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Been going back and forth to the new place in Las Vegas setting up all the little things that need to be done to move in and flying back and forth on frontier’s Special rates sometimes for as little as $15 one way the only catch is you can only take a little personal bag with you on the airplane. Got tired of renting a car and not having any prospecting gear so I loaded up the Jeep and drove it down for a longer stay and a planned first hunt. Friday had everything ready and my Jeep fully loaded for an early start in the morning, that evening I headed out the front door no shoes or shirt to check the mail box and in the dark missed the edge of the front step rolled my foot and did a summersault down the front steps praying I was going to be able to walk when this was over as I watched the world spin around me out of control. When I came to a stop laying there foot throbbing I summoned up the courage to raise up and put weight on the injured limb, painful but I could hobble, I downed a few Alive and met friends for dinner at an all you can eat seafood buffet my foot still hurting but slowly improving. Next morning after warming up and more Pills I’m limping but feeling like things are worth a try and head out the door for the little over 2 hour drive to gold basin, Arizona from my house. By the time I got there after a few stops and marking my claim borders on the gps my hunt started around 7:30AM navigating the wash with my hurt foot a challenge and my detector kept signaling on my metal free Keene boots? Turns out the pair I’d grabbed and threw in the Jeep I’d used pulling up carpet puttin in a new wood floor and both shoes had a dozen or more staples stuck in the bottom, without pliers I got all but one tiny piece out of the bottom of my shoes the little staple end stuck in the bottom of the shoe on my hurt foot interfering every time I forgot it was there. Learning a new place I learned where not to hunt but I felt good about my detector small targets were slamming and I’m sure I’d have heard the gold if I’d been over any by around 2 in the afternoon my left knee was hurting as much as my right foot from taking up the slack walking uneven terrain and standing up from digging that I decided to call it a day and I’d accomplished my goal of some exercise and finding the place to hunt. As I was directing the 7000 around the area I kept 3 rocks that hit hard on the gpz, the two smaller very magnetic the larger magnetic but less than the little ones. The smallest roughly 130g on a little analog food scale the larger around 230g and the large stone (?) somewhere between 5 and 10#’s I’d guess for both pieces found several feet apart from each other. looking at other examples on the web they seem to hit the correct marks, any thoughts? Just earth rock or did I get lucky?

Well we finally got thru obligatory rehab work, and we dryblowing work. Drove the backhoe to the next area and decided to scrape a little while we were there... Glory be!!! 10grams right off. Most were in the dirt above the cap. Did a repeat the second day with 16grams? Got most of the gear ready to go... piddling today...enjoyed Sunday with a couple of mates. Getting my camper all ready to go bush... I repaired some tears and old loose seams yesterday with a Speedy Stitcher... handy tool to have if you ever have to sew canvas....works like a charm Built a new battery/propane housing frame on the tongue so I can boondock with 2 propane and 2 deep cycle batteries on hand. Also got a Yagi antenna from Trent that should give me Internet... that will be crazy out where I’m going... I already took the water trailer with 250 gallons down day before yesterday. Hopefully this area will keep producing well for us. Picture of me below shows how I love dryblowing.

After 20 years of hunting in southern NM, it's time for a new adventure in Central Texas. I met up with a couple of fellow hunters, Jimmy from NM and Phil from Az for one last relic hunt. It was a pleasure to meet Phil(Bergie), he is one on the nicest guys you'd want to meet and hunt with. Jimmy and I have been hunting together for the last 5 years and I couldn't have asked for a better friend and hunting partner. Turned out to be a great day to hunt, the weather was perfect and the targets were plenty. Everyone scored some nice buttons and relics, I couldn't have asked for a better way to close out my hunting days here in the southwest. I did manage to find a couple of my favorites buttons, a Dragoon and a Kepi along with the usual pre-civil war relics, bullets, percussion caps, epaulette piece and some small buck and ball lead. Jimmy unfortunately had to head out a bit early to tend to some family stuff. I'm sure he and Phil will post their finds later. The last picture is what I found after Jimmy headed home, the copper coin is from the mid 1800's, it's a Mexican copper 1/4 reale, we have found 8-9 at this location. My settings Park - 1 Sens - 24 F2 - 0 Recovery - 3 2- tones No disc Tone break set from -9 to +8 Thanks for looking!!

