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Went out for a day with a buddy from AZ that likes to highbank - in the desert! I could have brought a drywasher, but I assumed that the soil would be too wet so I just brought my 6000 instead. I spent most of the day chasing a skunk around with it while my buddy was making mud jello out of the 20 gallons of water I brought for his highbanker. It was a long day and the sun was about to put us in the deepening canyon shade, and I wasn’t very happy about being skunked so I grabbed a small shovel, a bucket and a 1/4-inch classifier and went for a short hike to get some grab samples off of a channel wall. I panned out the bucket of classified dirt from it when I returned to camp and got some color - about as much as a ball point from a pen’s-worth. That made it better, but I still prefer detecting over drywashing for the other benefits that go with it like hiking and exploring in the open desert and putting my mind at ease while just listening to the machine purring along, it’s very relaxing and sometimes may be rewarding as well! The highbanker take- mine was too small to see well.

First gold in about 6 years of a detecting hiatus. Got it in a little wash Condor showed me (I think) 8 years ago. The rains stirred it up a bit and I got one we left behind. Offroad racing is slowing down for me (getting old sucks) and I’ll be out swinging a lot more. I even got one of my little girls interested 😁 I’m in So Cal, anyone else in here around?

I lucked out and got to prospect the NSR on March 20.......the first day of spring. I finally got to use the Geo Sluice Again. It's been a while................

I rarely find anything worth posting here, but I think you might enjoy this. I have a standing permission at an old farm yard here in eastern Massachusetts. I've been over this particular spot six or eight times, and found a Barber dime just before the end of last season. So that's where I started last night. Deus II, Sens FT, square tones. Settings probably wouldn't have mattered as this signal was pretty clear – low eighties, fairly clear tone with a slight scratch on the outswing, and a bit of an unctuous warble. So a bottle cap, or more likely a big screw top from a liquor bottle. I dug it anyway because I wanted to clear the trash out and hopefully find more coins. It was very dark already, so when I flipped the sod, I could barely tell that I had a pocket watch or compass, so on I went. once I cleaned it off a bit at home, I explained to my son that this wasn't plated because there were no flakes coming off, but that silver sometimes comes out gold toned. At that point the back falls off. I got so excited about the inscription that I didn't read the case marks. So it took quite a while for me to realize that this was, in fact, a 14k gold watch!

Can you smell it?♨️ Sweet with heat jerky using hickory smoke. Started the day getting a little bit of gold. It got up to one degree above freezing, so in my neck of the woods, it was fantastic. Instead of my usual gravel from the steep vertical bank, I shifted gears and ran river gravel through my California Mini. Probably a little bit more gold, but so fine. Finished the day putting my marinated jerky into my dehydrator. Going to sleep well tonight.🥱

Have been trying to get out between some seasonably abnormal snow events in western Oregon the last 10 days. First, hit the beaches of the Columbia River not too far out of downtown Portland. Jewelry hunting was largely a bust, but I wanted to check all the black sand piled up from wave action, and satisfied my curiosity. 3 pans, 2 colors, and a dime in one pan not shown (How on earth in the millions of yards of sand up and down that 5 mile stretch did I pull a dime in a pan when i only found about 50 coins all day with the detector). Not enough to bother with....but there is gold underfoot! Next, hit an old park that has been incredibly stingy to me. I find plenty of good old stuff in our area, but this park has been well hunted and rarely gives up old coins. I used the Deus Hot program, and swapped in the Deep program checking targets, and found several whispers at 7-8 inches that have been waiting there a long time...and that countless detectors have passed over. Hit is twice more with modified programs that should have given me some additional depth and/or sensitivity to deep targets...and nuttin' in terms of old coins. One lonely vintage silver earing to show which was only 2-3 inches down. Bouncy signal probably resulted in it being undug. My buddy in our uncommon snow, taking the high ground to peer through the windows, and make sure she isn't left behind. Nothing that get's one too excited, but keeps me motivated to get out and dig a hole! Happy hunting! Brian

Here is the video of the 1.78 gram nugget I found the day before I found the big crystaline nugget 14" deep. That video is on deck.

