Search the Community

Hello to all I wanted to work on that project for a while,Fisher has always been synonym for me of Treasure discovery since I started the hobby 26 years ago,reading French magazine Tresor de l Histoire with pictures of Fisher detectors all over the place ...................O0000 boy how many hours I spend staring at the 1266xb.............I really like my F75DST et had a few Goldbug pro and G2 so I decided to start a bid of DIY .I am im Europe so parts aren't as available as on your side of the pond,i contacted couple of dealers and managed to get the parts for the handle,Arm cup is XP as it is 100 gr lighter than the fisher one,all carbon bits bought from Italy and Chian,the Clamp is from Sweden and designed for pole for window cleaning,coil will be an 13" Ultimate it is on her way from Bulgaria anyway here we go : Ladies and Gentlemen (DRUM ROLLS): the GOLDBUG PRO 2 lite:

On one of my posts, GM_Amateur asked about the newer version Fisher Gold Bug and Gold Bug-Pro. He wanted to know if they are Gold Detectors or Multi Purpose. I classify the Gold Bug and Gold Bug-Pro as true Multi Purpose detectors. I put the MXT series and F75 in the same category too. To me, it's a detector with medium kHz operating in the teens and having an adjustable Discriminator capable of rejecting ferrous and nonferrous targets if desired. When I tested the 1st prototypes of the Gold Bug I was very impressed with its sensitivity to small pickers (see photo). Then when the GB-Pro came out and I was able to get my hands on the larger coil, I was very happy with the performance. The GB & GB Pro were priced right at the time (less than many others), but performed well. I could take 1 detector on a trip in the mountains and use it for both gold and coin/relics. Your thoughts and input please?

After a busy day on the slopes doing some skiing yesterday I managed to score an afternoon around Queenstown area to myself as my wife had some friends staying there and was hanging around with them, I'm not a social bumble bee and very far from it, in fact I'm a recluse, especially with people I don't really know so I took the opportunity to take off and do some exploring. It's a wonder kiwijw puts up with me, It's said I'm very antisocial which bothers my wife, I on the other hand don't notice it. A couple of days ago I went to one of the spots kiwijw had shown me that I've done OK at especially with my high frequency VLFs and he's done pretty damn good at using his GPZ but unfortunately that turned into a skunk for me so I wanted to try find some new ground closer to town that I can get to easier. I used my GPX 4500 with Joey coil on that trip. I had read the previous night about some old workings close to town that could be easily accessed in the time I had. I put my Mountain bike in the back of the car so I could speed up my trek even more rather than walking to these workings. I had no idea where they were and I'm very prone to getting lost, all I knew is a walking track takes me to them so I jumped on my bike and took the track. I wasn't even sure I was going to do any detecting so I just threw my Gold Bug Pro with Nel Snake in my backpack as it packs down tiny and weighs nothing. It also doesn't overly react to shotgun pellets so I thought may as well use that on the scouting missions so I don't spend my time digging up pellets as I didn't have very long. I have had a bit of a love hate relationship with my Gold Bug Pros, I've struggled to have any success with them but I haven't put the hours on them either as I quickly upgraded off them. Today proves they are very capable of finding TINY gold. I found various spots along my ride that looked alright for detecting, some that looked to be bedrock. I wasn't sure so I detected around a few locations along the track and wasn't having much joy. I stopped at a spot right by the river which was very rocky with a thin layer of dirt over the rock and looked promising. After 15 minutes of detecting around I got my first tiny little nugget using the Gold Bug Pro. It was in a bit of a crack in the schist, I had to scrape it out with a screwdriver, my guess it was about an inch in a crack. It was 0.021 of a gram, the size I only ever expected to find with my GM1000 or Equinox 800. I only had about 2 hours all up so after another 20 or so minutes checking the area I decided to call it quits and head back to the car. I ended up only being 15 minutes late for the wife pickup 🙂 I didn't have my phone with me so I couldn't take any photos at the time, I left it in the car by accident as I was in such a rush. What is significant about this for me is it's only my second ever nugget with the GBP, it was absolutely tiny and far exceeding my expectations for the GBP and my first detected nugget that I've had no help with, all my other nuggets I've detected in the past kiwijw showed me where and how to find them. This was my lone wolf nugget, I found the location and the nugget alone. I never did find the old workings but there is always another day. I am hoping kiwijw hasn't found this location yet so I can finally share with him a spot I've found that has gold, he's been a good teacher, mentor and friend. It would be hard to find a person willing to show you how to find gold in an area you work yourself, thereby taking albeit small bits of gold off him that he would of potentially found. A nice gesture that I am grateful of as I really enjoy the hobby and it's possible I would of given up without his help to get me started. It looks far bigger in the photos than it is, it's a tiny spec on my finger tip. The Gold Bug Pro is very sensitive to tiny gold especially when combined with a tiny coil like the Nel Snake.

