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I finally got out to test out my new 8" X-Coil, I've been wanting a size like this for a long time. I thought it was going to be impossible to fit the GPZ Super-D design into such a small coil however X-coils after some time have achieved it and it works exceptionally well. I was running my GPZ in HY Normal with gain of 20, manual ground balance all day. My first pellet recovery 🙂 These were my weapons of choice for the day, the little 8" hardly looks much bigger than the little 6x3" sniper on the GB2. It made the GPZ feel reasonably light too, I ran it all day without my harness which is handy as I was in rocky hilly terrain always putting my detector down so it was great having the extra freedom. I was comparing targets with my GB2 all day, seeing it's widely regarded as the most sensitive VLF I wanted to see the difference in performance to the GPZ with a small coil. The first thing I noticed almost immediately on little shotgun pellets which I found a lot of by the way was the GPZ was noticeably deeper than the GB2. There were pellets that the GB2 didn't pick up at all where the GPZ had a reasonable signal on them. I also found the Discrimination on the GB2 was near pointless on a lot of targets as it had no signal at all on them only giving a signal in it's all metal mode. The pellets had to be much closer to the coil than they were in the soils for the Discrimination to work, I was quite disappointed in this as I was hoping it would be a good gold discriminating pin pointer. This area has a lot of hot rocks, by a lot I mean they're everywhere and they're often green, you can't do a swing of a VLF without hitting them on every swing, I've been to this area a lot lately, its where I recently found 9 grams. I've moved on from that exact area I found the gold last time as it dried up but the same general area. The GB2 was of course having a lot of trouble with them, with the Nox I just notch out -8 and -9 and all is pretty good and the Nox doesn't appear to lose depth when discriminating like the GB2 and Gold Monster do. The 8" X-Coil was handling the hot rocks well, most of the smaller ones it was blind to, the big ones, some the size of a football or bigger it would get a signal on, so I tried the quick track button and waving it over the top of one, it took about 10 or so sweeps but it was able to give minimal reaction on one afterwards so I had my GPZ in manual balanced over a big green hot rock for the day so instead of using my Yellow ferrite ring I used a hot rock, it made more sense to me seeing they're the areas problem, correct me if I'm wrong. My first bit of gold was downstream in the old timer wash channel from my 9 gram spot. I did my usual pellet scrape, the signal lasted longer than a few scrapes, so I did some bigger scrapes and the target was getting better so I took a short video as I was starting to get pretty confident. It turned out to be a nugget in the gravelly layer below the top soil, pretty small nugget too. The GB2 did not pick this one up at all until I was closer down to it, that was in maximum settings with audio boost. Little longish bit. 0.177 of a gram, my biggest of the day 🙂 I walked across to the next wash as that was my plan for the day and was finding my usual pellets and comparing the two detectors, I was finding the GB2 was handy as a pin pointer and it's 71kHz wasn't interfering with my GPZ at all. I was also tipping my GPZ on it's side and using the edge of the 8" coil as a pinpointer and that was working pretty well for me. Seeing I was finding so many pellets, way more than usual in this location I was getting plenty of target recovery practice 🙂 Off to the edge of this bedrock I got another bit. Almost a little ball, when it was dirty I thought it was just another pellet. After cleaning the dirt out of it it's not as much like a little ball as it looked. It's a ball with a tumor. I heard a couple of bikes coming along the nearby track, turned out it was JW and his wife Robyn, they knew I was going to be there today so popped in for a visit, JW also has unfinished business in the area where he's been attacking a rocky wall of the wash for months and still getting gold out of it, he had his 15x10" X-Coil on which was a surprise, he put his 10" on and I thought he'd forgotten how to remote it and it rarely left since, he just loves that little 10". He was impressed with my little 8"', especially the size knowing It can get into places the 10" can't. We started detecting again and Robyn found comfy spot to read her book. It wasn't long and I could hear JW's usual TAP TAP TAP as he's smashing away at the rock 🙂 I kept checking out the lower areas of the wash and it wasn't too much longer after 5 or so more pellets I found another bit of gold. It was down in that bit of a gap in the rock. It was starting to cool down a lot now, well the day was never warm, I guess a maximum of about 5 degrees Celsuis but once the sun starts to go behind the mountains it cools down quickly so I went back to a bit that still had some sun 🙂 At this point I'd seen the bit of gold and knew where it was sitting down in the gravels but I wanted to show the crazy prickle bush I was dealing with, I'd already broken some branches off at this point, look at them thorns! This video also shows the sideways method I was using to pinpoint. The center of the coil is definitely it's hottest deepest spot but the edges are still good. This was my last bit of the day And just some scenery shots of the area, gold can be anywhere around here, even in the most unlikely of places. In between the bedrock is has been the most productive for me, which is why I like little coils. Everywhere you look are old timer rock piles, they're gradually getting buried by plant life. Once those giant prickle bushes grow in them, they're no longer detectable. Piles everywhere though, it goes for a few miles It's starting to get very overgrown in places, every year it's getting worse, gradually disappearing. Some of these cliff edges would be great to detect and would hold quite a bit of gold I'd imagine but they're just too steep for me. This is the sort of stuff JW is chunking away at all day getting gold out of the cracks, he said he's now bought a little battery powered jack hammer type thing to help with the job as it's hard work with a pick, hammer, cold chisel and screw driver but there is a fair bit of gold trapped in the rock. It's all in layers and you can smash them out slowly with your pick. And my junk for the day, well the junk I didn't lose from my pocket. So overall I'm very impressed with the 8". It seemed to me like it was exceeding the GB2 in performance on small pellets at depth. I'm still better at pinpointing with a small coil like on the GB2 but with practice I'll get better. As I was about to leave I went over to see how JW was going, right as I got there he had a target, I took over my GB2 as I know he often uses his one as pin pointer too, especially when smashing out rock as it can save a lot of time. He was using the nose of the 15x10" coil as his pin pointer and said it was working really well, he found the tip to be pretty sensitive but still too big to get down into the spot well so we used the Gb2 to get narrow down where to smash out... after a fair time of hitting he had the signal out, and it was a bit of gold smaller than my smallest bit and the 15x10" was sounding on it loudly. He had another signal in the rock to recover so I left him to it as they can take half an hour or more each to get out.