Someone asked recently about finding small gold with a 15" coil at the beach. I found a little patch today and slowed down enough to find a couple of pieces of tiny jewelry. If you have a compatible detector (x-terra pro) then this 15" coil should work. Will it work on others as well?

A fine day it was yesterday at the North Saskatchewan River. Warm, partly cloudy with light winds. I took my Geo (Geometric) drop riffle highbanker for another dig. All I get is flour gold out of this river. Last year I got 17 grams of that powdery stuff. It's about 1/2 mile from where I parked pulling the sled. Easy going down the valley, a good workout pulling my equipment back out, up the river valley. Got some gold, and a first....a clay marble in one of my shovel scoops. It could predate back to the late 1800's. Also got some smaller pieces of petrified wood, a small piece of petrified dino bone and a fossilized bone in iron stone. I highlighted the bone with nail polish.....unfortunately, it wasn't dry and just reflected my light. Lesson learned!

Man....did I ever get a woody this afternoon .......a petrified woody that is! Out sluicing with the ity - bity sluice today. Pulling some gravel at about 4 feet off the ground in the gravel bank, when I saw the familiar contour stripes of petrified wood. I carefully dug it our, and stopped at a car wash to give it a good cleanup. Just a lovely specimen too. And, I also got a little ity bity gold too. It's not much, but it photographed using a macro lens to show that the pieces look like large nuggies.

After a good days sniping we have to walk past an apiary to get back to camp, Corey was ahead of us by 20 meters, Brodie and I were walking together, I'd just mentioned how in the past the bees have been well behaved, when Corey got stung. The s... hit the fan in a matter of seconds, I now know what making a bee line means, I saw a line of bees coming straight for my head. We stared running, we were in our wetsuits and and all put our hoods on as we ran unfortunately for me there was three bees in my hair, they stung me, while running top heavy with a back pack and trying to get my hood back off, I tripped on a rock. A series of increasingly long steps followed, until the inevitable happened and I fell heavily, my partners stopped to pick me up, we had left the bees behind, and with a bit more than my pride bruised I hobbled back to camp. It could of been a lot worse Corey got stung four times and me five, Brodie escaped injury, we had a good laugh about it later, but in hindsight it could have got nasty really quick. Here's some pictures of the weekend, sorry I can't post any photos that may give away the location, I'll post them when we finish in the area.

My brother and I went out for one last hunt for me this winter , we went out to a spot that encompasses several washes that we both found a goodly amount of nuggets in back in the 2015/2016 season when we first got the 7000s.We have been back to this spot several times since then over the years and found a few more small nuggets but yesterday i had the new NF 17x13 Z search coil on and i got a very soft tone that sounded almost like some of the smaller white hot rocks that are found here. But the hit was under two rather large rocks when i flipped the smaller of the two off the larger one the tone was a bit better so i dug down around 8 inches under the side of the large rock and the tone was getting better all the time. There were a lot of small rocks packed in around the rock so i got out my small pry bar and started to pick out the rocks till i saw the edge of the nugget since it was not that deep i thought a 2 or 3 gram piece as it was not really making the detector scream, but i sure was happy to see that when i kept prying rocks off it the bigger it got. Now over the years i know this was missed while using the stock 7000 coil and since the nugget was stuck against the rock with it's fine edge facing up not laying flat the stock coil just did not see it. As i said the first passes over the spot with the 17x13 it was so faint i almost moved on but something in my mind said dig this one. It weighs just over 1/2 oz. .

So the 23 gram specimen I got a few days ago is finally desolved in multiple baths of muriatic acid and what was inside is absolutely beautiful. It was so fragile and delicate that it broke into five pieces. Some parts of it look like microscopic bonsai trees resting on ice crystals. Totally cool to look at in person. There are hollow structures all through the nugget pieces. Trying to get the video edited, but I had to get a new SD card for my Canon to film the close up results of the nuggets. With that being said, the video will be a two parter or wait for SD card to arrive next week.

Here are my finds from last Sunday out in the sunny southwest corner of Arizona the total was 7.35 grams along with my brothers 2 gram piece , we had a good mornings hunt that day. I was using the 7k with the 12 inch NF coil .