Had to go over to Monterey the end of March to help my relations move some things back to Wyoming and since the weather was just great at the time on the way home i made time for a day trip to do some detecting with the GB pro and managed a few small ones,all found detecting bedrock cracks and crevices.

I was wondering about the Gold Bug Pro sensitivity to small nuggets, In my testing which is mainly air testing (which is naughty I know) and in ground testing where I've buried nuggets myself (also not ideal) It seems reasonably sensitive but I don't believe as good as my Gold Monster 1000 which I know is a higher frequency which should make it more sensitive to small nuggets. It's just I read this today by TrinityAU who has a lot of experience on the GBP which has now got me a bit confused as hes indicating its as good as the GB2 in finding tiny gold. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ You guys still using the GBII, it is a great detector, I have literally found pounds of gold with my three over the years. It was hard for me to change from the GBII to the GB Pro. In my opinion the GB Pro just does so much more when you learn how to use it. It goes far deeper on big and little. It works in soils that the GBII had to fight. It stays balanced better. It is waterproof. It has a far easier learning curve for beginners. The GB Pro is far cheaper, less batteries, longer battery life and the discrimination on anything over half a gram is fantastic. For those not wanting people to know their business it breaks down into a pack better. As stated above I know the GB Pro will find the same tiny sub-grainers as the GBII can, only difference is it does it with more ease as far as I am concerned. These are all my opinions, TRINITYAU/RAYMILLS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ And this one here is a quote from our very own Steve H. So down to two models, the Fisher Gold Bug Pro and Minelab X-Terra 705 Gold. Both under the magic 3 pound mark! Both with extremely powerful all metal modes. So powerful that in all metal mode these detectors give the PI units a run for depth in most ground on most gold in the US. I haven't yet had the opportunity to find a tiny nugget with it although it has found me one single bit of gold some time ago and I will find it hard to pick up and use now that I have a GM1000 and an Equinox 800 but I do want to use it, especially seeing I bought two of them and lots of coils for them. I have the 10" elliptical coil and also a Nel Snake and Nel Sharpshooter for it so I have a decent array of coils. I have found in my basic testing it feels almost as good as the other detectors I own and it feels in some instances better. I was wondering what peoples opinions are on the GBP vs these really high frequency VLFS and if it's even worth me using it when I have the Equinox 800 and the GM1000 if they're much better than it. If they're a lot better I obviously wouldn't want to waste my time on the GBP. My main reason for asking is I'm thinking of offloading them as I'm unlikely to ever use them if they're redundant by my other detectors. I was intending to keep them for my wife to use but shes made it clear she has no intentions of ever gold detecting, I probably put her off with all the shotgun pellets I come home with Thanks

I have 2 Gold Bug Pro DP's, I have Nel Sharpshooter, Nel Snake and also the 10" Elliptical coil for them, along with the stock coils which are 5" and 11". Both my Gold Bug Pro's run at maximum sensitivity with the Nel's and the 10" and 11" Fisher coils perfectly, if I put the stock 5" coils on and try run maximum sensitivity even holding them up in the air they're finding targets all over the place in the air, this only happens with the 5" hockey puck coils. They quiet down and run fine about 75% sensitivity. I'm asking all the current and former GBP owners if they had the same experience. I found this review saying he can't turn it past the 12 o'clock position and keep it stable and he seems happy with that, for me that's odd as its only half way, I can crank it all the way up on all coils except the 5" and it be perfectly stable. http://raregoldnuggets.com/?p=2420 So I was wondering if my 2 x 5" coils both have issues (unlikely to be 2 faulty ones), or they're just like that. They're still under warranty so I want to find out while they're covered. I checked and both my GBP's run the version 4 firmware. I am fond of my GBP's, they've been taken over now by my GM1000 and Equinox but I still want to use them once I get better at prospecting and see how they do. They were my first Gold Prospecting machines, and they're under a year old so it would be a shame to not use them ever again and retire them. In my amateur attempts at testing them on small gold nuggets I've found with my other detectors they do seem to pick them up to an acceptable degree, especially the larger nuggets. Steve H maybe able to weigh in on this as I know he was once quite the fan of the GBP.

