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Detecting Iffy Sounds/Weak Signals, Ground Noise, What to Expect – Gold? Are you good enough to know those iffy sounds, weak signal from ground noise and know when to Dig or walk? Are you the one who’s so sure of your detector and skill level, you decide in a few seconds if it’s a genuine target or ground noise and can decide to dig/walk? Do you really have enough experience on your detector to know? If you don’t, this read is for you. In fact in my humble opinion, this post is for most everyone because I’m quite certain, each of us has made a mistake at one time or another and walked away from Gold. But in hunts past, how many times have we done it, will we do it again and how big of gold did we leave behind? Only if we really knew. As I’m viewing across the desert flats, my eyes focus on a finger wash coming from the Colluvial fan above. It’s only then at that time, I decide the area I plan to hunt for a nugget from the depths below. My ZED is purring along with a light decent smooth Threshold. The only difference from previous hunts for today and at this site, I’m not running the usual optimal High Yield Mode most of us prefer. I went with my gut feeling and opted for the General Gold Mode, hoping a larger (not a big multi ounce) piece of gold to be uncovered. My Ground Type Settings is set to Normal which is also my preferred setting for soil conditions and different from the detector Factory Preset of Difficult. It was only an hour in the hunt and my ears catches the faintest of Threshold tone change. Knowing the time of the year and amount of moisture in the ground in this area, I assume moisture pocket and continue to walk on. After about 5 sweeps and steps farther up the wash, I stop and think to myself. Have I heard that same sound before? We’ll yes and just in fact a day before at another location, I chased a half dozen of such ground mineralization ghost signals. But something was not right here, it just felt different. I turned around and walked back. I swing over the area again and can’t find it? So again, I chalk it up as bad ground. But…just as I turn to walk back up, I catch it… again. I’m thinking to myself… Gerry, are you hearing things again, like you do so many times? Well yes and no, I reply back to myself, again. But my gut…my gut, is telling me something is different, I just can’t nail it. I’m standing there perplexed and pondering as my mind is racing through memories from past 25+ yrs of swinging PI’s and then DOD technologies. I also realize on rare occasions I’ve been able to sniff out a good nugget at stunning depths. I did this by investigating some of these unknown sounds and or potential iffy targets. My ear just barely catches the murmur again. It’s at this time, I make the decision to investigate this particular noise. I’d like to see and hear from others to chime in and add to this thread, so we are helping each other, as that’s what we should do on occasion here on DP. So here goes me. 1.) I come off to the side of potential target and do a Ground Balance to confirm detector is tuned to the soils nearest the iffy sound. I do such and as I sweep back over the potential spot, I can still barley catch a murmur of Threshold interruption. 2.) Next step on such iffy targets is to slowly circle while sweeping left to right and back, circle and sweep all the way around. This helps me decipher from a few ground signals since they sometimes are elongated and not round singular in one spot. Many times, an iffy is heard swinging left to right… l/r, but when turning 90 degrees, the sound becomes long. Heck, I’ve heard this many times in a wash and if I keep walking while swinging for 5 feet, it still produces the same sound, which is a long narrow streak of concentrated minerals or moisture. I know, there is no such thing as a 5’ long nugget, at least not one I’ve ever seen or heard of. Back to the iffy sound and circling, I come to the conclusion it’s still worth investigating, so next step on an iffy. 3.) Boot Scrape a good 1 to 2” deep boot scrape of about 1.5X the coil size and just as tall. Do a nice clean even and level scrape so the coil can get that much closer and a smoother coil control when sweeping left to right and circling again. This particular iffy, my boot scrape didn’t change anything? No cleaner signal response as expected? But, the iffy never did get worse or much weaker either. Time for next step. 4.) Remove a good 3 to 4” more down using the pick. Again make sure the hole is broad and even so the coil can get down in there and be level. I do such and put the coil on the spot which now has approx 6” removed. I sweep a few times across and I can hear a slight increase of noise from the “iffy”. But I still was not 100% sure of a target. 