Jp’s Gold Thread

[Happy Jack101]

Yes its funny how we seem to gravitate back to those areas which produced in the past after the punters have gone home during the summer months (same here).  I am always surprised when those areas deliver the goods, scratching at how they were missed.  Well done JP.

[flakmagnet]

impressive as usual…
(I couldn't see which coil you were using )

 

[Lunk]

Can't go wrong with a day like that in a flogged patch!

[geof_junk]

JP back in the mid 1980 My brother in-law, wife and yours truely had a trip to your area. A storm hit us very hard at the time, the tents were nearly blown away. We had permission to hunt on a private claim at the time. No luck for my bother in-law or myself, but Carol (my wife) still won't let us forget that she was the only one that scored gold on that very short trip. Gold is were you find it but 100 yards from a large roundabout in the town section of Clermont showed me you can find gold anywhere someone has not detected. I am not sure but either your gold shop or the Claim owner had a army Name like Sargent or Major.

The high light of the trip for me was that I came across a working Alluvial  Mine, the owner allowed me to go down to the working face. I think it was 90 foot deep and one of the owner was down there with a pick digging out some white pipe clay in a very cramped space. This was winched out in a 44 gallon drum at the entrance shaft that was about 4ft wide and 90 ft deep   

[Jonathan Porter]

13 hours ago, geof_junk said:

JP back in the mid 1980 My brother in-law, wife and yours truely had a trip to your area. A storm hit us very hard at the time, the tents were nearly blown away. We had permission to hunt on a private claim at the time. No luck for my bother in-law or myself, but Carol (my wife) still won't let us forget that she was the only one that scored gold on that very short trip. Gold is were you find it but 100 yards from a large roundabout in the town section of Clermont showed me you can find gold anywhere someone has not detected. I am not sure but either your gold shop or the Claim owner had a army Name like Sargent or Major.

The high light of the trip for me was that I came across a working Alluvial  Mine, the owner allowed me to go down to the working face. I think it was 90 foot deep and one of the owner was down there with a pick digging out some white pipe clay in a very cramped space. This was winched out in a 44 gallon drum at the entrance shaft that was about 4ft wide and 90 ft deep   

That would have been Sid Major, from memory he had a lease out near the Airport but am unsure about the round-about one nearer to town, although I have detected gold in there in the long distant past. I first came to Clermont in 1994 so that was well before my time, the first Minelab dealer in Clermont was a guy called Graham Pepper. Gosh there must have been some gold to be had back then!! Clermont was a beast of a place for VLF, so the vast majority of ground went largely undetected till 1995 then it went ballistic. 

JP

[Jonathan Porter]

You ever had a day when you just can’t do anything wrong? Yesterday was just such a day! I was up at ‘sparrow’s fart’ and hit the ground with the sun barely in the sky. On the drive out I was positively euphoric, I just knew in my bones it was going to be a good day (I had no idea I was going to do well on the gold, I just felt fantastic and that all the stars were aligned regardless of finding gold or not).

Being in the right frame of mind has a really big impact on how the day can play out regardless of what equipment you are using. I honestly could care less if I found gold or not, my mind was just keyed to being content with being alive and happy to just be out there and doing it, anything of a gold nature that came my way was just a bonus.  Usually I can tap into this in varying degrees as it requires concentration and effort, but yesterday it was just flowing of its own accord and I got to take a lazy back seat for a change and just let it flow for the whole session, pure detecting bliss. 😇

First cab off the rank was a plucky 8 gram chunkster at the base of a tree (how I’ve missed that over the years is anyone’s guess), I just pulled up and wandered over to it as calm as you like. 

Next signal was a point 3 just to ground me back to reality again, then an hour later I got my coil right over the sweet spot of a deep dig me target signal. And now I was in the money! 

The rest of the session was a blur till it got too hot and I ran out of puff digging deep holes, I just meandered about excavating nice gold all around my old haunts where I’ve pulled gold for over 20 years, simply amazing. 

Never ever give up folks, in variable ground there is always the possibility that there is something left, it’s just a matter of having the right mindset and faith in your equipment whilst maintaining the fundamentals of good technique, then voila gold!💗😜

A totally astounding detecting session.

[Gold Catcher]

1 hour ago, Jonathan Porter said:

You ever had a day when you just can’t do anything wrong? 