The storms are a few days behind us but there are a few good waves coming in to make some patches. I found one patch today on one of my 'go to' local beaches and got a couple of golds! One has some stones (10k/2g/diamonds) to go with it. The other is a 14k gold earring that is not so rare this year. It is my 2nd one after many years of the similar style being always junk.

Sorry for being a slacker, but I have been busy 😁

Fresh out of the ground today in sunny southwest Arizona , my brother dug up a good one from under a boulder that was about 3 foot in diameter it was back under it about one foot and about one foot deep ,found with the 7000 and a nugget finder 12 Zsearch coil .

Went over to Gold Basin today for a hunt. Found a nice specimen and two small sub gramers. I was told a guy found a 47 gramer, a 2 gramer and a half gramer in Gold Basin two days ago. The 47 gram specimen was mostly gold. He was using a Gpx 6000. Here are my pieces for today.

Hey folks, I met up with a few friends on boxing day and headed into the wilderness to try and find some gold. After a hike into the location and setting up camp I headed off with my sniping gear to find my fortune, about 10.30am. By 1pm I had about a gram and a half in small pieces from a range of crevices. At this point I had a short break and considered my options. I chose a good looking crevice which cut across the river and had a good bedrock / current arrangement. After removing a little of the gravel which covered most of the crevice I spotted a couple of of slightly chunkier bits than what I’d got earlier. Well, shortly after this the crevice really pu on a show and in the following 1.5hours I found some fantastic gold. I ended up with 29.6g for the 4.5hrs I’d spent in the creek. This is pretty up there in terms of total gold Iver personally found in a day.

i have not been able to get out in 3 weeks due to work and rain. managed to get to a few new areas this morning. first 2 were to deep to beep. then i stopped the buggy at a small rivulet that looked like it had been worked long ago. turned on the 6k, first swing had a mellow hit, dug 8 or 9 inches to Caliche when i first saw it in the scoop, i was like no way. even had to take my glasses off to make sure i wasn't looking at a yellow rock. my partner and i hit the rest of the area hard with nothing but 50 pieces of trash. such a trashy area and my first target was this 103 grain/ 6.67 gram specimen.

Last night after dinner I went for a quick gold hunt, the day was hot but it cooled a bit by evening. I just went to a hillside a few minutes from where my caravan was parked and fired up the 6000. I didn’t bother with the GPZ for such a little hunt and the 6000 is more like a quick easy VLF especially now I can use its speaker, which I exclusively do now unless somewhere noisy as it’s not a loud speaker. the GPX behaved well, so much better with the EMI fix done, I quite like it now. There is lots of quartz around, it goes in a line like a vein up the hill. My first nugget for 2023 a nice flat one, very shallow easy target and of course sounded different to the pellets I’d been digging. Near a surface target. I got another straight away, the pick is the first nuggets hole, coil the second. Another flat bit. I called it quits now as I had to walk down the hill to my car before dark. The photo probably doesn’t show it but it’s steep, at least down is easier than going up. My junk, not bad for 2 bits of gold. I put 3 hot rocks in the photo but I must have dug 30 of them, the 6000 loved them and I couldn’t balance them out, normal, difficult, low sensitivity, nothing helped. They sounded just like gold too especially when buried. I will go back tonight after dinner when it cools down and try again, maybe with different equipment, might try the DD.

One big step for Ian 😉 Finally some Scottish gold.I was expecting Fine gold,but there’s a couple of flakes in there. The panning process is difficult thanks to the yellow stones in these burns,which are heavy and therefore only appear when panning back.The photo below shows what I’m talking about. Looks like gold,acts like gold,but thankfully doesn’t glint like gold or I’d be snookered.There isn’t any black sand either,just blonde sand and very fine at that.I would say it’s frustrating stuff to pan out.A little patience and an eagle eye and the gold can be seen,and being Scottish gold,it’s as pure as can be.