For a bit of a test of my VLF's I put the bits of gold I found on this prospecting trip into small plastic bags and put one at a time in a big bucket of gravel I got from one of the two creeks we found the gold at, I threw a handful of my daughters black sand collection into the bucket and mixed it around to make it a bit more realistic of a test. I also added a 2 gram test nugget I purchased on a local auction site some time ago for the test, in the hope one day I find one , it is smaller than the nugget John found on this trip but it must be thicker. I buried the nuggets down at around the 5cm mark, the same sort of depth we found them at as they were mostly in bedrock, one at a time and run each of my detectors over it, excluding the Go-Find as I knew it had no hope, started at the smallest nugget and worked my way up. I put the most suitable coils for Gold prospecting on each detector that I had and put them in all metal mode when available. Starting left to right Equinox 800, GM1000 with 5" coil, Gold Bug Pro with Nel Snake Coil, Gold Bug Pro with Cors Fortune Coil (Nel Sharpshooter), I also used the GBP 10" elliptical on this one, T2 with 5" Coil, Garrett Euroace with Nel Tornado Coil. I wanted to know which detectors I own would have found the nuggets I found with John to work out which are suitable to do the same job as my GM1000 in that situation with the size gold we found. All were in default settings, sensitivity at max and the Equinox in Gold 1 and all were ground balanced to the buckets gravel. Knocked out of the competition immediately was the Garrett Euroace. Nothing at all from it on all 8 nuggets. All other detectors picked up all the nuggets except the T2 missed the smallest nugget of the 8 but got all the others fine. Moved down to 10cm and had the same results. Moved down 15cm and the T2 lost the smaller nuggets and struggled on the bigger ones, the GM1000 got a erratic on its gold probability meter on the smaller ones and the bigger ones were getting harder to to get a stable probability, The GBP lost the smaller ones on all coils and was getting faint on the bigger ones and the Equinox was really struggling and only signalled on them as the center of the coil past them, the edges of the coil got nothing at all on all nuggets. Moved down 20cm, T2 was out, GM1000 lost the smaller ones completely, erratic on the bigger ones, GBP signal was getting faint but still a dig on all coils only on the biggest ones, smaller were still gone, Equinox lost all but the biggest ones. Down to 25cm, GM1000 was out, GBP still faint on the biggest ones on all coils, Equinox was faint but still there on the biggest ones. At 30cm all were out except the most faint signals on the GBP with Cors Fortune and the 10" Elliptical which I wouldn't dig as sounded too much like normal ground noise, and the Equinox was the same but giving a slightly better signal than the GBP and maybe I would dig it. These were the winners for me! GM1000, then Equinox followed closely by the Gold Bug Pro's with various coil options. With any of these combinations I could find the same size nuggets in the same ground, except the Equinox's big coil would let me down. The T2 did surprisingly well and I see why it was a popular prospecting detector but prefers bigger nuggets, however it's still the most comfortable detector I own. The GBP's are really good machines, I take back everytime I doubted their ability, it was my ability that was the problem, not the GBP, I was just in ground that didn't have big enough nuggets for them. As for tiny nuggets the GM1000 and Equinox are the only suitable machines I own. I really want Minelab to bring out that 6" for the Equinox now as I think it will do very well. This was by no means an accurate test, I was just working out what detectors I have that can find these nuggets so if my wife or anyone wanted to use one I wouldn't be wasting their time using one as the Monster is firmly in my hands when I go detecting from now on until perhaps the Equinox gets a smaller coil. The other reason I wanted to do this test was because I liked John's 6" GB2 coil so much for the task, and my Nel Snake 6.5 x 3.5 for the Gold Bug Pro is the same sort of size and shape. I will try out my GBP at the same creek sometime with that Nel Snake and see how it performs in the real world. Seeing his GB2 in action made me want a GB2 but my next and possibly final detector for some time is going to be a GPX 4500.