This gold prospecting and metal detecting story takes us all the way back to the beginning - my beginning that is. I was fortunate enough to be born in the Territory of Alaska in 1957. Alaska was still very much on the frontier back in those days. My father was a farm boy from the midwest who headed for Alaska in the early 50's with not much more than an old pickup truck. He worked as a longshoreman offloading ships in Seward, Alaska for a time. He decided to get some education, and earned his way through college in Fairbanks, Alaska, by driving steampipe for the fleet of gold dredges that were still working there. He spent some time in Seldovia, Alaska, working the "slime line" in a fish cannery. He met my mom in Seldovia, the two got married, and finally settled in Anchorage, Alaska. I came along in 1957. My father had taken a job as a surveyor but money was tight in the early years. I was raised on wild game and garden grown vegetables, and as soon as I was old enough to handle it, I was walking a trapline every winter with my father. Dad was a hard worker, and Alaska was having one of its many booms at the time - the construction of the oil and gas fields in Lower Cook Inlet. This was the Swanson River oilfield, discovered the year I was born. The state was prospering, and my father along with it as a surveyor on the new Swanson Field. He got the bug for flying early on, and by the time I became a teenager he finally got his dream plane at the time - a Piper Super Cub, the classic Alaska Bush airplane. Super Cubs equipped with oversize "tundra tires" can land just about anywhere you can find about 300 - 400 feet of open ground. A great little airplane and the one I ended up flying to get my own pilot's license. Super Cub N1769P parked on knoll in Talkeetna Mountains, Alaska It was in this same timeframe that dad got me hooked on gold prospecting. In 1972 I saw an ad in a magazine "Find Lost Treasure" and had acquired my first metal detector, a White's Coinmaster 4. This must have got discussions going about gold, and my father did have some knowledge on the subject having worked around the gold mines in Fairbanks. He took me to a little creek south of Anchorage, Bertha Creek, and I found my very first flakes of gold! By the ripe old age of 14 gold fever was in the air, I had my first metal detector, and already wanted a gold dredge. My first dredge, a 3" Keene with no floatation, was on the way to me in 1973. Keep in mind that the price of gold had only recently been deregulated from the old fixed price of $35 per ounce. In 1972 it was around $60 per ounce, and in 1973 made it to just over $100 per ounce. The money was not my motivation at all. I already just loved finding gold, and the connection to the prospectors of old and the historical quest for gold were more compelling than any dream of striking it rich. I just wanted to find gold! My first metal detector and first gold dredge (my 3502 had the older aluminum header box & a power jet) A young man with a new detector, new gold dredge, gold fever, and a father willing to fly him anywhere in Alaska on adventure. How great is that? Now there was only one problem - where to go? There was no internet then, so it boiled down to libraries and research. In short order I discovered the United States Geological Survey (U.S.G.S.) bulletin series and the number one Alaska title of the series, Placer Deposits of Alaska, U.S.G.S. Bulletin 1374 by Edward H. Cobb. This one book and the references contained in it became my prospecting guide to Alaska. My desired target? Remote locations with large gold nuggets! I read the book and certain places just jumped out at me. One was the Iditarod area and places like Ganes Creek and Moore Creek - tales told elsewhere. This paragraph of page 114 caught my eye: "Placer mining in the Chisana district, first of creek gravels and later of bench and old channel deposits of Bonanza and Little Eldorado Creeks, has always been on a small scale with simple equipment. The remoteness of the area, shortages of water on some streams, and the small extent of the deposits all prevented the development of large operations. There has been little activity since World War II; the last reported mining was a two-man nonfloat operation in 1965." Wow, that alone sounds pretty good. Nothing really about the gold however. The secret to the Placer Deposits series is not so much the books themselves, though they are great for getting ideas, like I did. The key is to use the references listed and in this case the main one is The Chisana-White River District, Alaska, U.S.G.S. Bulletin 630 (1916) by Stephen Reid Capps. It turns out I had stumbled over the location of the last actual gold rush in Alaska in 1913. It was a small rush and did not last long, but it did mark the end of an era. The world was on the brink of war and the age of gold rushes was soon to be history. The history of the area is covered in the report starting on page 89. It is fascinating reading, but it was this note on page 105 that really sealed the deal: "The gold is bright, coarse, and smoothly worn. The largest nugget found has a value of over $130, and pieces weighing a quarter of an ounce or over make up about 5 per cent of the total gold recovered. The gold is said to assay $16.67 an ounce." Gold nuggets a quarter ounce or larger make up five percent of the gold? And that $130 nugget at $16.67 an ounce? Somewhere over seven ounces. That's all I needed to know. Very remote, worked by simple means, and large gold - I wanted to go to Chisana in general and Bonanza Creek in particular. Even the creek names scream gold - Bonanza Creek, Big Eldorado Creek, Little Eldorado Creek, Coarse Money Creek, and Gold Run. Now all we had to do was get there. But when I said remote, I meant remote. Chisana is practically in Canada 250 air miles from Anchorage. To be continued..... Chisana, Alaska location map