5.) Again, I remove another 3 to 4” and am now at least 8 to 10” deep. I sweep the coil across and finally get a cleaner signal that gives me hope. I don’t always do the next step, but this time I remember to. We usually get excited and miss this step. 6.) I decide to change the ZED operation Mode from General to High Yield and check target again. This time I notice, the target is reversed (inverted). Interesting? 7.) So I add a step and also changed the Ground Soil Timing from my preferred Normal to the factory preset Difficult setting. I lower coil in now 10” deep hole, and sure enough, the sound is still there and stronger. I put both Modes back to my beginning settings l as I prefer the standard wee-ooh target response my ears are so much used to when hunting gold. 8.) This bit of knowledge for your noggin (brain) is tricky and I’m not 100% sure how to say. But here goes. - On the majority of my gold finds of deeper nuggets that were weaker signals. If I had removed 4 to 6” of soil from the hole and I then swing the coil across the target area from the original ground level that I heard the sound, a target response would still be there and at the same signal strength it was from the beginning. Well, I hate to change what I have said for all these years, but I proved this not to be the case this time. This is the only the 2nd time I can confirm with 100% certainty, the iffy target at ground level from beginning was now totally gone. Don’t ask me why, but I’m hoping our Australian friend who does it for a living, Expert and DP member, JP can explain? For some reason, the removed soil above the target has somehow caused said signal to disappear when swinging the coil from the surface level of original ground level height? What happened this time on this target, is only the 2nd time I encountered such and the 1st occurred yrs ago with a GPX-5000 and an iffy signals I dug down 8” and then it really never got better. I filled the hole and walked away. 2 days later, I’m walking through the same area and swing over the exact spot I had dug and filled in previous. It ended up being an deep 20” 7 gram nugget. For now, I am going to say this. When in doubt, check it out… more. If you’re getting stronger signal as you lower the coil into hole, keep digging unless the changing of Soil Timings makes target go away. Back to this iffy sound. I’m now over 10” deep, the different Soil Timings and Gold Modes are checking the boxes. I’m still not 100% certain though, as I have found a very select few hot rocks at depth that fooled me. Here in this spot, I’m 50/50 on a real gold target as I have yet to dig a Hot Rock in this wash. Heck, I had yet to dig a ground noise in the wash as well and that’s what originally tipped me off. Taking a break and trying to gather myself, I see my brother walking across the desert in my direction. I radio to him to hunt back to the truck and get my Manticore and my pinpointer. Hopefully those 2 tools will help in educating us more. 9.) Not always possible, but if VLF is handy, use it. Said detector can do 2 things. Help Identify true target and also to isolate target (narrow the area down) so it does not get whacked with the pick and be damaged like so many bigger pieces of gold I’ve seen. (in fact a 3 ounce solid nugget came in my shop this week with customers pick signature on it, ouch!!!). 15 to 20 minutes later, I’m swinging the Manticore with M8 coil down in the hole and as I go from left to right, it’s hitting strong with a VDI readout of 27 to 29, which is great numbers for good gold. Now I know, for sure this is not a big deep hot rock and or softball size pocket of highly mineralized soils. I’m most certain I have gold and start getting excited. 10.) Pin Pointer – I don’t use one when hunting most small nuggets, but boy is it sure helpful on big deep holes and in bedrock situations for larger gold. After more picking around and removing a massive 5 pound rock in the bottom of hole, I’m now scooping the bottom clean to remove all loose material. At approx 20”, I decide the pinpointer can be used. Hardly a peep but one last run around and pinpointer catches a weak signal with a slow pulse of sound, in 1 little spot. I use pick to remove 2” more around that area and then check with pinpointer and get the strong hit I desire. Another breaking up of approx 2” more material using pick (it was hard ground) and I now have removed the target from it’s bed of probably 10,000 years. I exuberantly get the nugget in my hand and immediately realize, something that left me feeling a little ill? It was way to light for what I was expecting. Mixed emotions running through my head and stomach at the same time. I just recovered a gold nugget at depths most folks would have easily missed and even though it’s gold, I’m not as happy as I was hoping and expecting. That’s part of the funniness when you’re used to digging big gold. You just expect another big one at those kinds of rare depths. 