I said I'd never do it, buy a detector that seems about as old as I am for active use, however I did always want to own an old classic. I was always aiming to get an old Whites from the 80's or so. The older the better, just to have it in my collection, they're very hard to come by in New Zealand and the only decent one I've found the seller was on the North Island and didn't want to ship it, pickup only. I wasn't going to fly up to get it. I got my first metal detector when I was about 8 years old as a Christmas present, loved the thing. It's a Radio Shack, in NZ/Australia Radio Shack was called Dick Smith after it's owner so it was rebranded as a Dick Smith detector on the box, but inside was a Radio Shack 🙂 It still works fine, I'm surprised I still have it, it's the only toy from my childhood that I still have. For some reason I kept it. It took me about 30 years to decide I need a replacement metal detector, I actually think it all started when my daughter lost her favourite Thomas the Tank Engine train in a sand pit and this little Radio Shack found it, I then found this forum and the rest everyone knows 🙂 An old model Gold Bug 2 came up for sale locally, at a good price, the owner barely used it. Barely a scratch on the coil. The foam handle had a split it in from age I guess, I've since replaced that. I broke the headphone plug the first time I used it, I've fixed that by adding a new rubber one onto it rather than the plastic one. It has the wrong coil but I've ordered the little 6", should arrive today as I used overnight express although this coils pretty impressive too. I've tried it out, sensitive sucker, even with that big coil. #9 pellets are easy for it. The manual ground balance is simple enough to work out, after using the QED I was used to that. And one bonus, I was reading Steve's review here about the old model GB2s where he talked about some had a bug/feature where you can supercharge them in disc mode. It turns out after my testing, this one has the ability to super charge! To quote Steve, "There is an undocumented trick that may or may not work on any particular Gold Bug 2 in iron disc mode. The threshold control usually has no effect when the unit is in iron disc mode. However, some units display a distinct difference in iron disc performance between the threshold being set low or being set high. This ability to "supercharge" a silent search disc mode by turning the threshold up is not unheard of in other detectors and it appears some Gold Bug 2 models have this ability. Several of us used this ability to good effect at Ganes Creek. The detector pops and clicks a lot when supercharged in this fashion but adds considerable depth on large gold nuggets. After awhile the popping and clicking is mentally tuned out as nuggets have a distinctly clearer beep. This ability may have been an accident on some units, as more recent Gold Bug 2 models display no change in the disc mode when the threshold control is manipulated. A simple air test between low and high threshold settings while in iron disc mode will reveal if your Gold Bug 2 has this ability to be supercharged." So, I've now got an old classic and to me it really feels like an Antique.