I began this Rye Patch trip on Thursday morning about 2 AM. It was time to go meet Dig It and see how he was doing there. This time it was a normal trip without the burning satellite re-entry I saw on one trip before. I was treated with a full moon on my way up 395, 6, 95 and I80. We met up without a problem and I headed out to places where I wanted to look and some places where I had found nuggets in the past. I'd say at least half of my trips to Rye Patch get me on a nugget and the other half don't. This is my first trip up here since Australia so I'm wondering what I gained from all that swinging. Anyway, it was good to meet up with Ken, have a chat about his escapades and try to help him understand what little I know about Rye Patch. We parted and I expected to see him again the next day. I have a bit of an open schedule and he warned me that it was going to be warmer than we planned. I went on to near the burn barrel and spent one of those glorious nights of sleep I get after doing an all nighter. I had no sleep the previous night and I can stretch out in the 4Runner and enjoy a night of no city or neighbor noise! Planes are constantly landing at LAX and if they are from Asia they fly over Santa Monica. No planes at Rye Patch. haha I went to bed at dark, watching the sunset out the front and watching the moon rise in the back! I captured the sunrise the next morning. Rye Patch is full. I've been here many times when all of that area was dry. It was a nice, clear, cool morning. Time to get going. I headed in a direction to take advantage of the morning. Before I got to my spot I had my first target of the day. I dug around and in the early light with my sunglasses on and dirt on the target I thought it was lead. There's lots of trash in the area as I found out later. I looked and looked and finally gave it a mouth wash and I saw the color! Yeeee haaaa ... a nice nugget. I've cleaned it up by soaking it in vinegar. I don't know the weight yet. I'll edit this post when I find out. I think it is my best Rye Patch nugget. Lucky Friday the 13th full moon nugget. I gridded that area for half the day and only found trash. I don't think I would have that nugget now if it had been in the reverse order. I found the clue early and gridded. If I would have found trash, trash, trash without a clue I probably would have moved on. I discovered a couple of things while looking for more in that area but they will be put into another post. It is my only nugget of the 3 days so far but I'm seeing some new to me patches. More travel tomorrow while the temperature is up. Mitchel

Went to San Francisco and met my friend Joe. Next day we have been invited by Wes Dering to detect on one of his claims in the Iowa Hill area. On the way we stopped at Citrus Hills visiting Larry at Big Valley Metal detectors who let me try different headphones with my SDC2300. I settled for the Sunray Pro Gold which felt most comfortable and best sounding to me. Thank’s Larry it was a real pleasure to meet you! From there we went to meet Wes. He sold a very nice light and rugged pick to me before which he mailed to my friend’s house. Meeting him he showed us around the claim and off we went with lots of big dreams. I have to say that I come from Germany and have never found a square nail before. So I was wishing to find one square nail and lots of Gold. It seems like the Good Lord listened to just one part….I found a bunch of square nails but no Gold. I was lucky to assist Wes unearthing 3 nice nuggets from the same hole. He was using the GPZ7000 I was running my SDC2300. Putting 1 nugget (approx 2 grams) back in the hole and running the machines over there wasn’t any signal to be heard from the SDC but the 7000 sounded off real nice. Big difference between those 2 machines. Big difference in price also! Wes suggested to run the SDC in sensitivity 4 instead of 2 as the signals are more distinct. The machine kept stable so I ran it in 4. We had a great day and lots of fun. I was using my Equinox 800 as well. Gold 1 setting / Iron to 0 / swing speed 6-7 / sensitivity around 18-20 / nothing out -9-8-7 / ground tracking / small coil it was stable, ground balanced well but did not find gold either. Bits and pieces of lead and wire, 22 casings and square nails. With both machines I found some insane small stuff. Next day we went to a claim on the N Yuba and camped out for some days. Panning some nice flakes, snorkeling looking for crevices, using the vacuum cleaner on the bedrock and metal detector. My total take from panning is 1.2 grams. I finally found a good signal in bedrock. That had to be Gold – finally!!!!! Breaking the bedrock a small piece of very thin wire came to daylight…..grrrrrrr!!!!!! However it got in there???? Going to some other places finding many items including an old tobacco can (I was hoping for some gold coins or nuggets inside but there weren’t any) but no Gold. Second last day I finally got lucky. My SDC2300 rang up on two little pieces. They looked just like rock but weren’t magnetic. Checking them with my Equinox 800 in Gold 1 the smaller piece showed a clean +1 the bigger piece a +2. I did not believe it was Gold but took them home. Being at home now I checked them under the microscope and they are specimen containing Gold. Finally!!! yeah yeah yeah!!!! It is really sick how small of a gold these machines picked up. On my last day we went to Roaring Camp (if you haven’t been there you are missing something) where I panned a little bit of Gold from the day pile (just 10 pans or so) and found a .38 bullet which sounded off real nice with my SDC2300 – no nuggets (they are there for sure). I would like to thank my friend Joe who made all this possible, Larry from Big Valley Metal Detectors, Wes Dering for a very nice pick, a great day on his claim and some nice gold he gave to me as a present to take home, Gregg and Mike, Kim from Roaring Camp, Steve Herschbach for his advice how to run the Equinox on hot ground and some nice folks who’s names I forgot who made it possible to prospect on the N Yuba and Kanaka creek. One of the best pieces of Equipment I invested in is my 2 liter water bladder for my backpack (Camel bag) but for the next rip I will get me a 3 liter. 2 liters is just not enough fluid for a whole day in +100 F. Folks, don’t get dehydrated this is a very serious issue.

New story thread.... Leaving for OZ around May 4th this year-- Can't reveal the details because it is super secret this year.... But hope to be upload some better video this year--- I have been searching for the simplest way to use a camera while in the field... I haven't found any yet that are that simple, most ways i have tried become so time consuming that they interfere with my fun and relaxation!!! ANd my TAsk mAster dont like it when i am ... "fkn around!" If he sees too many videos or pictures he will scold me... Maybe a selfie, "follow me" cheapie drone----- I could hang a piece of bait meat on it for the flies while it is hovering near me,,,LOLOL This is Jan 20th and I will be traveling to LA on Feb 3rd ..for my last 3 months of "work" Carry on !

