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Hey all, just wanted to share a nice nugget I found on New Year Day. Sorry there is nothing for scale but it weighed in at 0.76g. Found with the GPX 6000 with 14" DD coil. May this year bring you all some great finds!

Merry XMAS to all.

Last time I posted the weekly wrap up, I mentioned the scarcity of decent variations to the layers and what happened in only one day it was like a personal blessing, a gift. This happened in the first days of December and now, again, I found myself to feel low expectations cause since those days, nothing but few deep coins were appearing. I always say that wetsand work and seabed work are different games and more or less it is a reliable cycle to keep in mind some of the sand movements. Actually other variables causes this "workable window" or a total waste of time from day to day, from tide to tide, so hours between a nice almost uncovered ground, to a deep buried hell to dig insanely. Structures, primarily, can make a good spot where the least You hope for it and this happened days ago. No matter how many times I've been searching in this spot, with or without dive buddy, the continuously different shape on the seabed still makes for an educational chart made of environment and its historical nature. Before to claim a magic formula, something I will never aim for, I just think to have been on a vortex influenced area. No other explanation cause the nuisance picture behind me to the shore it was "something". Tons of soft sand, plastic, wood and seaweeds on a previously rocky boulders ground days before. Not that far, a relatively small stretch, insanely productive of old greenies and some gold share. Well, before to make it longer than what it should be, I found among tons of coins two rings, one of them being ss with a fake stone, a small, thin white gold band, a bangle bracelet and a wedding band alone in another spot, cause I was still tired by the long walk to reach the magic hole... I Wish You a Merry Christmas with peace and blessings for your houses. Skull

Do you remember finding your first nugget? I started selling my gold specimen collection that I found metal detecting in 2021. Between 2021 and this year I finished cleaning, photographing and selling what I had found metal detecting starting in the summer of 1990. My first gold specimen was found with the White’s Goldmaster II. Learning how to ground balance and maintain the ground balance to the changing ground, distinguish between a good target and hot rocks, dealing with iron targets, did not make finding that first gold specimen any easier. But finding that first gold specimen and the ones that followed made my ability and confidence grow as each year went by. I was fortunate that my wife and dad enjoyed metal detecting for gold specimens and that we were able to share the excitement and experience finding some incredible gold specimens. My first gold specimen weighed 4.6 grams: The area where I found my first gold specimen: Some of the gold specimens that I, my wife and dad found the first year metal detecting:

After a long period of observation only, due to the insistent swell and lack of suitable diving conditions, this week, of the only three days available for research, only yesterday morning I was able to pull out a piece. Lately I have found myself having to perform various maintenance on the surface compressor, and just yesterday, as soon as I found a promising pit, the air line tube exploded right at the moment to start the dive. A new set of fittings that were really effective against pressure loss, however, injured part of the pipe and a failure occurred at the absolute worst time. To complete the disaster, the brand new drysuit was creating some more float than prevented and the ballast I had on me, well, too light apparently. I had to get back to the base to leave the compressor and arm myself with an air tank and more lead ballast in a hurry, because just an hour later the storm would again raise waves to the point where it was no longer safe on the seabed. Returning again to the same spot, I finally managed to find some decent signals, and one among them was a wedding ring standing perfectly upright in a hole between the rocks. 3.22grams of 18K to close three days of nothing but aluminium and a few exposed rocks among tons of sand. Hard to describe the releaf I felt yesterday...I'm seriously meditating for a return to scuba harness and a floating platform with spare air to change as needed. Have a great weekend You all !

This was my first trip to a Nevada goldfield where I didn't get chased out because of freakish bad weather. For a number of reasons, I was unable to get out last winter/spring to some of my Dale District spots, so an invitation from a friend to come to Nevada was quickly accepted. My friend has been working this are for awhile, usually pulling a piece or two a day for his efforts. So far, there has been only a few areas where more than one piece has been found, so no proper patches; just one here and then 50 yards away in any direction, another. When we arrived at the site, my friend asked me where I wanted to detect. I told him let's work where he has never been, in order to expand the zone; and that we did, one lonely piece at a time. Trippy place, as the area looks like nothing should be there. The different types of gold found in this spot is of interest- classic nugget, leaf, and specimen gold have been found here. The combined weight of the 4 pieces came in at exactly 1.5 grams- I'm happy with that. I used the Axiom for this endeavor, and found gold using different coils and settings. Picked up one with the 7 x 11 mono in Fine Mode, two with the 7 x 11 FC in Normal Mode, and one with the 7 x 11 FC in Fine Mode with "manual silent threshold" @ -8. Silent threshold is the only way I could use the FC coil in Fine Mode, even at sensitivity 3 in mild/moderate ground. -Jerry

I had a good summer this year and found a new patch a general area that I have worked for years. The gold is still out there to be found by those folks who know what they are doing.