11.) Never stop learning. - The best part of the whole ordeal, was me learning from this iffy and not walking away like so many times done before. Below is a 24" Apex and 20 to 22" deep hole the iffy came from. Hopefully you folks can learn from this and those who have knowledge to share, please add because I’m just one guy who hunts in the US and I’m sure other parts of the country and or Australia those regions can be different. Your style and techniques might shine more light and in the end, if we shine on gold at the bottom of a 2 foot deep hole, we’re all winners. You all have been patiently waiting for this hog in mount pic of 2025 and here it is. Hopefully not that last for this season. Summary, nugget weight was 12.4 grams as it came from the ground. Depth of the hole dug from was 20 to 22” deep. After I got home and soaked the caliche off the nugget, the new clean weight is only 10.7 grams. My total of 10 nuggets found in those 4 days = 15.47 grams, just shy of a ½ ounce of gold. I used both the GPZ-7000 and GPX-6000 detectors and had success with both. Hopefully the field knowledge I used and learned on this trip will help someone down the road find themselves a nice deep nugget that was indeed an iffy of a sound. Anyone wanting to add some of their own field knowledge, that’s great. We all know, the manuals and books don’t tell us such. Thanks for reading and hopefully your next Iffy is a deep Nugget. Thanks, Gerry Gerry's Detectors Gold Nugget Detector Field Training

I started my nugget hunting adventures a little over 3 years ago by buying a GPX6000 and found my first tiny nugget on the second day of using it. I have found many nuggets with it since ranging in size from 0.023g to 19.6g and I continue to be amazed at how sensitive this machine is on small gold as well as larger gold at moderate depths. I found 4 patches last year that I have since cleaned out with my 6000 and wondered if there was deeper gold still hiding there. I did a dig and detect operation in a small area on the most productive of the four patches and recovered 40+ more nuggets layering down to bedrock. I used the 6000 for this operation and it worked very well since I could layer down 3 to 4 inches at a time without fear of discarding any nuggets into the discard pile. It was back breaking work but it payed off. I then decided it was time to acquire a PI that was capable of greater depth on 1g+ nuggets over the 6000+NF 12x7 coil. I first purchased a GP3000 that came with an old NF 17x11 mono coil and although it did have improved depth I still was not satisfied with the overall performance limitations of this machine using mono coils in variable levels of ground mineralization. I listed it in the classifieds and Gerry (dealer in ID) offered to trade a new EQ800 for it and when he also offered to include the 6" coil with it, I accepted. I figured adding a good all around multi purpose VLF to the arsenal couldn't hurt so I thank Gerry for convincing me. Next a GPX4000 popped up for sale on the classifieds, at a very good price, so I jumped on that and was quite satisfied with the performance of the machine since I now had a smooth timing available for running medium to large mono coils in hot ground but learned quickly that the Sensitive-Smooth timing had limited depth capabilities. I sold the 4000 and set my sights in a 4500 since a 5000 was a bit more than I wanted to pay. But then a fellow prospector friend of mine alerted me to a 5000 that another friend was selling. The seller allowed me to evaluated it first before buying it. I took it to the Dale district for testing on an area with very hot ground, including iron stone as well, and it performed very well with the NF Evo 15 Round coil just for the sheer fact of having the additional timings available. I contacted my friend Reese (GoldSeeker5000) for advice on timings and settings on the 5000 for larger/deeper gold since he is quite knowledgeable on the subject. Armed with the 5000+NF Evo 15 Round coil and the settings info from Reese, I recently went back to the area with the four patches and went over them again very slow and methodically. The first 3 patches did not yield any additional gold for me but I was also limited to mostly using the Fine-Gold timing since Normal, Sensitive-Extra and Sharp timings were just too noisy on the ground there even with reduced gain settings. The fourth patch