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Rob has posted a photo of a 1.2 kilogram (38 Troy ounce) nugget found recently with a GPZ somewhere in the Southwest U.S.

Well, I would love to say that it was me who was the first to score gold with my new coil.... But alas..... Klunker bloodied it with with 3 nuggets totaling about 5dwt. They were roughly 14" deep...or 355.56mm for you Aussie friends He had no problem using the coil without a bungee or hipstick.....but I haven't figured out how he does that! Good job Klunker!

Went out yesterday with the Zed and 19 inch coil Golden Triangle. Running Jonathan Porter recommended settings with just a couple of minor adjustments to suit the area. Within 150 metres from car had already picked up a few shotty pellets and 22 slug. I then get a low tone clear signal no double tap to this one. Clearly heard well above ground level. Is it ground noise is it a tree root nah sounds too good. Dig down hit chunky fist size quartz at about 8 inches into clay signal still clear low tone but starting to get a wobble bit of a smile when the wobble came in. 12 to 14 inches deep scraping the bottom of hole out and there it is. Nice bit of gold. Later placed nugget on ground and swung over it what a change in signal. Less than half the original depth before l could hear it and just a warbly pathetic scratchy signal with no low tone. The response to the undug target absolutely smashed the response to the air test over the dug target. I'm happy. I have no dout the 14 inch coil would have heard it but also have no doubt the 19 was a far better louder response than the 14 would have given from past experiences with the 14. Cheers

With the winter months upon us, it's time once again for fun in the desert sun.? I spent a few days in northern Nevada en route to the big Q and managed to collect a half an ounce of golden goodies from old nugget patches with the trusty Zed. Where the damp alkali soil became too noisy for High Yield / Normal, selecting Extra Deep / Normal did the trick. At other locations, iron mineralization was the culprit and the High Yield / Difficult combo was the answer.

Made trip out from PA, met up with Lucky who was nice enough to show us around. Great time and a gold fix that was badly needed.

Send offs, my first summer in AK I found a 1/4 ounce nugget with GP extreme. Since then I had never found one bigger. This year I had to move out of AK. I went back to one of the places that I used to dredge a lot. I had found a few nice nuggets in there and last year I found a 2 penny weight nugget. So I went back this year and started where I had to quit last year and found these nuggets in my first day. The big nugget is almost 11 penny weight. I have been meaning to write this post for a while but didn't get to it.

Detected some gravels from a hard rock mine near my cabin....used GB2 in Iron Disc due to lots of trash and iron. Lots of pyrite, some galena, and other sulfides(I think that's what they are?). Some small speci's and thin sheets after soaking in CLR. Still need cleaning, but will take care of them when I get back from wintering on the Treasure Coast of FL. Maybe I'll find a gold doubloon or silver piece of eight while there! Wish me luck! :-)

I used to be active on many forums and even a bit on Facebook for awhile, but I have slowly withdrawn from locations other than this website. It is safe to say that 99% of my internet activity going forward will be devoted to this website and forum. I have not posted on my Facebook page in over a year, have no Twitter account, etc. I really just do not use social media. However, I have been approving pretty much all Facebook friend requests for some time. That means my feed is getting all manner of posts on things I have no interest in and from people I have never met. The main problem though is people try and contact me on Facebook and I am rarely there to see the messages. I decided it was time to clean it up. I posted one last gold photo as a way of alerting people that the way to find me is via this website and forum. Here is the photo - a large California specimen surrounded by northern Nevada gold. Pretty much all found with the GPZ with the exception of one large nugget in lower left found with the ATX. The specimen weighs 8.75 Troy ounces and contains about 2.5 Troy ounces of gold.

Hey all, I have not had time to post for a long time so thought I would brag a bit about my GPZ finds. I have had the detector about a year now and these are my finds to date. I still run it flat out on Normal every chance I get and have been happy with it. I love this detector except for a while there I had tennis elbow from it. Had to start using the swing stick and that slowly got better and is now gone. I would like some opinions on what to do with the large one covered in what looks like ironstone. It is really solid right under the ironstone, not porous. I tried soaking it in CLR for a few days and toothbrushed it with absolutely no improvement. Should I leave it natural? Acid? other ideas? Thanks!