I got to Meadview last Thursday and went out detecting three days with Gold Doser and he found three nuggets across from my camp. I didn't find anything those three days, but I went out by myself Friday and got this dandy of a nugget. Gpx 5000 and 19" Evo. Over a half ounce, first nugget for the winter season. Not too bad of a start, I must say.

I did another trip yesterday to my patch. I left at 4.30 am and got to my parking area at 8 am, then I had to do my 2-mile hike. It was unpleasantly cold (25 deg F, -4 deg C), and by the time I got there I was pretty much frozen. The first thing I noticed was fresh bear scat on my patch, it looked like the bear just left. Well, not a company I was eager to have, in particularly not while being all by myself. I began to detect, and after a few square nails I had this mellow low/high signal. It sounded just like another nail or iron trash, or perhaps mineralization, but it turned out to be a 1 /2 oz nugget (kind of looks like a frog). Interestingly, the channel never flipped, and it was a low/high signal all the way until I had it in my scoop. It is good to remember that deeper bigger nuggets can give low/high signals just like iron trash does, in contrast to shallower gold targets (and lead...) which mostly give high/low signals with the 6000. This is another reason why I personally don't distinguish targets by sound, I have been wrong so often by now. The nugget was about 14 inches deep and was clearly audible with the headset. This is another good example of how well the 6000 with a round coil can punch, despite the rather small coil size (settings: manual 10/normal). In total, I recovered around 19 g today, with some really small pieces as well. In total I have recovered a little bit over 110g during my past 5 trips (the frog-nugget had to hop from the scale since the scale tops out at 100g). This has been the most interesting patch, which I accidentally discovered while hiking with my Manticore (always in my backpack). What strikes me is that the patch is confined and rather small, with all nuggets in an area not more than roughly 40 feet long. In the picture you can see that the area stretches out with gravel/sand deposits further in the back, but I never found any gold there. For whatever reason only the front part, which I have heavily worked by now, has gold in it. The ground is packed sand with river gravel. It is not really loose sand but rather pretty tightly “conglomerated”, with many tree roots in them, and it takes quite a bit of work to dig the holes. The challenge is to find these patches, and before finding it I searched for many days up there without any luck. This is typical for glacial deposits where gold can be scattered all over the place. Now snow will come soon, and this has likely been my last trip there for this year. Next summer I will be back with heavier gear (6000/17 inch coil, 7000 etc). Let’s see how much the patch still has to give. And if I ever find another one up there. GC

I went back to my place in the high Sierras from last week, encouraged by the two chunky pieces that I found. However, this time I did not see a black bear crossing the street when I drove up, so for sure I thought I wouldn't have the luck from last weekend. Since I found the pieces last week rather on the surface, I decided to do some digging to see what is hiding deeper. After about 5 hours work, I recovered 6 small pieces. That of course made me happy (I take any size gold!), but I was somewhat disappointed because I had hoped bigger pieces to find. Then, I thought to have a quick scan at an adjacent site, perhaps 50 feet away. I got a screaming signal right away and thought it would be for sure a beer can or iron trash. I paused for a moment and wondered whether I should dig it or not. I am usually a "dig it all guy" but haven't we all been in situations where we dismissed these sorts of signals as trash? Well, I decided to dig regardless, just for being faithful to my dig it all mantra. I immediately recognized the weight of the target that I unearthed, but I initially thought it would perhaps just be a big blob of lead. It was all dirty, but upon rubbing a bit a very different picture started to emerge.... After a quick water sprinkle there was no doubt what it was 🙂 I don't know how many beer cans, big square nails and other iron trash I have dug in all my years. But there is a reason I keep digging them, to not miss nuggets like these. GC

I hunted a new spot 4 days ago and hit 10 nuggets the first day, 8 nuggets the second day, 14 nuggets the third day, and 20 nuggets today.