There is a lot of meat in this article! https://www.popularmechanics.com/adventure/outdoors/a20066497/shawn-ryan-ground-truth-gold-rush/

All of us travel to and fro to find gold. Sometimes we find it and sometimes we don't. If we are 'lucky' and look around us on the way to the goldfields we are surrounded by beautiful nature and geology. One of my most surprising trips was taking Hwy 93 north out of Las Vegas, Nevada towards Ely, Nevada. I was headed to the total eclipse in Wyoming. There was quite a lot of water and wetlands around the Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge which was a great surprise. I'm wondering what are the great drives that other prospectors feel are their favorites. This could become a long thread or possibly a separate forum because it could include the drive, campsites, side trips and the like. I'm always reminded of JW's posting of his gold sites in New Zealand (makes me want to go) which are so scenic and I saw many vistas in Australia that still pop into my mind. We all have 'hidden' off road trips and areas all over the world. Let's see how the editor lets this one go. Mitchel

Hi Folks, I've been on the road detecting Fairbanks/Richards district then on to Jack Wade & 40 mile area AK. and like I have said Watch out Nevada here I come.... Doctors said I shouldn't sit & watch football & drink adult beverages all winter so here I am on my way to Northern Nevada & I would like to hook up with anyone that's detecting. Have toy hauler & 6x6 and all the right tools. I am in Oregon right now trying to slow my roll, 112 @ my friends in Nevada so gonna BLM Campground for a couple weeks in Oregon unless someone says lets go. Otherwise will be working my way south as temps come down a bit, AC works in camper but not outside... Haha !!!! So will be bck. on site reading the news & stories again & posting some good summer finds, lets detect, Gold / Relics / Coins just want to swing a detector...….

Between the bad experience with the X-Coil and our general inability to learn the geology of WA gold finding, we've run up the white flag. Frankly, without the help of Paul and Trent we really wouldn't have made it this far. Most people have no real appreciation for how vast and roadless it is out here in WA. When you pop into a market in a tiny town of 600 and they have on offer Kangaroo tail by the kilo, you've really reached the limits of habitation. On the day we met Dave, we drove over 300k and saw 4 other vehicles and a bunch of dead roo's on the side of the road. There are dry water courses that are marked for the depth during severe rain. All Ute's have snorkel intakes and some raised exhaust tailpipes. Otherwise there's no water except in towns and the flies are inescapable. I can't imagine how we would have survived without the gazebo and insect net panels, especially for cooking or relaxing. It is an adventure and I can't say I would be satisfied if I hadn't given it an honest try. I'd always wonder what might have been. We'll be packing up camp Yank tomorrow then a flight out of Perth on Wed. I'll be happy to get home, but that 110 degrees in sunny Yuma is going to be a drag. While I've been away we got a new family member, a bouncing baby "GoldenDoodle" coincidently named "Aussie" in my absence. I'll have my work cut out for me with dog training for awhile. Talking with Trent he suggests I fall on my sword with Minelab and send them the whole unadulterated mess and ask for help. Perhaps they'll view it as an intellectual challenge or chalk it off as a Yank not smart enough to leave well enough alone. Either way, all I've got right now is a poorly designed boat anchor or an odd conversation piece We'll see. We'll catch you on the other side of the world next week.

Condor and his trip/notes was the inspiration of my post. He too realized the easy gold is gone, but we go for the Adventure too. Thanks Condor for sparking my old memories. At least you can say.."I did it". Spring 2006 three buddies/I decided it was time to quit talking about it and just do "Australia" with a detector for gold. With many details left out, but a quick overview. Yes I made it home (America) and am alive. The venomous snakes, iguanas (4 foot poisonous lizard), attacking kangaroos, wild goats and monster sized spiders/centipedes could not stand up against the rancid ripe odor of an un-bathed light skinned Yankee running across the dehydrated desert flats with detector in hand. I just returned from an enjoyable 1st time trip to Western Australia and the richly red iron soils of the Outback areas of known golden fields Kalgoorlie/Leanora. Even though I caught some serious plane crud on the 16 hour flight from LAX to Sydney, AU. and it lasted hard the 1st week and a half before I got a little better...I still managed to have fun. The Outback is one of a beautiful and secluded primitive place this mother earth allows us to play with many sites, sounds and wonders to gather and ponder in the mind. I would love to return some day, but would do things a little more different and be set up for gold hunting more for the serious BUSH and not be seen for a week at a time. Most areas we detected had been hunted really hard (just like here in the US such as Rye Patch, NV.) and we would find the crumbs that others missed do to their lack of detector knowledge and skill. We did manage to find an occasional small site that was off the beaten path and get a few nuggets. The Minelab GP-3500 with a Commander 15” MONO elliptical coil ran flawlessly and found most of my nuggets. In fact all 4 of us were using GP-3500’s and were amazed at how well they ran in the much heard of highly mineralized Australian soil. I did manage to find 4 small patches that produced the majority of my gold.. In no way do I base the success of this trip on recovered gold, but as usual, I hoped for and expected more. Of the 4 detectorists (including myself), we found approx 110 nuggets and one 5 oz specimen. I managed 62 of those nuggets and the specimen. To give you a weight total, we had a combined wt of approx. 4 ounces and then the 5 ounce specimen. Of the 4 ounces of gold nuggets we all found, my total wt was just over 64 grams (2 ounces) for the 62 nuggets, so you get an idea of the size with an average of my nuggets being around 1 gram each. The largest nugget (not including the specimen) was 3.9 gram and there were 2 of those found. Yes I was hoping for a few larger nuggets and even expected that we each could find a 1/4 oz'er but that never happened. Does that mean the trip was a bust? Most certainly not and I assure you, it was an amazing trip that I'll fondly remember for the rest of my life. Moral of the story to add to Condors trip. Over 10+ years ago, 4 good American nugget hunters with the newest detector technologies did not find what we had expected and hoped for in the gold category. 4 of us Americans did something most dream about but never do and we'll remember the Australian Outback...and those girls wearing pasties, for the rest of our lives. I always wondered if there was a nugget under one of those pasties? Maybe go back some day to check. Thanks for caring. Gerry in Idaho Gerry's Detectors www.gerrysdetectors.com

