospitality(and yummy grub!).

Found these couple of keepers with the zed DEEP 72g and 94g(au after melting)

Hello, I finally got back at it after a few busy weekends with work. Its been like spring for a couple good weeks and it has been killing me missing all those great days to be out detecting. Luckily I had today off to go play at the gold diggins. Last time out was Gold racer so this time was Fors plus's turn to sniff out the gold. It is still very amazing how well both Fors plus and gold racer run a very smooth all metal in tough ground. This diggins is an old river channel deposit with pocket gold on the same hill side. They slid down the hill together and you get a mix of gold finds. There does seem to be alot of small pieces, so next time I will see what the gold racer can do. Fors plus ended the 2 1/2 hunt with 14 pieces and exactly 2 dwt. Good luck