Starting to get the feel for the modded GPX 5000 and starting to have the time to use it a bit more often too. Inherited from my father. Sold the GPX 6000 a few months ago (to my sister) as I didn't need both. Might as well start a thread to keep track of how it is going. Earlier this year, about one of the first times I used it. NF 19" spoked Evo in the Whipstick area just north of Bendigo in Central Victoria, Australia. I actually can't remember but I think this was my first bit of gold with the 5000. Took it to Western Australia in April but barely used it. Didn't really understand all of the settings and felt more confident with the GPX 6000. Think now that was perhaps a bit of a mistake. I think on larger, more solid pieces the 5000 punches a bit deeper. Maybe it is the 'modded' component, maybe it isn't. I've never used an original 5000 to get a feel of the difference between the two. Last few months I've been out a couple of times and found quite a few little pieces at a spot nearby to my hometown. These are almost all sub-grammers and this is a spot where we have found 250 + tiny pieces with the 6000 and a mate has pulled a couple of bigger pieces with his 7000 - 5 grams and 6.5 grams. The gold is mixed in the 72,000 square nails and other iron junk. Went there today with my sister to see if she could find some with her 6000 and me plodding around with the 5000. She found lots of nails. I fared a bit better and got my first piece over a gram in that area. 5.38 grams is the bigger bit. About a foot deep. Good soft signal. 12" NF Evo today. Find this coil to be very stable and very sensitive. Today I initially tried a NF Advantage 12" X something elliptical and then a Commander 11" DD and could not get either of them to run well. Put the 12" back on and it was perfect. Anyway, hopefully there are years of good finds ahead with the Old Boy's GPX5 🙂 Cheers, N.E.

Finally got to spend a day on my new claim. It's south of Butte MT in a known Gold producing area. It's a gulch claim and appears that just the very bottom of the gulch is all that's ever been worked. I was told it was detected with Minelab 5000. They turned every large rock over in the bottom of the gulch. I was told some pretty large nuggets were recovered. Bedrock is a volcanic clay layer about 10 inches below top soil. The borders are mostly quartzite. I filed the claim to drywash it. Right now I'm just digging holes trying to find hot spots to set up my drywasher. Using my new shortened GB2 as a digging pinpointer while I'm in the hole. This is the first find off the claim. 😆 it ain't much but hopefully it's a start. Very flat .24 grain dink. This little flake gave a great zip zip with the GB2 set in audio boost and normal.

This area is covered in this type of hot rocks shown on a digger shaft magnet, often basically to a foot deep. Experience tells me that my trusty old Whites GMT, my Nox 800, and my Whites TDI SL are limited to about 1 to 2 inches depth on any target around dime size or less in this stuff. This nugget was in a tailings pile I have detected in the past with all of those detectors, and never found a thing in that pile, even raking it down a few inches. But the Axiom with the 7x11 DD coil at a little noisy sensitivity of 4 in medium mode I heard a distinct difference in tone from background noise. Note I can rarely run the Axiom in Sensitive Mode over sensitivity of 1 or 2 due to instability even in less extreme ground. The nugget is very thin, so not much weight, I have yet to weigh it. It was at a depth of about 5 to 6 inches.

I've been working my claim with a dig and detect operation and we all have been hitting on gold. However, where I chose to sink my hole turned out to be a very sweet spot where a steep chute transitions to a gentler grade.I had to dig down 4.5 - 5 feet down and then my Manticore lit up repeatedly. All total so far I have found 117 grams in two weeks. Enjoy the pictures. I used a Manticore and then a borrowed 6000. You will see a retaining wall of rocks holding back material from my hole as I kept moving along, digging. All are on video and I will start a series of videos in late October from breaki g ground to backfilling and all the nuggets I got along the way of the two weeks of working this hole. It will be about a 3 month long series of a dig & detect operation.