I'm late getting out week 4, but unfortunately there wasn't much to report. We've had wind, then some wind & rain, then some really fine days. We lost a day here and there between weather, then the meeting with Dave on the X-Coil. We had 2 long days at the very southern end of the lease and did a great deal of exploring. We found a few crumbs. Dennis actually found 12 nuggets that weighed a total of 1.2 grams. It was enough to keep us busy and always thinking we were one coil swing away from a really good strike. We just couldn't get that coil over the big stuff. I'm using our backup GPX5000 with the 14X9 Coiltek Elite coil while I'm waiting for my Patch Lead to be completed. I was amazed at how quiet that machine can be. I cranked up the RX and cranked down the Stabilizer just so I could hear some noise. I found 3 tiny crumbs, 1 of them in one of my own boot scrapes from last week. Clearly, the 5000 can find tiny gold. My Patch Lead is delayed for another week, apparently one of the 5-pin connecter screws twisted off during reassembly. I'm satisfied I'm not missing much if anything with the 5000, but I really want to get that 17" X-Coil in motion. We're making our move to a new lease tomorrow so we've got a full day of packing and hauling Camp Yank. The flies remain a constant distraction during midday. I bring out the bug hood the minute one dive bombs my eyes or nose. They are persistent little buggers, Dennis is a lot more tolerant. Paul made it back safe and sound. He's chomping at the bit to get some of this $1400 an oz gold out of the ground. Their backhoe is up and running again, so good things should start happening soon for their team. Sorry for the short and relatively uneventful report. Maybe next week, it's all about the possibilities not the probabilities that keeps us swinging those detectors.

Been back from wintering in Florida for over a month, and the weather finally got nice so headed to northern Nevada to meet up with some friends and nugget hunt. I got there a day before the others, so took off on the quad to look for new spots. Love the freedom the atv gives me out there, and the scenery is great! I explored some higher ravines and washes, and actually got a nice little .68g nugget a couple inches down at the edge of a wash. Unfortunately, after quite a few hours hitting the area pretty hard, that was the lone piece. We looked for new patches about 60-70% of the next week, and hit a couple old ones the rest of the time. Lots of skunked days. I did get 3 more pieces at a pounded patch, and another while detecting an alluvial fan off the mountains for the first time....Chet got one there too, but the gold was so scattered and random...no patches to be found. While wandering around I noticed this little guy....he wasn’t shy at all, jumped from rock to bush, and waited patiently for me to turn my phone on to get his pic. Here’s my take for the trip....much smaller than usual for my Nevada outings. Very tough hunting, but a great time anyway. Enjoyed some delicious meals with the guys(Tom is an incredible camp chef!), Chet had repaired and souped up my dry washer over the winter so it’s ready for action up at the cabin, and George found some amazing crystals and gave me a couple cool ones. Brian even made a cameo appearance, and as usual found some nice gold in a short time! So the sun sets on another detecting adventure....can’t wait for the next one!