So I found this Gold Bug detector for sale. The owner says it is the GB2 which it appears to be by the housing, but I think it may be an earlier version (?). Id appreciate if anyone could give me some info on this unit. In particular, my questions are: What frequency does it run on? Is it as sensitive as the GB2? Is this maybe something similar to the CZ3D where the older models are more desirable/better? Thanks guys. Jon

With the official announcement on May 15 of the (hopefully) mid-summer release of the Garrett Apex there was considerable discussion of the (only) stock coil planned for release and its affects on depth. Within that discussion Chase gave me incentive to do some testing. This post is a result of that, but since I think my testing is applicable to more than just the Garrett Apex I'm creating this post in the general DetectorProspector forum. The gist of the topic there was how much compromise the 6" (wide) X 11" (tall/high - my choice of word) Apex stock would have on depth. As I mentioned I have quite a few coils for each of my detectors, but subsequently I realized there was one detector (Fisher Gold Bug Pro) and coil combinations (5" DD round and 5" X 10" DD elliptical) which would best address this issue. (I also have some other options -- White's TDI SPP and Minelab X-Terra 705 -- but those are a bit less ideal as will be discussed later. Since I have two other coils for the GB Pro I decided to include those for completeness although they add more variables/concerns and thus don't fit quite as neatly as the other two. I initally started with my variable depth test stand which allows me to vary the depth of small targets in 1/2 inch increments from ~ 1" down to 12" depth in the ground. However, in the midst of that part of the study I realized that I have some (likely iron) trash targets in the field-of-view which compromise the tones/measurements. Fortunately I also have two cleanly placed buried coins -- a copper alloy Lincoln Memorial USA penny buried at 5" depth and a Jefferson nickel alloy 5 cent piece at 6 inch depth. Neither of these currently suffers from nearby trash targets. I subsequently altered my study to use those targets for the coil performance tests. Unfortunately these also aren't ideal since under the conditions of testing they are too shallow to determine in-ground depth limits. What I did as a hybrid compromise is to carefully (i.e. measurably, with shims) raise the coil above the ground until the signal disappeared. For a second (more/less confirmation) test, and one that should be easily repeatable by anyone with the same/similar detector and coils, was to then perform a standard air test. Let's start with the conditions of the tests: 1) Ground conditions -- moist ground (we've had a typical wet Spring season), Fe3O4 mineralization measure of 2.5 bars on both the Fisher Gold Bug and Fisher F75 (2.5 meaning that about half the time I see 2 bars and half the time 3 bars). 2) Gold Bug Pro running in "all metal" ("motion all metal" in USA terminology which I like to call minimally filtered), max gain, threshold at 11 (which is about where Kevin Hoagland calls "mosquito buzzing in your ear"), no headphones (so detector's speaker). 3) My precision for "depth" is 1/2 inch. That coincidentally was the height of the shims I used in the hybrid test and also my ability to control the hand-held coin distance in the air test. 4) My determination of (maximum) depth limit was simple. I increased the depth until I thought I could barely detect an audio signal. I then decreased the target-->detector distance by 1/2 inch and required that I subsequently heard a clear signal. If not I reduced the depth/distance and repeated. Here are the raw data results. I'll explain the meaning of the columns shortly. You can see the four coils I tested. The first three are all Fisher manufactured and the last is the NEL Tornado. Rather than to use the nominal product quoted dimensions ('dim' short for 'dimension' in the column headings) I actually measured the coils and interpolated to account for the fact that a coil doesn't typically have a single extent but rather is a bundle, and further that the bundle obviously fits inside the housing. For the closed coils this is obviously more vague but in those cases I just used half an inch less than the housing dimension. An addition oddity is that DD coils aren't really simple ellipses but some overlap of two independent elliptical coils. 