had milder ground and I was able to use Sensitive-Extra the majority of the time as well as Sharp some of the time. I spent the first part of the day digging deeply buried ferrous trash items at impressive depths. I recovered a 1.5 inch round iron washer at around 24 inches and was glad to have a pin-pointer for the final part of the dig. I took a break for lunch and to recover from digging massive craters all morning. After lunch I resumed detecting and got a signal under a bush that wasn't great but worth investigating. I cut back the bush so I could get more than just the edge of the coil over the target and the signal became strong and repeatable. I got the target in range of the pin-pointer and to my surprise it was a good sized lump of gold this time instead of trash. It is an interesting nugget that is not solid but not a specimen either. It weighs 14g and is second in size to the 19.6g nugget that I have found so far. It was around 14" deep which may not sound that deep but it was first heard with just the edge of the coil due to being limited by the bush. So in conclusion I now have the big gun added to my arsenal for deeper gold. The Sensitive-Extra timing appeared to handle the ground better than Normal timing which contradicts the Minelab timing chart. The NF Evo 15 coil is still very sensitive to small targets and it still hears small steel birdshot near the surface which surprises me.

I'm about to take off to Australia in a week so it was good to slip in a hunt for gold before going, I'm not going to bother going to look for gold while over there, I may take the Manticore and hit the Gold Coast beaches after they had that massive erosion from the recent cyclone though, that stuff looks promising. Anyway JW contacted me asking If I wanted to go for a gold hunt, rarely if ever would I say no to that, my 6000 was charged up, my 7000 was not and because I was busy painting my garage that day, I figured I'd just use the 6000 as its ready to roll, I threw the Manticore in to give it a bit of a try at the spot too although it didn't work all that well, even after balancing and having quite a low sensitivity it was just far too bump sensitive for my liking. It didn't like the particular soil at this location, I was frequently ground balancing which was required but nothing even a quite low sensitivity under 20 would stop the bump sensitivity so I didn't use it much, I probably should have taken the Garrett 24k as it never has bump sensitivity for me. In these rocky spots the bumping is just too annoying and can be so distracting that I would miss gold for sure. I hope at some point in the future Minelab can sort that out, even the most sensitive detector like the Gold Bug 2 has absolutely no bump sensitivity yet the Nox, Manticore and GM1000 are all quite bad for it and for me it's just too annoying and damaging to performance in some locations to make those detectors viable to use and why the Garrett 24k is my favourite gold prospecting VLF. Anyway, onto the day We went to a spot we've done a lot, but JW had been going there the past weekend or two and having some success mostly smashing gold out of a bedrock crack so he had brought along his hammer drill with a chisel bit for the job. It's actually the exact spot I took @mn90403 when he came to NZ for a visit, and the same area he was detecting is where we were hunting. The most important thing for this day is the video as it gives a really good demonstration of the gold and the recoveries and how gold is often found in this area, without JW's hammer drill there are at least 4 of the bits I found yesterday would have been left behind as no way in the world could my pick break away the rock to get them. And a few photos from the day. The bits found were mostly quite small, but a majority embedded in rock. If JW didn't bring his hammer drill with chisel bit, I would have missed most of the gold. I have a hammer drill; I'm going to have to get myself one of the chisel bits today now that I see how vital it is for this style of detecting. In the past I've done it with my pick or a chisel and hammer, some of these bits yesterday would have just been way too hard to try get out manually. This one surprised me, just in top soil in a grassy bit but along the same bedrock cracks, it ended up having two pieces in this hole. And my total for the day, 7 little bits, I can't weigh them as I can't find my scales at the moment. I put a pellet there for size perspective on the bottom left. My junk minus a few pellets, i had some fall out of my pocket when I emptied my junk out and lost them. And JW's finds for the day, half a gram is nothing to be sneezed at these days with the value of gold. A fun day out.

