Are You A Big Gold Hunter Or Just Want It All?

[Gerry in Idaho]

What is your style of chasing gold and have you changed?

Throughout my yrs of nugget hunting with a detector, I have changed my style of detecting.  When I first started I found every little bit/crumb of gold and was happy as could be.  I NEVER wanted to go home without gold, so the VLF was my king of not going home empty handed.  Now I use the VLF tools for their fantastic ID system and hunt trash areas for bigger gold.  I used to love finding 20 dink days and did it so often I never even took pics.  Heck I've done 50 dinks a day a few times and hit a place in Oregon that I pulled 100+, but for some reason, it was to worthy of a photo?  Guess I realized it was big gold everyone wanted to see.  Heck, I probably could have had more big gold if I changed my hunt style, but who wants to argue with Success...it just did not weigh much.

When the PI's came out and it took me a while to learn them, the 1 grammers were bigger gold and 1/4 oz'ers on up was consider big to this Idaho boy. 

I then started realzing the PI would find less pieces, but I usually ended up with 2 to 3X the weight.  Boy did I flip from VLF to PI....and my gold count went down, but my take home weight went up.

 

Then I was introduced to Ganes Creek, AK (thank you so much Steve H, for the suggestion of me to go up there). I learned the VLF's had another aspect of their capabilities that put a few ounces more into my Cache.  What I did with this new learned knowledge was take it back down to the lower 48 states and man, it really started me a gold rush.  So many old mining areas are full of trash, but yet so few people with spend the time to hunt them, or they do hunt them, but with the wrong technology.  Deeper trash is not a friend of the powerful PI detectors and we've proven that many times.  

Yes I still love my trips to Rye Patch and desire to pull another oz of NNV gold out with a GPZ-7000, but it's getting tougher each year and in the reality of things, I can spend a week trying to find an ounce of NNV gold nuggets around Rye Patch, or I can spend a week in trashy workings and most certainly will go home with more weight of gold.

Today, I would just as soon grab an EQ-800 with stock coil (sometimes larger) and spend hours at a time trying to find 1 piece of gold. 

Yes there are quick trips I come home with no gold on occasion, but that's my choice, as I could easily put a small coil on the (any VLF gold detector) and knock out a few pickers.  But when I do, is it worth taking pics and or sharing? 

I think it all depends on your interest of gold and experience level.  Most newer MD'ers of gold would rather go home with any gold no matter the size, but some of you will progress to the point, the little pickers are fun and cool to find, but not what you really want to take home.

So are you a big gold hunter who does not mind going home empty or one who just like digging gold no matter what the size and would be just as happy to find 20 pickers = 2 grams?

I'm sure you Aussie mates have a different take on things than us Americans.

Would love to get everyone's take and see some of your Success.

 

[oneguy]

I'm still in the piece count phase?  The itty bitties keep my interest up while waiting to stumble onto a bigger piece?  I've got a couple nice chunks in my 3 seasons tecting gold (biggest 3.55ozt) and will patiently enjoy the dinkers until another nice one turns up?

Beautiful gold Gerry (including the dinks!!!!).....

PS....a guy also just has to deal with the cards dealt and make the best of it....imo

Keep on the grind.... 3 dinks today is all but happy to come home with something

[Arky]

Gold is gold to me. I'm more about the finding than anything else. If you fish with kids you may know that digging worms is almost as fun as catching the fish. Guess I'm a kid at heart.

[geof_junk]

Gerry I am very selective. I only take the ones that I dig up and leave the other ones undug for others to find.😭

[Norvic]

Took almost  3 years of swinging to get my first, bought mountains of books, geology, history. then in 81 I fluked a virgin patch, in those days there was very few revealed patches the country was mainly detecting virgin country. That first patch taught me I had to get to know how to use these new fangled electronic devices, Bounty Hunter RB7, I got a wee consistent considering I had the answers now and then I finally scored a dealer that had a Garret A2B in stock, in those days the demand was many times the supply, and dealers were 1000s of ks away.

The A2B was the beginning for small gold which then and today is the bread and butter, regardless what you hear about OZ to me the great majority of weight in gold is those 3gram down to what you call dinks, subgrammers. Through VLF to ML PIs that as Gerry found got us back to the large deeper pieces, big mean picks/bars. Through all that to the GPS/moving map become almost as important a tool as the detector, geology and history, the patches that knowledge/research lead to have mostly been found through to today.