I had my Sunday free so I went up to the Sierra to try to get one more trip before the snow starts. 5 hours total driving and 6 hours of detecting... Priceless! I have been detecting alone since the summer. I like not having any interference from another detector in the area but there is just something missing when you have to hike, eat lunch, detect and, in the case of this trip, fist pump over a nice find...by yourself. That might just be me though. It took about 3 hours to find the first one which was the largest at 2 dwt. the total for the 4 pcs was 0.2 ozt. The last 3 were all within about 20 feet from each other and the 2nd largest was literally only about 1" down. I think the one on the bottom left looks like a Tyrannosaurus Rex skull! I always look for shapes in my nuggets like some people look for shapes in the clouds! I didn't find the nickel on this trip but I did find it not too far from this spot. I was swinging for hours with not a single target and this nickel was all by its' lonesome! I suppose a miner or logger dropped it on accident. It was a beautiful day and I was really glad to have made it up there.

This time of year in the High Desert you have to be and arm chair Meteorogist! It was the best, the type of Weather you can hunt all day without busting a single bead of sweat! 4 1/2 days of smiles before I had to toss the towel in and head back home to Robin. I couldn't establish any new ground on this hunt, but my old spots didn't let me down! My next few trips out to Rye Patch will be swinging for new spots to add to the old spots. Wish a Patch would replenish its self like a favorite fishing hole...well that would be to easy! Until the next hunt LuckyLundy

The weather in Sunny Yuma by the Sea continues to suck. Decent morning temps, but 90 degrees by 10:00 am. I got my new replacement 7000 from Minelab a couple weeks ago. My original developed some screen issues and a broken battery clip. As most of you know, Minelab isn't repairing the 7000's, they are replacing them with new ones. I'm experimenting with a different super lightweight external frame pack for this winter's detecting. I've been going out for the past couple weeks for a few hrs in the morning working with the pack and setup to take the weight of the detector off my shoulder strap and onto the pack frame. I've about got the bugs worked out now so I'm looking forward to getting in some serious detecting soon. In the meantime, mostly because of the heat, I'm making short trips and using the Lucky Lundy mode of detecting. Super low and slow and replaced my reliance on the external WM speaker with IEM's (in ear monitor) type earphones. Lundy prefers the Grey Ghost traditional headphones I think, nevertheless the Etymotic brand 4S has 100 ohm impedance, so very close to the stock Koss headphones that came with the 7000, and no sweaty ears. No more 5 mile hikes for now, just working old drywash patches. The addition of max low and slow with the IEM's have resulted in some tiny gold. I count 3 that are .1 gram and under. I'm running maxed out sens with HY and low smoothing. It's really doing the trick based on these current results. I'm pretty sure the big ones with take care of themselves if I can just get the coil over them.

Last winter Beatup was chased off a promising signal by wild bees that had set up a hive in a rock cairn. The bees were gone this morning and I found the half dug hole that should have contained a YUGE nugget. All that was in there was this twisted off screw. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. I'm sure glad Brett didn't risk multiple bee stings for a trash target. Not to mention his masculinity if I saw him screaming like a 13 yr old girl with the those bees on this tail.

I just got back from a week up in Northern Nevada prospecting. Just over half an oz of nice small rough nuggets. The biggest was just over 2 dwt. The deepest was about 6 inches but some were right on the surface. Well, hell, I can only get one picture to upload, the biggest nugget. Will try again later.

......you guys left a few for me! :-) Was at Rye Patch and vicinity while the Nugget Shoot was going on; didn't participate in event, but met a lot of nice folks who were down for it and will next year for sure! Got some nice nuggets, several while wandering looking for new patches, but most at known areas.... that 7000 is an amazing machine! Unbelievable how it can still sniff out some gold in obviously pounded places! Here's some pics...had a great time: beauty of the high desert, comradarie of other prospectors who love the hobby as much as I, and the spiritual time of solitude....oh, and the AU! :-)

Had a fun gold trip this weekend------ Ran down Klunker in one of his hide-a ways and got to help in an---- excavate---detect----excavate---- detect hunt.. One thing i noticed (besides the fact that he can't hear) is that he would not open a bunch of ground at one time, Instead he would open it up to bedrock and then when we were done looking he would cover it back up and we would rake it down, etc... So the reclamation part was done right then... I lost track of the nugget count and left on Monday, but when i left i am thinking there were 114 nuggets in the jug after 3 days... (Klunker can chime in with the total if he wants) AND OH, just so he doesn't get the opportunity to tell you what he did to me I will go ahead and tell you first.... As we were detecting (and running the little nuggets all over the place! arrrrgh...) He put me in the 3 foot hole to detect it and I came up with a ripper scream !!!!! ~~~~I was grinning ear to ear~~ I told him it was a big screamer!!!! I was excited to see this bad boy.... He looked at me and said I bet it isn't bigger than a ten cent piece--- I looked at him like he was crazy (BTW-he is--I'm a psych nurse) Anyways, he started digging with a green scoop as I am standing by with the 7000----and it REALLY started screaming louder-- He still insisted it was no bigger than a ten cent piece---- then when i scrubbed the coil over it one more time, I saw it------ a dime!!! He planted a stinking dime in the hole!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He started laughing and i tried to tackle him, but he slipped away to quickly...... ~~~~ His day was complete.... That is life at the gold camp--- Great weather and good camp time... Thx Klunker