'geom mu' is the geometric mean of the two just determined transverse dimensions -- more specifically the square root of their product. Hopefully you'll see later why I calculated that quantity. It's not really relevant for the main conclusions I draw. The last two columns are the actual distances between the target and coil for the limiting distance (see item 4 above). In the case of the air test that is obvious. In the 'part ground' test that is the sum of the depth of the coin in the ground and the height of the coil above the ground for both coins. At this point I think it's worth discussing some caveats/assumptions/limitations of this test. Then if you've stayed with me I'll go a bit farther and hypothesize on how to use these data to draw conclusions for other coils. 1) Although I chose a detector/coils combination that was as consistent as I could be (same manufacturer and same 'width' coil), it has been discussed on this forum previously (sorry, no link) that the quality control of coil manufacture is a difficult task. It's certainly possible, although not necessarily likely, that my 5" x 10" elliptical coil is a high end tail performer among its peers and/or my 5" round is a low end performer. 2) With any measurement, there are in particular systematic errors and biases. I can't "double blind" my method. That is, I do know which coil I'm testing at a given time and if I have a prejudice for or against a certain coil that could show up in the results. Also, statistical uncertainties (more succinctly, how repeatable are my data) can contribute to errors. It is worth pointing out that swinging the heavy NEL 15" coil effectivly makes taking in-ground measurements with it difficult. As a result I was unable to confidently get a max depth reading for the penny using that coil, which is why that cell is blank. No problem with air tests because there, as is standard (?) I mounted the detector in a stationary horizontal position and just 'swung' the targets to determine the (max) limit distances. Again, it's really the 5" round DD and 5" x 10" elliptical DD that are most relevant. The others are include for information purposes but also to add to the plots I show later. As you can see, in these tests there is a clear and significant advantage for the 5" x 10" elliptical over the 5" round in both the hybrid test and in the air test. OK, I now go a bit deeper. Is there a mathematical relationship which can predict coil depth performance if I know the coil dimensions? Compared to above this is another leap into the unknown with additional uncertainties. However, here are a couple plots which seem to indicate relationships between the potential maximum detectable depth and the geometric mean of the coils width and height dimensions. (Sorry for the confusion but the Blue dots in both plots are for the 1 cent piece and the red dots are for the 5 cent piece.) It's better to look first at the 2nd plot -- air test. There appears to be nearly linear relationship between max depth and the geometric mean of the coil's dimensions, although it appears to trail off with the large (NEL) coil. Superimpose upon that the effects of ground noise and you see a further deterioration both in absolute depth and also in the trend which is shown in the first plot. Simply put, it is well known that mineralized ground, even moderately mineralized as in my back yard, negatively affects attainable depth. The larger the coil, the more ground it "sees", and thus the more ground interferes with performance. I'll finish by pointing out that this isn't the first study I've made. Back 3 years ago when DetectorProspector member Karelian made detailed measurements of a large collection of mono coils on a White's TDI in both ground and air, I noticed the depth vs. geometric mean relationship. However, without a theoretical (physics/engineering) reason to expect this relationship, at this point it's merely a convenient correlation. Karelian's data are further muddied by the fact that the coils studied have many manufacturers: Coiltek, White's, Miner John, Nugget Finder, Minelab,... I could show those results but I think I'll await the reactions to the above. I can also do more tests (e.g. with the X-Terra although there is not clean comparison of round vs. eliptical coils with the same width, at least in my collection) or repeat these. I await your posted reactions (including yawns 😁).