Hi Folks, Have you ever been out prospecting, noticed a quartz vein and run your detector over it with fingers crossed? I think we have all done it and generally move on as most of these veins or stringers are barren. Yesterday was a new adventure for Joe and I as we were getting into a new area that we had never detected. It was a small creek that had a history of containing gold with the surrounding hills being mined about 130 years ago. As we walked up the creek we found numerous rock bars and bedrock which contained beautiful and potential gold traps but they were all empty. Narrow veins of quartz crossed the creek at regular intervals and sections of the bank were quite mineralised giving us hope. There was evidence of human activity with the usual rusty steel and lead shot but the yellow stuff was not showing up. The plan was to move quickly upstream leap frogging each other until we found something that would pull us up. We wanted to reach an area close to a couple of hard rock mines that were situated on the hills above the gully. Each quartz vein we walked past was a magnet for the coil and a quick swipe with the detector confirmed what we always expected. After about an hour we hit a spot where a rock bar crossed the creek and there was the usual evidence of quartz stringing it’s way into each bank. I ran the 10x5 across one of these veins and was surprised to get a sweet signal. It was in a few inches of water and was surrounded by some really hard host rock. If it was to be gold, it would be a major effort to break up the quartz to release the target. As it was an exploration adventure, we decided to keep going and have a closer look on the way back. Here is a picture that I took which shows the narrow vein attached to the host rock. Unfortunately the light created an awful reflection that doesn’t clearly show what we were looking at. The vein is about 25mm wide and was visible for about 1m before disappearing into gravels. We continued upstream until we stopped for lunch. At this stage the rattle jars did not rattle and we were beginning to think that we may end up being skunked. After a break we continued on but at about 2:30 we decided to start heading back as it would take us an hour or so to get back to the ute. Joe finally got a signal that required a large rock to be moved as the target was under it. Being in water, it took a bit of work to retrieve but finally a nice little piece of gold popped out. The Coiltek 10x5 did a great job to pick up this target at good depth. Joe and I continued to work our way back until I finally had a hit and started digging out a small piece of gold. Joe at this point was about 20m further upstream and decided to stop so that his machine would not start sending my detector into a screaming fit. He detected up on the bank and also picked up a piece of gold. We decided that this area would need further investigation but not today. We had to keep moving. We finally made it back to the quartz vein and decided that we had to try to chip out the target. Joe started hacking away at the reef like a man possessed and after about 5 minutes we noticed that the target had moved. The small pieces of quartz that were chipped out started moving down stream over the host rock. It was acting a bit like a sluice with the light material washing away quickly. As the water cleared, a small piece of gold appeared. It should have been photographed at that point but when when gold is spotted, logic goes out the window. The gold was placed on the coil and photographed close to where it was removed. You can see the vein above the coil and some of the broken quartz on the right hand side. If you zoom in you may also see another piece of gold sitting on the bedrock. I didn’t know it was there at the time but the coil told the story a few minutes later. A small amount of gravel was then moved and Joe ran the 6000 over about 1m of the vein. Another two signals were detected indicating that more gold was present. And here’s the hard bit. We had to walk away as it was getting late and light was fading. Looks like another trip back to the creek is in order. We will take cold chisels, a hammer and crevice tools with us to make life a bit easier. Any thoughts or ideas as to how we approach this task would be appreciated as it’s going to be a difficult job recovering the gold. What do we do if there’s more gold deeper in the vein? This will obviously do our heads in but in a good way. Here is a pic of the gold we found yesterday. Not a lot but enough to create another interesting memory. I might try to video the next step as it’s a bit different to what we normally do. cheers Les

I recently had some doubts in using the main detector and was pondering the possibility of eliminating some by selling. In detail, I complained of some high ID response that I accidentally dug up in the absence of decent signals. The last victorious session, brought me a 6.49-gram 18K wedding ring and by sheer luck, with an amazing 80, I deigned to dig it out. So this morning I decided to go out with a dear old detector, one that doesn't mess around, and the numbers are shocking considering the spot, the devastated condition of the clay and rocks, and lousy visibility. After 4 1/2 hours on the bottom, thanks to the use of hooka compressor, I flushed out 4 pieces totaling 20 "dirty" grams. The numbers speak for themselves, and I am beginning to have clearer ideas.... I will add no more...