An acquaintance has asked if I'd help him find some shotguns he buried several years ago. They are wrapped in oilcloths, sealed in PVC pipes (~3 in = 7.5 cm diameter) and buried about 20 inches (half meter) deep according to him. He says he can show me the approximate location within about 10 m. If all this is accurate it seems like an easy task.... Then again, he also said someone in his family (without him being present) tried to find them with a detector and couldn't. That could be due to a lot of reasons as I'm sure you are already thinking, but my concern is that they may be buried more deeply than he remembers. Which of the following would be your first choice? 1) TDI/SPP with 12 in round mono and 16 V battery pack. 2) X-Terra 705 w/15 in Coiltek 3kHz. 3) Gold Bug Pro (19 kHz) w/15 in Nel Attack. 4) F75 black (13 kHz) w/11x7 in^2 coil operating in cache process. Assuming he has the time and patience I'm going to have all four with me to do a comparison, but I'd like to start with the one that gives me the best chance. Your advice is appreciated.

I found a .026 gram nugget the other day with the GM1000 in manual 10, if you could call it a nugget? a flake perhaps? I don't know what defines a nugget over a flake. I used the 10" coil and it banged hard on it with a nice sound, nothing on the gold chance indicator, it was about 10cm down in fine gravel. I had my GBP with Nel Sharpshooter with me so I ran it over the target before digging to see what it would do, its ground phase dropped right down to around 10 to 12 and made a nice loud sound, nothing showed on the discrimination scale up the top. I wasn't sure at this point what I had found and didn't understand the ground phase drop on the GBP? I thought it should be 35 to 50 for gold? Does anyone know why a genuine gold find on the GBP reported a ground phase of 10 or so? Is that normal, should I be hunting looking for ground phase that low? if this is the case I've probably missed a lot of gold as I always ignored signals that were below a ground phase 35 or so, keep in mind where I am hunting there is only tiny gold, all well under a gram.

Hello, I have purchased 2 Gold Bug Pro's and an original T2 which I want to use for Gold Prospecting, I am new to metal detecting but my wife and I decided we would give it a go. There is a local gold fossicking area around where we live and we bought a sluice and gold pan and have found quite a bit of tiny gold in the couple of times we have used the pans and sluice. The tiny gold seems too small for a metal detector to pick up, well any of my metal detectors anyway. I have the 5" coil for the T2 and a Mars Tiger along with the standard 11" coil, so which of those coils do you think will be best to find small gold nuggets? For the Gold Bug Pro's I have a Nel Snake, a Cors Fortune and the 10" Fisher coil, 5" standard coil and 11" standard coil. Which coils should I put on the Gold Bugs? Thanks for the help, I clearly have a lot of work ahead of me to work out how to use the metal detectors well to find these tiny gold nuggets but i've been doing a lot of research and have read Dave's Book.