Week 3 started off a little slow. It rained for 2 days, then a day of sun, then a 3rd day of rain. You just can't drive the Aussie tracks when they're wet. The camp held up well in the rain, no significant leaks. Fortunately, I brought audio books and a Kindle so we kept entertained. All the clouds put our power grid to the test. We had to use Paul's generator a couple times to top off the battery. I'm including a photo of our power grid, looks like a soup sandwich. We're running about 200 watts of flexible solar panels into a 100amp hr Li-Ion battery. With full sun running only the outback refrigerator, our battery stays fully charged. At night with charging our equipment we drop about 1/4 of battery capacity. We should have thought more about charging compatibility, as it stands we need 110AC for the laptop and 2way radios, cigarette lighter plugs for lights and USB for phones and GPS. What a mess trying to keep it all functioning. I had to rewire our cigarette lighter outlet bank, the wires fried somewhere along the line. I'm ordering a backup tonight. We took the time to go into town and do laundry and take hot showers at the Caravan Park. I ran my clothes through twice, I think the Aussie red dirt may be permanent on some of my stuff. We've been out doing real prospecting looking for new patches along the "line of strike". We've been off the beaten path and as a precaution punch in the GPS coordinates of the truck. Like Daniel Boone, I've never been lost, though a might bewildered a few times. Just when I think I'm in unexplored territory, I find and old timer's campsite or dry-blower tailngs where he sampled the same zone. Our only luck has been a few crumbs off old dry-blower zones. Modern mechanized prospectors have often run a dozer over the old timer's tailings and scraped things to bedrock. If there is some of original caprock left, we have a better chance of finding something. Paul has been off on a frolic of his own. We don't expect to see him for another week, in the meantime Trent sold the caravan Paul was using. Paul is homeless, I hope he doesn't repo his pop-up trailer that we're using. Trent is thinking about moving our half of Camp Yank about 60k to the south to detect a new area said to have good gold. It will be a challenge dividing up the campsite necessities and we'll miss nightly entertainment of Paul's crazy stories. Sunset from Downunder. That's all for now.

Tough sledding out here in WA. We've put in a lot of miles exploring along the "line of strike" gold producing zone. We generally start from old Drill Site roads or old pushes and do a 1/4 mile up and back grid along the likely areas. The few we're finding are where weathering has exposed deeper ground on the old pushes, plus the Z 7000 can find tiny gold the original detectors missed. They didn't miss much based on our return so far. Our hearts were thumping yesterday when I got a deep low tone way down in the caprock. Luckily Nurse Paul was nearby and brought over the jackhammer. Paul put in a yeoman's effort on the hammer, Dennis and I traded off digging out the hole. We waved over the hole with everything we had, GPX, GPZ and 2300, and with the exception of the 2300 it all sounded good, but it just never improved even after we were down over a foot. Finally even the 2300 was giving us a signal and we gave up for the evening. Paul went back this morning and finally pulled out some kind of hot rock, the story is much more detailed, but that's the jist. No doubt Paul has his version of events. The weather has turned nasty, threatening rain and gusty winds. Camp Yank took some damage from the wind, turned over the prep table for cooking. Pots, pans, plates and everything associated got dumped into the dirt. Paul cleaned it up considerably, but I think he left some soap on my dinner plate, cuz I'm feeling a bit puny this morning. We have the gazebo anchored on each end with an ATV to keep it from blowing away. Dennis gold photo is his cumulative, mine shows this weeks finds only. It's just a matter of time till we hit a big one. Flies continue to be a menace, they just don't quit. They're having a tough time today with these gusty winds, but they'll find a way.

We're still getting dialed in for the WA conditions. In many places we can run the GPZ on High Yield, Difficult, with a Sens between 10 and 15. We've hit some old patches that have been scraped, then trying to venture out around them to see if the patch might continue. These places have been detected pretty well, all have dig holes scattered through them. We've had some minor success, I hit a 3 gram piece right off the go, from there it's been nothing but tiddler scraps. Surprisingly small pieces that Difficult mode sings out on them. All very shallow though. The weather is crazy. Cold mornings needing a hoodie, then warming up to weather more suitable for shorts. We've seen a few 'roos and a couple Emus, other than that it's just flies and more flies. We've tried some cream they use for the horses, seems to last an hour or so then the flies are back with a vengeance. The quit just before sundown and don't come back till it starts to warm up in the morning. Just part of the challenge. Our totals to date. Dennis had a couple day headstart, but I'm trying to catch up.

This is from a local news report. A local prospector known as Sourdough Scott is being investigated for contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Not only a single child but it appears an entire forth grade class may have been involved. The local police claim to have surveillance photos of Sourdough Scott teaching several young children about prospecting , local history and then shamelessly showing them how to pan for gold. Many parents were understandably very upset." I have spent thousands of dollars on video games and a big screen T.V.", said Mrs. Adit," but now all my child wants to do is play outside with a $5.00 gold pan. What's a mother to do". It has also been reported that a rogue gang of forth grade children, who call themselves "The Company" Turned on all of the neighborhood outside faucets and sprinklers then channeled the water at a one half percent grade for several thousand feet South of town and began washing off an entire vacant lot. It yielded $67.95 per cubic yard in gold with a fair showing of silver and a trace of platinum. 2000 cubic yard were washed with 150.000 yards remaining. (investors wanted). Sourdough Scott has apparently taken flight to avoid prosecution and could not be reached for comment. NEWS UPDATE This report may have been based on some poor information by an unreliable source.Namely a miscreant prospector referred to as Klunker. We now know that this was a scheduled activity for the local forth grade class and Mr. Sourdough Scott took an entire day off during his busiest time of year to assist with an annual Living History Program for the school. Though Mr. Sourdough Scott doesn't even have kids he works with them in an exceptionally expert fashion.