Hi Folks, A few months ago my detecting mate Joe and I had a lot of fun searching for gold in an area that produced a considerable number of small nuggets on a consistent basis. After many trips to the area, the gold tally started to diminish in both size and number. We ran both the 6000 and the zed across what seemed like every inch of the gully exploring every conceivable possibility of recovering the hidden treasure. Towards the end, we got to a point where any small piece was considered a victory for the day. Finally, we decided it was time to move on and start prospecting some country that we’d never looked at before. We spent a couple of months researching, discussing options and exploring areas that showed potential. Unfortunately our hard work didn’t really pay off and we ended up finding very little for our effort. There we’re some tremendous days out in the bush and we saw some amazing country but the the gold was a bit thin on the ground. With spring arriving our serious prospecting would soon taper off until next winter. It has been dry for a couple of months now and many of the intermittent streams have stopped flowing (including the gully that produced good gold for us in the early parts of the winter). Joe and I had a discussion about the dry creek bed and we decided that there could be some possibilities worth exploring in the old area. There was one particular section of the gully that produced some nice gold for us but much of it came from a pool of water that was about 3’ deep in places. It was difficult to detect with both the GPZ and the GPX as the gravel and soil on the pool bottom was quite mineralised and made the detectors very noisy. Holding the coil down was also an issue with the 7000 as it is quite buoyant. We decided that if the pool of water had dried sufficiently, we may be able to detect the area again and also move a bit of gravel around to allow the machines to sniff out any deeper gold. The plan sounded quite reasonable so last week we decided to hit the area with the Coiltek 10x5’s attached to the 6k’s. When we made it to the gully, it was as dry as expected. We decided to stop for a short while at a rock bar that had produced some small pieces on earlier trips. Large rocks were moved and some gravel was raked to expose rocky areas that were under water earlier in the season. A few micro specs were detected which was enough to get us inspired. A short walk upstream put us at the waterhole that given up quite a lot of gold over a period of time. The water level had dropped leaving just one small pool that was about a foot deep. The areas that had provided nuggets in the past were now dry and we were able to run a detector over them without the constant protest of an unhappy, spoilt child. A nice little nugget was soon taken from its home which set the tone for the rest of the day. The plan was to use one machine and dig out gravel and move rocks from the exposed areas of the pool. As the creek had been hit by a couple of major floods in the past 12 months, there was a lot of gravel that had moved around and we knew that small gold would be held in or below some of it. Joe and I would clear about 3 or 4 inches of gravel from a small area and then detect it. If a target was heard, one person would wave the stick and the other would dig the piece out. When the cleared area was carefully detected, we would dig a little deeper. We soon discovered that this procedure was starting to produce some nice little pieces of gold. As we dug a little deeper we would eventually hit a sticky clay layer where some of the bigger pieces would hide themselves. The gravel above this layer was quite loose and was obviously deposited by recent floods. After exploring the areas that were exposed, we detected the rest of the pool and also moved some gravel around. By this time it was getting late and we were tired. On the way home we debriefed and talked about the outcome of the day. An area that we thought was finished came alive again due to a bit of hard work and perseverance. We knew that there was plenty of gold beneath our feet but the detectors were not going to tell us about it unless we helped to make their lives a bit easier. It was decided that a follow up trip was required just to ensure that we’d picked the area clean. 20 small pieces and just over 3 grams put smiles on our dials and made for a memorable day out.

Did some research and exploration earlier this year searching for new ground to detect. Struck out with a couple of possibilities, but the third guess yielded a new patch. The discovery first nugget was 6+ grams. This is a general area I have prospected for years, but a new spot within that greater area. I've got 40+ grams so far - but still lots of area that needs exploration.

I haven't been out in over 3 months. Between working 7 days a week, and the scorching Temps, I just haven't made time. Well I woke up this morning at 3:30, and decided I needed a break from reality and headed to a spot I wanted to check out. I was swinging the gold kruzer by 6 am, and found nice specimen at about 8:30 am. This is the first gold I have found with the detector ever. It definitely made my day, and feels like a hurdle has been passed. The rock weighs 10.8 g, but I could just barely make out a couple tiny specs of gold poking out. It was about 2" deep, but the gold kruzer sounded off like it was a 22 bullet or casing. I was about as surprised as could be to find out it was actually gold this time. I ended up breaking it up to expose the gold more. There are some nice looking species to see now. My phone just can't take a good enough pic to show it...grrrr one I find a better camera to take better photos, I will add them. This is as far as I plan on crushing it, as it is my first piece, and I will clean them up and save them for display and memories. I'm posting pics that I tool with my crappy phone, but I promise, there is decent gold in there. Just for reference, the gold kruzer screamed on it, but when testing the atx on factory sensitivity of 10, it would have missed it. The one pic shows what I dug before I found gold.