We've been working an area of the desert in Southern California this summer on the days when it is 'not so hot' (under 105) and even some nights. Sunday night I had a chance to go out again and when I got there the wind was blowing about 15 mph and it was 60 F. That is cold for here. I didn't have the right clothes to hunt so I went to sleep until dawn. When I got up I started in on an old patch about 100 yards from where I parked so I could 'break my skunk' of the last trip and a half. (It had been about 20 hours without a find.) About 2 hours into the hunt after a lot of wire trash I finally broke the skunk. It was a little one but you gotta do what you gotta do. Less than an hour later I had another small piece. This is an area where we have worked and worked it almost to death with our 7000s and others so I said I wanted to use the 2300 which I don't use much. I got the smallest piece with it and then I took a break around 11 AM. Later I went hunting for a new spot and I found it. The first nugget from this area was the 'middle finger' nugget in the picture and then a few feet away another. I gridded the area and found one more in a little depression and just about dark I went over my gridded area. I heard the mellow, repeatable sound (I missed it while gridding) I had not heard in a while and began scraping and got the bigger nugget. About 5 feet from that was the last nugget for the trip that must have been laying on top. It was all brown when I found it and it was loud ... a surprise for the area. We now have a new direction in the desert that is producing more nuggets. (8 nuggets/2.28g/.68~.05g)(7000, 2300 detectors) Mitchel

NICE nugget! https://m.facebook.com/profile.php?id=157108184330085&tsid=0.8340215450152755&source=typeahead Hope the link works and most can access Facebook. I'm not one of the smart folks who can copy/convert/move the video somewhere else ;) if you can't get the video... It's an 18 ounce nugget, found by Oscar. Under a boulder on bedrock in Woods Creek, Jamestown, CA! I met Oscar a couple years back. I was prospecting Woods Creek actually, and this scrubby dude rides up on a mountain bike. No prospecting equipment, just one hell of a motor... Mouth :) He told me about his secret spot. He took his buddies there with all their gear... All he used was a screwdriver & tablespoon. He said he got more gold than they did?!? He proceeded to tell me about "xx" nugget from here, "xxx" nugget from there... Seemed like some pretty big fish stories from some "supposed prospector" riding by on a bike! so, I'm not saying all those stories were true, but this one sure seems to be!!! And he never told any stories this crazy.... Photos from same Facebook page for those that don't Facebook. Groucho the dog giving the ole miners test :)

I made it home to Yuma by the Sea and put my Rye Patch gold on the scale. We drug barons like to weigh in grams, so here it is. A little over half oz attributed in no small measure to the good graces of Lucky Lundy. Bravo Zulu Rick. I owe you big time.