Haven't had one of those in a long time...Awesome, JP!

[mn90403]

On 12/8/2020 at 11:40 AM, Jonathan Porter said:

I prefer it if there has been a few thunder storms to wash away all the tyre tracks and footprints, the myriads of patterned phycological evidence that beta-blocks the feeling of success right out of your very soul before you even start the first swing of the coil. 🥴

JP,

Perhaps your lack of thunderstorms this year kept your ground dry for extra sensitivity to your Zed just as Lunk and Gerry experienced at a dry Rye Patch!

Well done and the follow up was pretty good too.

[Jonathan Porter]

On 12/15/2020 at 12:22 AM, mn90403 said:

JP,

Perhaps your lack of thunderstorms this year kept your ground dry for extra sensitivity to your Zed just as Lunk and Gerry experienced at a dry Rye Patch!

Well done and the follow up was pretty good too.

Thunderstorms and unstable weather have been an issue atmospherically for the past few months, but the ground has been bone dry which is good in the more conductive ground types around Clermont. I always try to hit the ground early while the atmosphere is at its most stable, the GPZ is very good for Sferic type noise so is pretty quiet until things really start to heat up. 

In conductive variable ground the signal increases with the moisture, so what was a faint murmur when dry and easily managed by the Semi-Auto G balance become more defined and positive when wet or damp, making it hard to listen for edge of detection signal responses.

JP

[Jonathan Porter]

I’ve been getting out as much as possible during December before the expected monsoon this year pushes down into where we live, it has finally arrived and we are now pleasantly cool but everything is now rain soaked with constant drizzle. Good for the poor farmers who have been drought ridden but not good for us detectorists thanks to more ground signal and grass growth. It was fun while it lasted and now I have to go about my work with a whole new approach.🥴

I’ve had some good successes this year with some brilliant detecting moments coming along with the hard work and heat. Early starts and detecting till its too hot has been the norm then kicking back to recover in the aircon as a reward, it’s surprising how many hours of quality detecting time I’ve been able to squeeze into this build up to the wet. What was even more surprising was the decent finds I got along the way in well worked areas. 😎

One session was no exception but took a few attempts before I got my coil over a decent piece, first location was a frizzer with the ground I targeted not having enough depth for my liking. I tend to concentrate on ground that is in excess of 12 inches going into deeper ground, this is where my skill set shines and where I have the most success unless I’m patch hunting. The only time this changes is if I put on a smaller coil and even then I’m targeting the deeper ground relative to coil performance. I am always listening for edge of detection target signals. 

Second location was also a frizzer but it was a good opportunity to wave my coil over a friends test patch nearby to confirm my settings choice and detector behaviour. By this time it was well past 10 am and I was still gold-less, being totally wet through from the humidity didn’t help my enthusiasm to not just down tools and go home but instead relocate, so I sat in the aircon of my 4x4 for 15 minutes and cooled off somewhat while eating a banana 🍌. As a spur of the moment I decided to go to a spot on the way home that has been thrashed to death by many many people over the past 20 years, it’s right beside the track in a well known area and is riddled with dig holes one upon the other.

I cringed as I put my backpack back on, it feels horrible putting a pack on over the top of a wet soppy shirt, everything sticks to you and feels extremely uncomfortable. Nevertheless I forced myself to do it and committed to at least an hour of detecting going over the deeper sections methodically before calling it quits. I’m glad I did. 😝 

15 minutes of getting my ear into the local conditions and I heard my first faint Low/High signal of the day, 8 inches of soil removal brightened the signal into positivity along with the smile on my face. Next was flurried sweaty digging until close on the 18 inch mark out popped this iron stained 9 gram chunkster. 😊 

The next signal was really broad and channel flipped ever so slightly, (High/Low-Low/High) a sure sign of a deep ‘real’ target at max detection range. 😎

This 10 gram nugget was really clean compared to the first one which is interesting considering they were only 15 feet apart.

By this time I was physically spent with another deep hole in high temps so it was time to call it a day. Considering I had moved location 3 times and messed around a lot it was an extremely good outcome and a highlight to the detecting year due to the thrashed nature of the patch. It was also good to ping a little picker at good depth along the way just to keep the ego in check. 😇🤣

Total for the session