Strange week last week... On balance, I can't remember how many times I entered the water and how many profanities I uttered. Still problems with the surface compressor and still poor visibility on a bottom that, although promising, was not easy to freedive on. On Friday night I finally repaired the components that were giving anomalies, and last Saturday I was finally able to carry out a session on the bottom. After about three hours after sunrise and a frightening silence, in the moment of leaving the beach to the swimmers, I pulled out a 6.2 gram wedding ring in 18 carats. Once again, I count myself lucky to have come close to the weekly minimum I am interested in maintaining. Have a great week everyone

Bring the popcorn and then your passports

First off, credit where credit is due. An esteemed forum member and I traded a few spots recently. I had never been prospecting in Eastern Oregon and figured it was worth asking an expert. Lucky for me, he gave me a region to check out. Ooh-rah! So I started researching the area, beginning with DOGAMI reports, geology maps, and the usual nerdy stuff. Then I started looking carefully at regular maps along with some more advanced mapping resources that can help locate less-known locations for gold prospecting. Research has become almost as fun for me as detecting - combining the two in a location that was 300 miles away, and that I had never visited, was a unique challenge. I'll have some videos out soon on our YT channel, which I'll post on this thread eventually. But here's the result of a quick overnight trip, with about 8 hours of total stick time. Seven small nuggets for 3.25 grams (or 2 dwt for you old guys). The interesting thing about these is that FIVE were in one hole! It just kept spitting them out. The middle deformed weewee shaped one is close to 2 grams. It was a really fun trip, very exciting to prospect a new area. I was flying solo, which just meant I had to be a little more careful than usual. I brought my GPX 6000 and Equinox 800, and thankfully so as I also found an old mining camp to detect. But gold has ruined me! I used to be all about mining camps, ghost towns, old houses... I just can't hang with the relic/coin guys anymore. It's hard to get excited about digging up stuff I normally chuck in my trash pouch. But it still was a nice change of pace. Here's my bed for the night, a 2004 Dodge Ram 2500. No fires, no stove. Cold brew coffee at 4am and canned food. Real miner stuff! I ended up hiking into or driving to a total of 5 or so mines. I did not want to go to the old man mines that were 50 feet from a road. Maybe someday when my hips are wore out and my back creaks. But for now I'll use my earthly vessel for packing in 40 lbs of gear and leaving the rig behind. One of the best-looking ones was claimed, and I attempted to contact the mine owner. But no dice! With the price of gold being so high I don't blame em for wanting to keep it all to themselves. I found gold at two mines, with six nuggets at one and one tiny piece at a much more difficult to access mine. The mine I found most of these pieces at had been detected recently, at least the dig holes made it seem that way. But for some reason they walked right by an obvious piece of exposed bedrock. I swung my coil over it and got a loud, clear signal. I should have known something was up as the first signal was difficult to retrieve. I had it in my scoop, but the hole was still sounding off! I ended up finding a tiny crumb, and then checking the hole. Still loud and clear! Out popped a second nugget. I almost walked away from the hole but figured I should check it again, just in case. Banging signal! A few scoops and out popped a nice 2 gram chunk. At this point there was still a slight wobble in the hole, but I walked away. I actually forgot about the signal and drove off in search of bigger gold. That night I was going back through my videos and remembered I had left a target at the first mine. The next morning I explored a bit before returning to the "magic hole." And sure enough, it spit out two more nuggets. Five in one hole. Crazy! I'd never believe it. But I got it all on video, so I guess I have to since everything on TV is real. Excellent trip. No risk, no reward - get out there and find you some gold! -Tom- Whaddya think the middle one looks like?

Originally, I had planned a trip to the High Sierras but due to the fires and smoke I decided to go to the Mojave Desert instead. I was of course aware of the temperature there (108 F peak today), but thought to go early in the morning and then stay as long as I could, which turned out to be around 11.30 am. I went to the general area where I always go, which has a long history of placer gold mining, albeit historically mostly with smaller operations due to extreme weather conditions and the total lack of water. I decided to try a new area where I had never been. I got lucky, the very first target I dug turned out to be a small flat piece. You can perhaps see it in the scoop. It was about 2 inch deep, so fairly shallow. This is typical for this area which also has tons of hot rocks It did not take long until I found a second piece, this one was a little bigger (0.6 g) at roughly the same depth. I always love the moment when I see the gold in the scoop for the first time, and I will never get tired of it doesn't matter how big or small. It is that moment of joy and heart beating that never goes away for me. After a few bird shots I had my next target, this one was smaller piece but not flat. You can see it in the scoop if you have good eyes 🙂 Again, that moment of excitement when you see it all dirty mixed in with the other dirt. Overall, 4 pieces so not a bad morning for a brand-new place, albeit under almost heat stroke conditions.... The good thing was that I did not see a single soul. I guess I was the only crazy one to go out in that heat. The landscape alone is worth the trip for me, and a welcomed opportunity to forget the crazy world for a while. GC