As you know from Lucky Lundy's post, I made it from Sunny Yuma to Sunny Rye Patch last week. First and foremost I want to extend my profound thanks and gratitude to Lundy for not only sharing his Rye Patch knowledge but allowing me to detect a couple of his secret spots. If you've ever hunted the Rye Patch you know there are miles and miles of unproductive ground and it has been hunted by thousands of detectors. There is no particular rhyme or reason to where the gold is found, it's a matter of putting in the hours to find a small patch. Lundy and friends have put in hundreds if not thousands of hours to find a few good spots. I think he'd sooner share his wife than his secret patches. Nevertheless, he was in a generous mood and I certainly appreciate the fellowship and opportunity to detect with a master. His friend Rudy rounded out the threesome and he is a bull of a detectorist. He doesn't know the word quit, detecting in the heat of the day with a wet t-shirt wrapped around his head, detecting after dark with a headlamp. He makes the most of his detecting time and makes me look like a first rate slacker. Detecting Rye Patch is a lot different than the desert at home in Yuma. Yuma is all about covering a lot of ground. The nuggets for the most part a few and far between, so I normally cover 3 or 4 miles a day. Rye Patch is all about finding a patch that's throwing small half gram minus nuggets, then slowing down and working the section to death from every angle. The one patch that was most productive was maybe 150 yds long and 75 yds wide. The were already bunches of dig holes but small nuggets were scattered next to old holes, in the sage brush and in one case on top of a chipmunk mound. The first 2 days I was only finding the bigger sitting duck nuggets and missing the small, deep and very faint targets. Lundy put me on a couple faint signals just to make sure I had the audio and settings correct to start finding them. The answer for me was slowing way way down, overlapping each swing by at least half if not a third of the coil length. Any threshold disturbance needed a scrape and in some cases 3 or 4 inches of scrape to bring the target up to a recognizable tone. Tricky business especially when I already thought I knew how to detect low and slow., The best settings were Sens at 15, HY, Normal. The insanely hot settings were not so good because it was producing too much noise to hear these faint threshold disturbances. I stuck it out a couple more days after Lundy left and did some exploring. Sawtooth sucked. I met one other detectorist from Idaho out there. Then Rabbit Hole where I found 2 nuggets in the old dozer pushes high up the hills. Way too much trash in there for me. I then explored another spot near Lundy's patch and found 4 more nuggets in a dozer push down in a long ravine. 6 days of temps in the high 80's and low 90's wore me down. I was only detecting 3 or 4 hrs a day and hating life trying to find shade. I Spent 1 whole afternoon in the shade trees at Rabbit Hole and thought it was heaven. I forgot my scale, but as of Lundy's photo I had 8 DWT and found another estimated 4 grams. So, I'm mid point between 1/4 oz and 1/2 oz of gold for 6 tough days. Not bad and I would certainly do it again, especially in better weather. I've got to send my Z in for replacement. Battery clip broke off and my screen is practically unreadable. Back to Sunny Yuma next week. Sitting it out in Sacto for a few days.

Hi all, Just got back from a trip to Chicken Alaska and my AT Gold and T2 Classic were spot on. Total weight for the four nuggets is 16.8 grams. The three small nuggets were found with the AT Gold, 3x6 snake coil on day two. The biggest nugget is 10.8 grams and was found with the T2 Classic, 4x11 biaxel coil on day three. The T2 with the stock coil could detect small flakes by listening for the break in the threshold. All the nuggets were 5 to 6 inches deep and would have been missed if I didn't listen for the break in the threshold. I like to give a big thanks to Steve for writing the stories of his adventures in Chicken that inspired me to take the trip. I have now detected and found gold in for different areas of Alaska in 8 years. (Ganes creek 4 times, Moore creek 1 time, Nome 2 times, and Chicken 1 time.) 26 ounces found in 8 years with $700 VLF. Last of all, don't let anyone tell you and area is hunted out, trust in your equipment, keep a good attitude, work hard the whole time, and believe in your abilities. Thanks, Treasuredude

Many of you may know my GPZ gave the ghost up and I shipped it back to Mother Minelab. It took a little over 7 weeks for my new one to arrive. Needless to say, it set me back on my Mid Summer hunting...which was fine since its been a warm one! Well I planned a trip to Rye Patch with my Buddy Rudy to hunt a couple spots and ran into a guy named Condor out in the desert. He said, he was from Yuma and I asked him if he was lost, lol. 3 days of swinging in the mid 90's had me running back to my cooler and finding shade under my truck! It wasn't 3 good days of detecting as far as solid hours go, but we made best of the time we spent behind our coils. The heat really pulled my Mojo away, as I was dwindling and finding myself not wanting to dig iffy targets, time to head home when that happens. There's always another hunt and now I'm home recouping my Mojo. Until the next hunt, little over 28 dwts in the photo...Geez, I can't upload the photo...you can visit my FaceBook Page Rick Lundquest - Wolf Pack Detecting LuckyLundy

I am getting out now and then but have been pretty laid back this year compared to last, and my nugget finds are suffering for it. I am busy on other fun projects however so no complaining from me. Still, some gold has been coming my way. This one I like for the character so I figured a photo was a requirement. 2.33 grams or 1.5 pennyweight. There sure is some nice gold in California!

Last week during a slight break in the heat, my brother and I took our Minelabs and GB 2's out for some detecting in a heavily hammered patch. We didn't find anything with the Minelabs, but both got over a gram and a half with our Gold Bugs. There had been a slight rain the night before, but otherwise conditions were the same as previous skunk-outs in that location. I think our success was probably due to careful ground balancing and swinging very very slow and as close to the ground as possible. It is certainly much harder than in the "good old day," but they are still out there. We just need to remember that this is just a great hobby and like golf ever once in awhile we get a bogey. But of course along with the nuggets there is trash and in our case-nails and tacks, shotgun pellets, old lead bullets, cartridges, pick handle wedge, copper wire, iron wire and rusty stuff.