NASA’s Mars 2020 will land in Jezero Crater, pictured here. The image was taken by instruments on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which regularly takes images of potential landing sites for future missions. On ancient Mars, water carved channels and transported sediments to form fans and deltas within lake basins. Examination of spectral data acquired from orbit show that some of these sediments have minerals that indicate chemical alteration by water. The sediments contain clays and carbonates (courtesyNASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/WUWT) Can't wait to wave a coil over those outwash gravel deposits. At least there's no BB's and rusty nails, could be a few metallic meteorites though - - - Luckily, I've got an old hot air balloon under the house somewhere - and warm winter woolies, so I'll see all you good people later. Wish me luck - - - I offered to take Reg along on the expedition - but he declined the invitation - can't for the life of me understand why? Not like him at all ;<)

We started our journey on Sunday from PHX to SFO. First leg was no problem. At SFO things deteriorated. After arrival the airline departure board showed 1 Sydney departure logically in the international terminal 2 hrs hence. We made our way to the international terminal and settled in for a wait. I checked the departure board several times, only one Sydney departure showing a minor delay. At boarding time our boarding passes were rejected, wrong flight. They really couldn't help us with why there was only one Sydney flight and we weren't on it. We scurried back up to the main terminal, one Sydney flight now boarding, but upon closer examination a different flight number. There was no help desk to be seen so in desperation I Googled our flight number. Google said terminal A, and we were in terminal G. Again checked the departure board, one Sydney flight showing, not ours. We discovered that terminal A was a long way from here, after a mad dash we discovered that not only was terminal A way over there, it required leaving the secured terminal and going through security again. Yep, the security queue was clogged with the unwashed masses and the chances of us making the flight dwindled to nil. Oh no. So we went to look for the Qantas desk to try and fix our problem. No luck, Qantas has windows open from 6:00pm to 10:00pm. So I called Qantas and got an English as a Second Language(ESL) clerk, barely intelligible given airport noise and accent. Basically she told me I was F'd and that our entire ticket would be cancelled, no refund. I knew better than to argue at this point and called our booking agent Orbitz. Again, ESL but a sincere effort to help. After some long hold time we discovered that Qantas was closed for the night, but that they would work on it. I booked a $300.00 hotel room for the night and went out to catch the shuttle. The hotel clerk assured me the shuttle would pick us up at 12:52. At 1:25 I surrendered, the hotel said they would reimburse me for a cab. Next day, Orbitz came through and re-booked our flight for the same time, same terminal A. I asked about our baggage, "can't help you there", take it up with the Qantas counter at 6:00pm. First in line at Qantas 6:00pm they told me that our baggage was downstairs and would be re-tagged and put on the flight. Are you sure? Indeed, when you get to the gate you can check with them. Of course the gate assured us that naturally our baggage was on the flight. NOT. Well we caught the flight and I found that economy seats are, well economical. I had a middle seat for a 15 hr flight. My row mates were tolerable, but the aisle seat went to sleep and I hated to be an ugly American and wake him up just to stretch my legs. At about the 10 hr mark, I couldn't resist and woke him up. He was pleasant enough about the whole thing. Curiously, the young lady next me boarded very last and arrived in sweaty dither. She later told me that the Departure board showed only one Sydney flight, the same one I encountered the day before, and that she discovered the mistake in time to sprint through the terminal and security was very kind to move her to the head of the line, just in time to make final boarding. She was much younger, fitter and prettier than me, so she pulled it off in time. We arrived Sydney and went to claim our baggage to clear customs for our continuation flight to Perth. Surprise, no baggage. We went to the claims desk to make all the necessary notifications and almost missed our connection to Perth sans baggage. To make a long story tolerable, we're in Perth with 3 of 4 bags. 3 arrived at the hotel last night, the 4th won't arrived until after we make our flight to Meekatharra. Qantas assures us the 4th bag will get couriered out to us verily. Naturally, that bag has Dennis's detector in it. I guess he can dig targets for me and Paul in the meantime. So, the journey begins... Stay tuned for our misadventures in the Summer of OZ. I'm typing at 5:00 am local, suffering from jet lag. Hopefully Steve will edit as necessary.

We are still snowed in here in the Northern Sierras so I have no new adventures to share with you all so I guess I'll have to reminisce a bit. My cousin seems to have escaped the family curse of the prospector and is a member of normal society as long as he avoids bad influences -like me. I told him about an interesting spot on an old map that I would like to go find and ask if he would like to go along. He readily agreed but he didn't have much time so we decided to take his rig instead of my old Jeep because it was much faster. We left out of town and very quickly took a steep path that took us up several thousand feet. I was able to direct him to where we could look down on the prospecting spot but but it was obvious that we would need my Jeep to get all the way into it so we turned around and headed back to town. Well, My cousin got to playing around in his fancy (and expensive) rig, going way too fast and tipping it way to one side and then way to the other side then he ask me if it made me nervous. "Not in the least I replied". I was not nervous- I was terrified. He tipped the rig WAY up on it's side again except this time, OOPS , it rolled completely over but fortunately it came back upright. In the interest of keeping the story brief I will just say we made it back to town ok but I now know that my old Jeep is a much better prospecting rig than a North American T28.