Note from moderator: The following posts were all moved from this thread to this location. It is worth a separate thread. See our List of Legitimate Metal Detector Dealers Seeing you're new to detecting you probably don't know about the pitfalls yet, there are fakes, fakes of many of the best detectors, here is an example Whatever you do don't buy one, it won't work well for you. Also if you're buying second hand Minelab are extremely helpful in verifying the detector you're buying is genuine, contact them about it! get the serial number off the seller, they can name the seller and where they purchased it from for you if it was a real one. I hope you purchased your Gold Bug Pro from a reputable dealer as it's also a highly faked detector. Here is a fake Gold Bug Pro for sale It looks like they're clearly made to be sold to the African market, note the Depar sticker on the shaft Since its origins in 1976, DEPAR has been, and still is, Middle East, Africa and Turkey leader in distributing quality metal detecting technologies for consumer with its experienced personnel and succesfull dealer network and serves as an authorized technical service.

I as just alerted by a forum member that Cabelas is advertising the Fisher Gold Bug 2 for $574, a new low price. I do not know if this is a clearance sale, or a permanent price reduction, or if it is offered at other dealers. I'm sure we will sort that out real fast! They also have the basic Gold Bug on sale for $375. Do not confuse this with the Gold Bug Pro. The Pro has both ground grab and manual ground balance, the basic Bug has ground grab only. Otherwise however they are the same detector. https://www.cabelas.com/catalog/browse/_/N-1104188?CQ_view=list&CQ_ztype=GNU&CQ_ref=~type-Gold%2BDetectors

Hello i was wondering if some of you have read anything about this mod . I heard about it twice From France both were the Voltages has been cranked up and maybe some internal mod. The G2/GBP work well on sand not deep but it work,modded it apparently become better on beaches littered with Iron... RR

I as just alerted by a forum member that Cabelas is advertising the Fisher Gold Bug 2 for $574, a new low price. I do not know if this is a clearance sale, or a permanent price reduction, or if it is offered at other dealers. I'm sure we will sort that out real fast! They also have the basic Gold Bug on sale for $375. Do not confuse this with the Gold Bug Pro. The Pro has both ground grab and manual ground balance, the basic Bug has ground grab only. Otherwise however they are the same detector. https://www.cabelas.com/catalog/browse/_/N-1104188?CQ_view=list&CQ_ztype=GNU&CQ_ref=~type-Gold%2BDetectors This may be temporary but it also in my opinion is overdue as a permanent move on the basic Gold Bug at least. That model really should just be discontinued in favor of the nearly identical Gold Bug Pro, but if not it sure needed to come down in price. It adds to the confusion out there and some people buy it thinking they are getting the Pro. Just clear it out and discontinue it. Gold Bug 2 is a tougher story. It is in a class of it's own as an old analog model that with 6" concentric still may best the best tiny gold getter on the market. Newer machines at lower prices may very well equal it though, or close enough for most people. The main problem with the Bug 2 is it is expensive to manufacture so I am not sure a permanent price reduction would be sustainable. Fisher has discontinued several models in the last couple years and may be consolidating or revamping their lineup around the introduction of a new website. Lond story short this may be just a temporary sale or a sign of bigger things... we will see.