Back at the end of 2013 I made a post about trying to choose between the Fisher Gold Bug Pro, Garrett AT Gold, Minelab X-Terra 705 Gold, Tesoro Lobo SuperTRAQ, and White's MXT. The real point I was trying to make was not that any were better than the others, because in my opinion in all metal prospect mode they are all so close as to hardly matter. My contention is that you should choose one based on all the other features included, such as weight, waterproof or not, tones, coil selection, etc. In my case I just wanted a light, simple detector for looking for gold in the middle of ferrous trash. I went with the Gold Bug Pro mainly because of the simplicity of the machine combined with the under 3 pound weight. Since then I kind of went down the rabbit hole. The Makro Gold Racer came along and at 56 kHz versus the Gold Bug Pro 19 kHz and about nearly the same weight it ended up replacing my Gold Bug Pro. Then I picked up a good deal on an XP Deus with 11" coil in anticipation of getting the new high frequency coil. Then the Nokta Impact came along and now the Minelab GM1000 plus there are more on the horizon. Then there is the fact I am a sucker for a deal and an impulse buyer! First Texas started aggressively blowing out some models at exceptional low prices recently, and the temptations for me have been continuous. I sort of missed that Gold Bug Pro and so when this deal on the basic Gold Bug came along at $337 I was really tempted. However, I wanted a larger coil and so I passed. Then along came this smoking discount on the Teknetics G2 for only $390 with free shipping. Or less. The deal is offered by First Texas direct on eBay and they included the "Make Offer" button. I decided to offer $375 and leave it up to fate. If they accepted the offer it was meant to be, if not I would pass. They accepted! Who knows how low they might go? I guess I should have started lower then ramped it up but $375 at half original price seemed quite fair to me. So why the Teknetics G2? Well, it is exactly the same machine as the Fisher Gold Bug Pro (DP 11" coil version) but with a different rod. It sports what is basically the same rod and handle as used on the F75, which fits my hand better than any other I have ever used. Something about the unique design of the handle that tapers to the top and angles forward. And I like the gray color after all the gold and black machines I have used. The main thing is the Gold Bug DP and G2 both come with the 7" x 11" DD coil as stock, giving me that larger coil. I might have preferred the 5" x 10" coil but First Texas only sells that as a stock coil on the Fisher F19 so this was as close as I could get at a great price. (Click on all images in this post for larger versions) Long story short though is to this day I consider the Fisher Gold Bug Pro to be the best starting unit for anyone wanting a VLF for gold prospecting in the U.S. It is nearly as hot as a Gold Bug 2 on small gold but with better depth on large gold, and easier to operate, lighter weight, lower price - just can't go wrong starting out with all that. It is also very popular, and that being the case it is a benchmark detector against which other machines can be measured. With all the new units I have or will have soon I decided I needed the Teknetics G2 mostly to use as a baseline for comparison tests I am doing this year. At the price I got it at if I decide to ditch it later I will not get hurt much, and who knows, I just might keep it. Especially with the second coil I picked up to go with it. The Nokta Impact I have came with two coils, a 7" x 11" DD coil almost identical to the one on the G2, plus a great little 4" x 7.75" (10.5cm x 19.5cm) DD coil. The closest I could get to that with the G2 for comparative purposes is the slightly smaller NEL Snake 3.75" x 6.75" (9.7cm x 17cm) DD coil. Both are epoxy filled and just 0.7" (1.8cm) thick with coil cover. The G2 is a bit nose heavy with that 11" coil but light as a feather with the little elliptical mounted. Anyway, that's my story and I am sticking to it. The G2 will be used in the field alongside the Gold Racer, Deus V4, Impact, Gold Bug 2, Gold Monster 1000, and whatever else comes along over the next year as the baseline test unit. What I often do is overload myself with new models and then let nature run its course. As time goes by I will grab certain ones I like for various uses, and others will tend to sit in the corner. It may not be efficient but it does work for me in deciding what I like to use. And that is the final thought I want to leave you with when it comes to VLF however is this. It is not all about just sheer performance, as these machines are all so hair splitting close these days. That is why each model has thousands of fans on the internet - they all work well. Like a good pair of boots you just have to find the ones that fit you best. At the end of the day the only way that has ever worked out for me is to try them out myself. I will let you all know what I think over the course of the year.

Hi, hoping one of the Gold Bug Pro brains trust could give me their opinion please?I'm new to detecting & was wondering about the ground balance number and the ground phase number in the middle of the screen. In order to ground balance I'm pumping the coil up and down whilst pushing the GG button and most often the ground phase number and ground balance number match closely pretty quickly, however.....once I get started sweeping again the ground phase number (in the screen centre) jumps all over the place. Is this normal? Or should after I've ground balanced, the phase number pretty much remain the same? I've read through the manual and I think I'm doing everything correctly, just not sure if an erratic phase number is right? I was in all metal mode, both dials at 12:00 and up on dry sand. Thank you

I was advising a guy on a basic machine and Google popped this up. Not sure what it means but Walmart dropped the price of the basic Gold Bug to only $317 https://tinyurl.com/knkwpym This is the model without manual ground balance, ground grab only and 5" coil, that normally sells for $499. Every bit as good as the $649 Gold Bug Pro, just lacks that manual ground balance. At $317.00 I have to fight the impulse to buy one just because the price is so low for a decent machine. They also rolled the $599 Teknetics Gamma 6000 (a coin detector) back to $356, a huge price reduction. With all the First Texas price reductions lately does smell like something is up. Anyway, for a second detector or somebody looking to get into nugget detecting cheap with what I consider to be the best available entry level model, here you go. Difference Between Fisher Gold Bug Models

Good evening chaps a friend of mine bought some nuggets to try his goldbug and other machines he has in his arsenal and it seems the 5: bel sharp has better sensitivity on the nuggets than the fisher 5" ...did any of you compare both coils??? Thanks RR

Thinking i might trade my Fisher Gold Bug for a Nokta Fors Gold. It is the standard Gold Bug digital not the Pro. What do you all think, good idea or not. I have heard the Nokta is a bit better even than the Gold Bug but have no first hand experience with one. Anyone that has used both cares to respond i would appreciate your thoughts. Thanks

Those that have tried them, which do you find does the best job for nuggets on a Gold Bug Pro, the Fisher 5"x10" DD or the Nel 5.5"x9.5" DD, or some other? Thanks for any input.