Hi Folks, A couple of weeks ago Joe and I spent a day detecting some old elevated workings with the zeds. It was obvious that they had been hit hard over the years and we could see that they had been raked within the past 12 months. It didn’t worry us though as it was a new area and we approached it as an adventure. After working the area for about five hours, we decided to head home early as we had only scored five or six small pieces for our effort. On the way home, we decided to stop and inspect a gully that was located about .5 km to the north of where we had been working. We left the detectors in the car and just walked a couple of hundred metres upstream to look at the potential of the area. What we saw impressed us so we thought that we would do a bit of research and come back another day and run our detectors through some of this country. As the majority of this creek was running through private property, we thought that there may be a chance that this gully had received a little less attention than some of the more famous gold bearing streams in the area. A quick chat with the owners of the land gave us a creek name but nothing else. To their knowledge, there was no stories related to alluvial gold mining in that particular spot. A bit of research showed no reference to the creek at all. The land title maps showed that 70% of the creek was on private property with the upper reaches running through state forest. It was interesting to see that this was an old title where the creek was actually part of the property itself. In other words, there was no public access to the stream without trespassing. That was great for us as we had permission to explore the area. Further research showed that a series of hard rock mines situated on the ridge above the gully had produced payable gold 120 years ago. That was enough information to get us excited. We developed a plan of attack and decided to come back the following week to explore the area. Joe and I decided to use the 6000 with the Coiltek 10x5 attached. We thought that there should be plenty of potential gold traps in the creek and this setup would allow us to get into tight areas and squeeze out any little bits of yellow hidden in cracks or crevices. If we found gold, we could then come back with zeds and look for deeper, larger pieces. The bottom section of the creek was deep ground with very few features so we just quickly ran our machines over this country, concentrating on the wings of the creek. The alluvial soil quickly changed to a mineralised red soil as we moved upstream. There was plenty of hot rocks and quartz in the gravels which gave us hope for better things higher up. After a few hundred metres the country changed. The sides of the valley became quite steep and a rocky bottom started to appear. The country was outstandingly beautiful. Pools of water, small waterfalls, rock bars and huge rocks were staring back at us. It was breathtaking. Joe and I just looked at each other and all we could say was “Wow”. We had found a different type of gold and we just had to stop and take it all in. This type of beautiful country continued all the way upstream. As we were in the mountains, the elevation changed rapidly. We had to climb quite a few rock faces and wade through slippery pools of water in our search for gold. Quartz stringers were running through many of the rock bars and we were hopeful of finding something but targets were scarce. In one area we found a lot of barbed wire fragments which in hindsight may have been part of an old boundary fence. The rock bars that we encountered held beautiful gold traps but they were barren. There was very little evidence of any work being done on the banks by the old time prospectors so we had a good idea that this stream may not hold much gold. We continued upstream until we made it to an area that was directly below some old mines. Joe continued upstream while I walked up the steep bank to try to find the location of the first mine. The undergrowth was quite thick and it was a hard slog to push through the scrub. I walked to and then around the area where the mine was supposed to be located but I never found it. The problem with many of the old mine locations is that accuracy is often not as good as it could be. I met up with Joe again and we detected the immediate area before heading down stream again. The whole area still looked promising but nothing upset the detector threshold. We both agreed that the total lack of lead shot, miners nails, bits of rusty steel etc probably confirmed our suspicions in relation to the creek. To prospect by definition often means no returns in relation to what is being chased but in this case the rewards were amazing. Joe and I worked our way back to the ute with empty rattle jars and smiles on our faces. It had been a great day out. While we were packing up I suggested to Joe that we could spend an hour or so at the old diggings that we had worked with the zeds the previous week. With the small coils on the 6k’s we could possibly scratch out a couple of pieces. A five minute drive put us at the diggings and after about an hour and a half we called it quits with a few scraps in the rattle jar. That was just a bit of icing on the cake to finish off a great day out.