Yesterday I went out to a site where club members have been doing a lot of digging and detecting. They have been finding some nice nuggets in their tailings and a few flakes in the dry washers. I wanted some but I don't have a dry washer so I had to think about the right detector and coil. I decided on the 7000 with 10" X-coil since it has been hit hard with a modded GB2, Monsters, GB Pros and even a 4500. I got there about dawn and there still was a couple of cars left from the weekend. I walked up the wash a bit and remembered I had forgotten a scoop. I came back and got a target right away. It was 'weak' but distinctive. I scrapped and dug a bit and it brightened up the was a good target should. I got down in the loose pile about 6" and the target was out of the hole. Once scooped and seen ... it was a nugget! It is .46g and when I asked others they had been over the exact spot. First target and first gold of the day just before the sun was hitting my location in the mountains. Well, that was it. Seven hours later after a bit of exploring and walking about the temps were near 90 and I'm not ready for that so early in the year. Time to go. Would you rather have an early nugget or near the end of a hunt? This is my first posting with a new computer. I've had my old laptop for many years. It only has 4mb of ram and I've just noticed it being very slow. It is very, very slow when it comes to this forum and downloading pictures for this forum. This will be my first attempt at an upload. Here I go! This download took way too long. It has to be the phone. It was over 10 minutes to get to it. I've got many GB of pictures and video on this phone. When I go to add a picture here it loads every other still picture first before I can see the last ones which I usually want to upload. If I want to add more than one picture it does keep the uploaded photos in a temp file so the second one would be easier to load. I wish I could reverse the order it gives me to select pictures. I wish I would see the most recent pictures first rather than go through years of past pictures on my phone's ScanDisk card first. I do have it as external memory. Any suggestions? I'm using Edge but I think I'm going to go back the Chrome on this new computer. There is more but this might not be the place to get that type of help or have that discussion. This is a reason I stay with old technology as long as possible and want to mostly turn on and go with detectors!

Hi Gerry and all gold prospectors. I’ve enjoyed reading this site for some time. Jerry and many others with years of experience have great tips and detailed advice. I decided to join in when Steve posted about the Compass Detector Catalog 1990-1992 because I was really surprised to see my nugget I found in 1986 was in that catalog! So I posted the story on it on that thread. It weighed about 20 Troy Oz with 9 Oz being gold. I took it to UNR and they did a specific gravity test on it. Anyway we ran an 8” dredge on the North Fork of the Yuba for many years. The weird thing is that the chunk was on top of the gravel just under some sand. Other than a little flood gold, all the rest of the gold was on bedrock but nothing the size of the quartz specimen. I’ve pointed this out to detector prospectors back in the day suggesting that they don’t ignore the gavel bars and that big high grade can be found nearly anywhere in the gravel. Same with bucket line stacker tailings. That 9 Oz of gold would have rolled right through my sluce. That specimen was the biggest I’d ever found and I pulled a lot of gold out of the Yuba. So work those high and dry gravel deposits, you never know!

"Stan Bone is a third-generation gold miner who operated two of the last independent gold mines in Smiths Gully, Victoria: the One Tree Hill and the Black Cameron mines. Following in the footsteps of his father, uncle, and grandfather, who all lived and mined in Smiths Gully, Stan may be the last living link to Victoria's Gold Rush. This is his story."

I was forced to quit my job in February 2020. As we all know COVID struck about the same time. So having no job and living in gold country I decided to take up prospecting as much as possible. These are some of the results. Detector GPX4500 and GM1000. Many thanks to forum members for sharing and helping with info nessary to find this stuff.