We are the first generations to have the most efficient method man has had of loaming for gold, the importance of knowing how to use this and GPS/moving map software out in the field cannot be overstated eg. I have this piece of ground for 40 years I considered had to have surface gold, no mines within ks, no alluvial workings for 10s of ks, no faults shown on a succession of geo maps over those years, but some surface "salt" & "pepper" where the depth was little, run all detectors over it whenever a new more sensitive detector was in hand over those 40 plus years until the 6000 a couple of weeks ago. Well it got amongst those dinks at depth the Z couldn`t on a nearby virgin Z patch, and again I headed to that 40 year old "no gold" patch, the 6000 has proven that there is gold there, only subgrammers but at depth over a now proven flat that has gold in an area 500m x 100m and maybe more. Only two pieces have been close the rest have all been spread roughly 10m apart, tis as though it was mother natures chook yard and she just spread the feed/gold out by hand. As I name patches for recording, this patch I`ve called Placebo tis about 2ks from Hope Ridge a virgin patch the Z found but left deep dinks for the 6000. The GPS waypoints saved over the years has shown there is a line of patches some ks apart running along the same bearing.

Placebo and Hope Ridge has perhaps removed the last set of blinkers I wore through my gold evolution, maybe and hopefully there are more surprises. Gold truly tis where tis, a lesson I fully appreciate now as I`ve stumbled onto these virgin patches well away from workings, way out in the fringes. Very few signals that aren`t gold, and yes I have had many missions that I returned from without gold and am continually getting more patience to accept these missions. Way back as stated in the first paragraph I reckoned I had the answers to this game now I know I don`t and that is why the challenge keeps us motivated keenly with this fever we have. 

[Gerry in Idaho]

2 hours ago, oneguy said:

I'm still in the piece count phase?  The itty bitties keep my interest up while waiting to stumble onto a bigger piece?  I've got a couple nice chunks in my 3 seasons tecting gold (biggest 3.55ozt) and will patiently enjoy the dinkers until another nice one turns up?

Beautiful gold Gerry (including the dinks!!!!).....

PS....a guy also just has to deal with the cards dealt and make the best of it....imo

Keep on the grind.... 3 dinks today is all but happy to come home with something

3 Seasons is still pretty young yet.  What amazes me is you have already scored a 1+ oz'er in that short time.

Thanks for sharing your experience.

[Gerry in Idaho]

2 hours ago, Arky said:

Gold is gold to me. I'm more about the finding than anything else. If you fish with kids you may know that digging worms is almost as fun as catching the fish. Guess I'm a kid at heart.

Fishing with kids is to you like, my staff/I teach customers and watching when they find their 1st nugget.  Priceless, fun and that's a great feeling.   

Thanks for sharing.

[Gold Catcher]

To me every gold is precious and worth a dig, so I don't discriminate to just go for larger stuff. Sure, when I mount the GPZ 19 I don't look for sub-grammers, but by the end of the day when my jar rattles it gives me a feeling of satisfaction. Do I have fun recovering a 0.08 g flake with the 14in coil, no! But it is the challenge to get it right as often as possible, not so much what it will weigh at the end. Most of the nuggets I find are in the 0.2-5.0 g range, only occasionally bigger when I am lucky, so my ears are tuned to the small stuff. But that's fine with me, I prefer consistency over the lottery ticket . I welcome every golden piece of eternity that has my name on it 🙂

[Mike C...]

Its just a hobby and the hunt for me-Listen for the small ones and the big ones take care of themselves  As long as its gold  Im happy with what ever I find 

[oneguy]

47 minutes ago, Gerry in Idaho said:

3 Seasons is still pretty young yet.  What amazes me is you have already scored a 1+ oz'er in that short time.

Thanks for sharing your experience.

That big one was a total lottery ticket, gold is where you find it, complete fluke, just got lucky thing. Hunted that area before many times and wasted many hrs digging nothing but crap and no gold. Only reason I even went there was to test out the new to me sdc because imo the area is cleaner than most that trash riddled area...then it happened!...lol  This is my 4th season and starting off slow so far.....but having fun!