On ferrous infested area try to Ground balance on 20 or even 0.......manually try searching in all metal with the sensitivity as high as possible...it also work on wet sand Ferrous will produce double beep and non ferrous a deep loud single beep...excellent in iron infested area even better with a 5" or the 5x10(which is i think even more sensitive) Let me know how you get on with it RR

I am looking for opinions on working a more productive park hunting range with my non manual GB machine. I am currently using the stock 5 inch coil, I had been using a Nels Sharpshooter but have decided it is too much for the trash laden parks here where I live. 1. I have been digging the 44-59 vdi range with the understanding that some jewelry may be slipping away, how off base is this. I will dig a solid 80 and above, not fond of pennies but small silver rings seem to fall in that range. 2.Is there anything of value found in the 60-79 range? 3.Most importantly, vdi fluctuation, how much do most of you with experience allow for. If I get more than a six number swing, 3 up, 3 down, I pass. Is there a rule of thumb for this? Wendell Clark

Hello and thank you - large, for the excellent information. This is pretty exciting for someone who's sighting in on his first detector. I've followed countless threads here and on Tom's forum, and was about to buy a Gold Bug Pro. With experience and a few ounces gained, the intention is to add a gpz or gpx to the quiver. My first detector will be a complementary tool for my placer mine. I hope to qualify and outline pay-streaks in succession with stripping ops. If the detector in question can also help in prospecting some nearby quartz veins, that would rock. Regional geology appears hot, but my definition of hot is no doubt different than a detectorist's. Volcanics, greanstone, pyrite, pyrotite, arseno, tetrathedrite..., and magnetics scattered here and there. With this in mind, would the Gold Racer be a more appropriate tool than the Gold Bug Pro? Tim

I was out last week playing around with the Makro Gold Racer alongside my GBPro. I've grown quite accustomed to the "hot spot" on the 5" x 10" DD Gold Bug coil right at the tip, maybe 1.5" back from the very tip, and with the Racer it seems the strongest signal is right dead center on the 5" x 10". All coils have that sweet spot, but it got me wondering why it would differ? I've never dug into a coil and looked at the guts but it would seem to me that they are all pretty similar inside(of the same type of course). In other words, I would assume the inside of both the 5" x 10" DD coils on both detectors would be about the same inside, so why would the hot spot location be different? Curiosity got the best of me.

I want to start detecting some of the iron trash dumps that I come across out nugget hunting. I currently don't have a detector that can successfully hunt these areas. I have done some research and have narrowed it down to two. The MXT, proven winner and the Racer 2, because I have read good reviews. What I need is the opinion of the users on this forum and if you think there is something else that I should consider, please let me know. I know the Deus excels in this area, but not sure about having to charge so many batteries. Also, I thought I read the coils for the MXT were being discontinued??? Brian.

Strange black wire with paper clip? Guy told me it was junk .... I shook it and heard noise inside.... Found this pleasant surprise flying around in the control housing. Anyone have an idea on this.... I'm thinking they grounded to the coils female wire jack plate and back to the ground plate on ground reject switch... Little help here fixing up for a good friend yard sale special ? 20 bucks. They hurt her though lol seen better days

This question has been in the back of my mind for a while now. If nugget shooting in mild to moderate ground or even stretches of exposed bedrock in a desert wash, how would the 19kHz GB Pro w/stock 10" DD coil perform compared to the 13 kHz F75 w/ 6.5" or 10" concentric elliptical coils? I was going to PM Steve directly with my question but thought forum participation would be better. Thanks for the input,,,,Rob

Hello, I am new to the forum and new to detecting. I have a little over a month park detecting with a couple of flea market acquired Bounty Hunter detectors. I am ready to pull the trigger on a nugget focused detector and have narrowed it down to 2. I am looking at the Gold Bug Pro and the Makro Gold. I live in South Eastern California, I am a half hour away from an area that has proven gold.....small gold. I dry wash occasionally so the Chocolates and Cargos are somewhat familiar to me and close. I am not looking for answers on which detector to buy. I am looking for opinions/pros and cons on the 2 detectors mentioned, given my current inexperience and the area that I will be prospecting. Thanks in advance. Wendell Clark