There are three versions of the First Texas 19 kHz circuit for sale at many retailers. One is based on the original Gold Bug Pro model, sold with various coil options, and includes the now discontinued Teknetics G2. There is also a basic Gold Bug version with no manual ground balance, the bottom dollar variant. The third version is a later design that added features to the Gold Bug Pro, the result being the Fisher F19. This is now also being sold with various coil options. The F19 is also available under the Teknetics label as the G2+, and now just released under the Bounty Hunter label as the Time Ranger Pro. To reiterate, the Gold Bug Pro and G2 versions are the same circuit board, the only difference between the models are coil and rod options plus cosmetic differences. The same goes for the F19, F19 Ltd, G2+, and new Time Ranger Pro. The same circuit board with different coil and rod options. It is interesting then that the Gold Bug DP, the Gold Bug Pro with 7" x 11" coil sells for $200 more than the more capable Time Ranger Pro. "How can this be," you wonder? The power of name brand and a name, plain and simple. Fisher has a name equated with more expensive detectors, and the Gold Bug name carries it's own cachet. The Bounty Hunter name is usually for lower price models. Welcome to Marketing 101. Based on comparative capability I’d say the Gold Bug Pro is more like a $349 detector these days, so it’s fetching quite a premium. Guide To Gold Bug Versions Gold Bug Pro / G2 versus F19 / G2+ click or double click for larger versions.... Fisher Gold Bug DP and Bounty Hunter Time Ranger Pro Gold Bug Pro and Time Ranger Pro features comparison Gold Bug Pro and Time Ranger Pro controls

Here where a majority of our old coins are deep it makes absolute sense to hunt in all metal on the Bug, the depth is better in All metal, and the detector is still smart enough to give you an ID in all metal so it's a shame you can't take advantage of that to it's fullest by having the ID's in the location they should be. The ground phase being dominant is a puzzle to me. They must still have someone there who is alive and kicking and knows how to change the software. I would not think that would be a significant change either, it's just the source of data to the display output being modified. It would have been harder for them to display the serial number on startup which they do on the newer ones. The thing I've noticed with large UK old half crown sterling silver coins on the Bug is they can wrap around in disc mode depending on the depth from the coil, they can go beyond the 99 of the ID and be a weird scattered rejected target that shows up bouncing in the high 90's to iron. In all metal they work and show up right high in the 90s. I would say it's not a good large silver detecting unit. The smaller silvers are no problems but this weird large silver oddity is a bit of a worry. It might be fixed in later models who knows but mine both do it.

Occasionally in posts I see reference to mineralization and how it affects detector performance. It is often vague with usage of words like 'mild, moderate, severe'. In fact several detectors have the capability of measuring it. Two of mine -- Fisher Gold Bug Pro and Fisher F75 -- have that capability. Until now I've typically paid little attention to it. (Magnetite) mineralization and its effects are clearly important in many detecting for native gold situations, but it's also meaningful for other forms of detecting, if nothing else when comparing notes on detector performance. Extreme cases we've seen are Tom Dankowski's reports on the depth he gets in the sandy, non-mineralized soils of Florida vs. Steve Herschbach's difficult Reno parks. An even more extreme example has been reported multiple times by Mark Gillispie in coal ash laden school yards. Here are the pertinent sections from the F75 and F19 (Gold Bug family member) user manuals respectively regarding the meanings of their magetite measurements: Personally I prefer the F75 readout since it quantifies the meaning of the bar levels. Not sure why the Gold Bug scale wasn't equivalently defined, maybe another example of "don't step on the toes of the more expensive model" syndrome.... Yesterday I made measurements in my back yard with both detectors, two coils each (stock Fisher 5" round DD and 7"x11" DD). In all cases I ground balanced before taking the measurements. For the F75 the ground phase values in my backyard as a whole were 61 with its 5" coil and 64 with the 7"x11" coil. In those locations (still F75) the 5" showed 2 bars and the 7"x11" was about 50-50 divided by 2 bars and 3 bars. The measurements made with the Gold Bug were nearly identical in terms of the bars shown (2 with 5" and 2-->3 with 7"x11") for ground phases of ~64.5 and ~60 respectively) even though the scales on the two detectors don't really align in terms of the units of measure. Now here's a possibly interesting and serendipitous observation: for my teststand the readings were 3 bars in three of the four cases (I missed the measurement with the GB Pro and 7"x11" coil). If you refer back to the linked thread there is a drawing which shows a concrete layer at 15" depth. This was made with a store bought bag of concrete mix. Those contain not only the cement but also sand and gravel filler. Where did that sand and gravel come from? I don't know but it sure appears that it came from a site more mineralized than my back yard! I vaguely recall previous measurements I've made (but failed to record -- my bad) in my back yard where the F75 read 4 bars. One thing I wonder about is how much soil moisture affects the measruement. (We haven't had rain for a couple weeks so the ground is considerably drier than typical for the late autumn, winter, early spring months here when I likely took those earlier measurements.) But there are other variables so I wouldn't conclude that moisture does have an effect. One would hope not, but certainly dectectors are known to perform differently when detecting in various soil moisture conditions which is why I wonder. As always I'd be interested in seeing other measurements (regardless of detector model) and comments.