I have been asked to elaborate and tell the stories of some of my more memorable finds. I've been detecting since 1979 and have racked up a few good finds, not all of which I've been able to keep. I get asked "What's the best thing you've found?" My answer is "What's the best thing I've found, or found and been able to keep?" Some of the best ones I got nothing for. Mainly because I was looking for someone else. But below is a list, in order, of the best for me. It's the thrill of the hunt after all. The full stories, along with pictures, are on my web site, (www.diggerbob.com), as they are too lengthy to repeat here. Most of these were published in various treasure magazines, primarily Western and Eastern Treasure. So, you are reading the story exactly how it was written and printed. Now, I've said before not to brag or publicize a valuable find, even if you don't get to keep it. My reason for going public with these were primarily to boost detector sales from my Whites dealership. It helped a bit, but not as much as I'd hoped. Also, some of the details published were not exactly how it went down. Certain details have been changed to protect the innocent... me. Location, people, and circumstances. And I waited a good amount of time, sometimes years, to go public. Home invasion robberies have become much more prevalent. So, here they are starting with the oldest. These are under the title Magazine Articles. A Dream Come True - This is the tale of 44 gold coins found in a garden here in Chico back in 1984. A few were found previously by the land owner and a few after. So the total is closer to 50 coins, mostly double eagles. The location was beside the old stage and wagon road going out of town next to an old, but occupied, house. Since all were dated in the 1800's, they could have been someones butter and egg money. The more likely explanation was to hide them after the gold seizure of 1933. I got to keep 3 of them. -- Interesting side note. Over the years I kept my eye on the site, hoping to get back and look some more. Eventually the house was torn down, fencing put up, and the lot became overgrown and trash filled. Then about 4 years ago, I saw earth moving equipment clearing the ground for a new apartment complex. They were leveling and taking a lot of dirt away. But the fence was down. So, the next day, after the crew left, I went back and hunted as much as I could before dark. As luck would have it, one more double eagle surfaced off to the side. I'll always wonder where they took all that dirt and how many coins went with it. The One That Got Away - One of my first outings with a group of professionals, I made a find that could have put my daughter through college. But in my ignorance and inexperience, I walked away from it, not knowing what it was. A huge quartz boulder with a vein of gold running through it. Another of our group found it and claimed it. If I'd made fuss about it, I probably would not be invited back with them. Over the years, proved I made the right decision. Bragging Rights - A short story of my first big nugget and oldest coin. Million $ Day - I helped the government locate 1.3 million dollars in stolen gold. Very interesting the clues that unraveled the location. Again, I received nothing but $100 for my time. The Butte Nugget - More pictures than story here. This one had to be kept quiet for a long time until a buyer could be found at auction. And again, some details have been modified. A gold nugget weighing 75 oz would attract a lot of unwanted attention. Bedrock Gold - This started off to be about the Oroville Dam disaster which exposed a mountain side of new bedrock in a historically rich area. But because access was prohibited, I could not get there to detect it. So it kind of morphed into a composite story of some of my other finds and tips on hunting bedrock. I made the cover of Western and Eastern Treasure's Gold and Silver annual issue though. The story of the Growler is there too, under the title Gold Fever. That one was not published, just posted on Docs forum about 25 years ago. There are a few videos as well. But, the years are catching up with me. I don't have what it takes any more to climb mountains and break brush to find "out of the way" treasure. I'll leave that to you youngsters. And don't be discouraged. There is still a lot of treasure, in many forms, out there waiting. Good luck! Digger Bob www.diggerbob.com

The sensitivity to small gold of the GPX6000+NF 12x7 coil keeps amazing me. These small nuggets range from 0.022g to 0.26g and all were found in two nearby patch areas. The smallest ones were between 1/2 inch to 1.5 inches deep but still very audible as long as you slow down the swing speed and methodically cover the ground. Most of the time I use gain of Manual-10 and used "Difficult" to eliminate most of the volcanic hot rocks in the area.

I'm still without my quad working yet, and I won't get to start using my brand new 2025 Suzuki kingquad500axi until February or there abouts. This has forced me to really hit ground I am able to hunt close to camp really thoroughly. I covered a lot of real-estate today and eventually hit a nice one. This 19" Evo has paid for itself many, many times over.

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.