Hello to all i managed to find a bit of time to share my experience and trip in the Goldfields.So here we go: I managed to escape Melbourne for 3 days as wife was working there and i was doing the driving.Was hot very hot and i understand now why there is time to prospect and time to stay in an air cooled house. Anyway as a result of a post on the forum i contacted Goldrat (aka Peter) and after some very good chat and instruction we met in Maryborough .The drive from Melbourne for me was epic as : 1)i loved the scenery 2) i get lost very easily (But thanks to Peter instruction and a capricious phone i reached my destination without problem). So we head up to Talbot for bnb and to pick up a SDC2300 complimentary of my landlord Neil.We then headed to our first spot ,and while Peter was narrating the tales of mountain of gold retrieve from the area i was taking as many pics as possible as this was completely new to me Peter found the first bit of gold using his faithfull Equinox with the 6".......for the setting ask him . My bnb road SPOT 1 Wasn't me!!!!!!!! Scoooooore Peter first gold ,he gave it to me lost it in my suitcase.......

Just returned home from a crazy road-trip. We had a work event in Las Vegas last week, and we had some equipment to haul in.The company said they'd pay my gas, so I decided to drive it, and take a few extra days off and go to one of my old Spanish trail sites to detect on my way home. What a trip it turned out to be! Snow blizzard on the way to Vegas. Then from Vegas to California, was one of the worst rain storms in like 50 years...I was out on a little two lane, twisty, curvy road that routes you though the mountains and it started out as just small oozes of mud filling areas of the road, or wet slicks as water filled the roads, but as I progressed higher into the mountains, it was progressively worsening, now small streams and creeks and boulders were taking over the road, then massive mud slides onto the roads. The road would worsen. The roads were washed out and flooded with white water rivers now taking over, filling the road with a debris field of rocks, small trees and brush, and tons of sand. One one occasion I was blasting through what amounted to a massive river flowing across the road, and while trying to blast though it a massive sand bar under the water attempted to trap the car, but luckily the FJ is a very capable off road vehicle, and it was able to make it though this and many more obstacles to come. So after all this, I get to my destination and the motel had canceled everyone's reservations because they had no water or power. Great, now I'm out in the middle of BFE with no place to stay and I'm not driving back through raging water flash floods. I ended up spending the night in my FJ Cruiser in the middle of the desert. It was a weird night, to be made even more strange by the fact that the only radio station I could pick up out there was playing Indian chants all night - LOL Between storms, I managed to get in a day of detecting, but with an even larger storm system nipping at my heals, I decided to head back before it hit the fan! I managed a good day testing the 15" Equinox coil at a site that's been stingy lately. Tom and I hunted it the last time we were there, and neither of us dug a single coin, but for whatever reason the Equinox lit it up (tu) Enjoy! Flickr account is buggered up, else I'd post a still pic, but here's the video: GL&HH Cal

I posted this on the coin & relic forum, but suspect a lot of Equinox forum members may not venture over there, so decided to post it here. I tested the 15" coil at an old Spanish trail stage stop and was pretty blown away by the results, here's a link to the story and video: GL&HH, Cal

I’ve got my lads home this summer so I’ve been grabbing every chance I can get to drag them out detecting. For me finding some gold is always a good way to get some ready cash for incidental things like beer which both boys now seem to have discovered a taste for.? My attitude is the more I can get them out detecting with them the better because they will soon enough be pursuing their own life directions and if my life at that age is anything to go by no doubt it will be in another town a long way away. So in exchange for beer, a bed, air con, food and the odd bit of cash here and there, oh and don’t forget always running out of data on our internet plan,? I get to occasionally grab one or both lads and go do a bit of father son detecting. Yesterday was a lot of fun, the weather has returned to hot and muggy again (typical February weather in Central QLD) so an early start was necessary. This time we decided to target an area not far from a high voltage power line, not because we love the constant discordant threshold (The GPZ is heaps better than any of gold machine in this regard), but because the gold tends to be chunkier thanks to the area not having been detected as often due to the interference. The keys to detecting here are to find a clear frequency for the location, this is changed pretty regularly as the frequency of the line changes often too, I also find lowering the sensitivity helps a lot and also backing off the B&Z booster a bit to take the edge off the variation. There is also a fair amount of trash so we tend to just focus on signals that sound a bit buried. I was lucky and pinged a deep 1 gram bit only 30 minutes into the session, I held off letting Tim know because its better in a nasty area like this to keep things low key and not too competitive. Being hot and sweaty as well as listening to an annoying unstable threshold is bad enough without feeling pressured from Dad. Anyway this session was kinder to me and I managed to ping quite a few chunky bits poking my coil here and there amongst the old boys diggings on the edges of the drainage. Poor Tim was struggling he had pockets full of lead and trash but no gold, so I suggested he head on over to were I pinged the first bit. Right on knock off time I saw Tim grinning triumphantly and he then refusing to finish off for the day until he had covered the area more thoroughly. Long story short, Tim got the biggest nugget for the session sitting right at 1.6 grams with a grand total of 7.4 grams between us. Seeing how were are partners we spilt the gold with 3.7 grams each or $214 AU for a few hours work, no wonder he likes coming home for a visit.?? JP Some pics of yesterdays session and a few from another one last week. The gold is just a bonus, the true gold is the time spent with my boy.