hello, my friend send me this photo, of his fisher gold bug 2. i think he got scammed, but seller refound him. he said that the metal detector work but the switches and ground balance knob don't do anything, so he open the control box and they aren't soldered on the motherboard ( see the red circles in the photo) someone have a picture of the fisher gold bug 2 pcb so we can understand where they had to be soldered, on internet i can't find any picture. i know that metal detector is a stupid chinese copy, but my friend have bought it, he don't know a lot about metal detecting and don't have a lot of money so i want to help him. So at least he can find someone when we go out, without dig iron if we solder the switch. thanks

So I managed to squeeze in another half day outing to my spot up in the mountains. More digging and moving boulders uncovered another 3 pieces of gold for 1.5g. The larger piece is 1g and is quite coarse / rough for this area. The black material is slowly being dissolved by hydrochloric acid. The first photo shows the creek. A little bit of water with a lot of boulders. Historically this creek has produced nuggets up to 12oz, I'm sure under one of the boulders there will be one for me. Will probably be a month before I get time for another look. I'm trying to finish building my house extension in my spare time and my two young daughters keep my busy....

Here are two photos of gold found over the last two trips. This gold was found by removing the gravel in the steam bed and exposing the bedrock. The bedrock was then detected. On both trips several of my gold hunting friends came along. The bigger nugget was 5g and very tricky to recover. Lodged deeply in a crevice under white water. The other pieces total 1.3g. I hope to have time for one more outing before I have to go back to work. I'll keep you posted. Merry Christmas!

I know it is really early in the bout. But possibly is the new kid on the block going to knock out the reining champion of many many years in the gold nugget VLF sport? I'm hearing so many good things about the GM 1000. And I'm really leaning on getting one soon. Hearing so many good reports from " Average Joe" dectectorists. I have had way more experience and success with Minelab detectors than any other brands. So I guess I speak Minelabbian better than anything else. My gut feeling thinks that we might be crowing a new Welterweight Champ. I guess time will tell?????

Howdy from Montana Newbie, I am in the market for a GB Pro. Going to Arizona and escape these brutal Montana winters for 4 months. Have a buddy down there who is a snow bird also. He explores abandoned mine shafts and old mining operations. Figured I might as well swing a detector while exploring the area. Amazon had a GB Pro 5" coil as "used with box damaged" for $470.00. I decided to pull the trigger and see what was in the box. The unit looked good...but...I could only find the single 1/4" headphone jack, need the 3.5mm jack for the headphones I am going to use. The manual stated this as well, only 1/4" jack. Didn't turn it on, just reboxed it and returned it immediately for full credit + $85.00 additional credit to buy a new unit with dual headphone jacks from Amazon at $549.00. Any thoughts? Thanks.

Ran across this while watching YouTube videos on gold prospecting:

Had an outing with a good friend to a Local creek yesterday. We dug a huge hole and moved some big boulders and found the 1.3g right at the start of the process. Diligent detecting elsewhere in the creek produced the other two. The 1.7g was right at the start of a crevice that seems to run under a virgin bank... Might dig that out some time but there are some fridge size boulders in the way. Cheers for the fun day out buddy.