I've been doing a little comparison testing lately between the new Garrett Axiom and the Minelab GPX 6000. My focus was on sensitivity to small gold, as most areas I hunt still have plenty of tiny nuggets left; if there are any large, deep pieces left, they’ll still be there for the next generation GPZ to unearth. This comparison is not scientific by any means, and was done just for my curiosity, but I've decided to share my methods and observations for anyone here that may be curious as well. So first up was comparing the Ax fitted with its 11”x7” mono coil to the GPX 6k with its stock 11” mono coil. Settings for the Ax were Fine Mode, Tone at 77 (which is the same pitch as the fixed threshold tone that the GPX 6k runs at), Audio 01, MS-3 wireless headphones wirelessly connected, Speed set to Slow, Volume 25, Threshold 15, Sensitivity 8 and Ground Track Off. And the 6k sensitivity set at Manual 10 (I typically always run on Auto+, but since there were high voltage power lines near this location, I didn't want the Auto sensitivity reducing itself to compensate), Volume at 1 bar and the Avantree Torus neck speakers wirelessly connected via the 6k's inbuilt bluetooth, and Normal selected for the ground type. For this test, I selected a small area that had been raked and detected in the past, most likely during the late 80's to early 90's era, with the VLF detectors of that time. My comparison method was simple: I slowly and carefully gridded the raked area with the 6k until it hit a target, then switched off, fired up the Ax and gridded the same area in the same direction that I just did with the 6k, until I reached the same target. After digging the target, the gridding would continue, this time with the Ax, until another target was encountered, then switched off, fired up the 6k and re gridded that same area, etc. The idea was to see if either machine would see (or not see) targets that the other could (or could not) see. After gridding the entire raked area in this manner, all targets found were detected by each machine, and there were no targets found by either that the other could not detect. All targets save one were small gold nuggets, the only exception being a weak magnetite hot rock. The only thing I wasn’t liking about the Axiom at this point was the sound quality of the signal through the MS-3 headphones; it was no where near as clean and crisp as the target signal from the 6k and Avantree Torus speakers. It was a little cleaner using the Ax's inbuilt speaker, but it was still not to my liking, so I sent for a small Bluetooth transmitter from Amazon that I could plug into the Ax's headphone port and receive the signal with the Avantree Torus Speaker (you’ll see it attached to the Ax in the photo below), and that did the trick. A friend generously sent me his Axiom 11”x7” DD coil to test on small gold, and this time I pitted it against the 6k outfitted with Coiltek's hot little 5”x10” Goldhawk coil: Same settings on each machine, except nowhere near power lines, so was able to run the 6k on Auto+ sensitivity. This time, I selected as the testing area a small dry wash gully that had some old dry-blow heaps (dry-washer piles to us yanks) up on the banks. Small nuggets can always be found by following the dry-washers, especially in their fine tailing piles. Though many targets were found, only one turned out to be the color we all look for; the rest were small bits of wire brush bristles, aluminum foil and some small pieces of bullet jacket shrapnel. As far as the comparison goes, it was the same story - each detector heard all targets, and none were missed by either. As I noted at the beginning of the post, the comparison between the two machines wasn’t scientific, in fact I didn't bother measuring target depths or weights of the nuggets found; it was mainly to see if the Ax can keep pace with the 6k on sensitivity to small gold, and it appears to me that it certainly can.

I didn't get to the 800 mark like I was hoping this year. The 6000 certainly improved numbers quite a bit but the overall weight was down slightly. Only 774 pieces for the year. 5.25oz. Better than the 608 I got last year with the 4500 and 24K, but weight was slightly less (6.1oz). Still pretty good considering I'm hitting the same areas as previous years (mostly within 10km of home) and only spending an average of 16 hours each week detecting. Biggest was the half ouncer, with a big specie containing 9 grams and several 3 grammers and 2 grammers. Love to know how others have done for 2022. Posting some gold pics for future inspiration..... HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

First find of the year , My brother and i were out in the hills in the sunny far south west corner of Arizona yesterday and i ran my coil over this beauty at first i thought it was a piece of old lead but when i got down on my knees to looked at it closer i could see it was a nugget , had to call my brother over from the other side of the wash to come look to see if what i saw was real. We both made a guess as to it's weight mine was seven and one half grams his was over eight grams it came in at 10.36 grams . It was found on a small fan just at the top of a small wash.