I had an idea some time ago to add a switch to my Gold Bug Pro for easy changing between Disc mode and All Metal mode without having to adjust my threshold every time, I got the idea from seeing KiwiJW flicking between All metal and Disc on his GB2 to check targets when we were creek detecting, I thought that's a good idea, it's a shame it's annoying to do that on the Gold Bug Pro.. I also wanted an easy way to be in Disc mode and do a ground balance without again having to switch to All metal to do it so I thought a 3 way switch with on / off / momentary on would be perfect for the task.. I mentioned it here and EL NINO77 pointed out it's been done already but just with an on/off switch on this thread here Anyway, I had myself some spare time today so I ripped it open and started modding. You'll see on the photo I indicated what needs cut to add the switch No, that's not a short and curly ? This seemed the best location for the switch, it was a tight fit but it's by far the most comfortable position for the switch to be once it's all assembed again All done, now lets assemble it again and test it out And there we have it, I can now use the switch to change between Disc and All metal modes so you don't have to keep messing with your threshold, Disc is in the middle, All Metal pushed forward where it locks in position and if I pull back on the switch it goes to All metal and as soon as I let go the switch reverts back to Disc mode by itself, this is very handy for a ground balance as you pull the trigger switch backwards and hold down the GG button and do your ground grab and then just let go of both the switch and GG button and you're back in Disc mode balanced. Quite a nice simple mod to do but resolves one thing that annoyed me about my Gold Bug Pro. I think my next project will be to backlight the screen. I'm not claiming this to be my idea as it looks like it's been done before using an On/Off switch as someone else has had the same idea, I just modified the idea to have my momentary All Metal mode for quicker ground balancing in Disc Mode. My switch type is an On/Off/Momentary On switch. The switch has an optional water resistant cover which I don't know if I'll put on it, as the detector isn't waterproof anyway and it makes the switch feel weird as then it's all rubbery. Keep in mind this will void your warranty, I didn't care about that as I bought my GBP's in Australia and I would never bother to send one back for repair as postage would be a killer, if it developed a fault. I'd try fix it myself.

So today I thought it was about time I took my 2.5 year old daughter out to my gold claim. The claim is in reasonably rugged country with steep slopes and dense vegetation. Most of the gold is found as small nuggets on or near bedrock. There was one spot I could think of that was within 100m of the road where a river bank had been washed out and bedrock was exposed. That said I knew I'd have to cut a bit of a track through the vegetation to get the little girl through. We got to our location after a bit of a scramble down a short but steep slope with the aid of a rope. Was a bit of a performance with a backpack on my back and carrying my daughter. I set her up on a grassy bank next to where I'd be digging and surrounded her with snacks with which to entertain herself. As luck would have it I managed to uncover three small nuggets by clearing the gravels off the bedrock and detecting it. After about an hour she'd had enough and we clamberd back to my car. Needless to say, I'm very proud that she's now big and patient enough to take gold hunting! Oh, we got 0.8g total. However in this case the memories (at least for me) are priceless.

Hi Gals n Guys, First decent go with the Bug Pro fake today! Alot of trash. Bullet shell, lead, pot handle, square nails and plenty of tin. I ground balance to start with then from that point i keep an eye on it. Now, i run in all metal, gain at around 10-11 oclock, threshold only just buzzing. Mild steel trash can read around the 15-20 mark or around the 85-90 mark. I dig everything ATM to get a feel for it. If i was to detect gold, what would it read? With a really strong signal i switch over to discrimination to tey and ID. Have i got it right? Thanks guys. Al.

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:

ColoradoGoldCamp Published on Feb 14, 2019. Rhodo nails the biggest nugget of the day with the Gold Bug 2 right on bedrock! What a great day out gold detecting! 54 pieces of trash and 3 count em 3! Colorado Gold Nuggets! Man, I love prospecting with my best metal detector! Did some arrowhead hunting too. We find some relics from the old gold mining days and some evidence of Colorado Arrowheads, all at Colorado Gold Camp.