Nugget Hunting Nevada With Steve And Steve

[Steve Herschbach]

On 4/20/2022 at 7:04 AM, abenson said:

Small nuggets at just an inch deep were IDing in the iron range so you really need to dig everything with a VLF.

I try and try and try to find a VLF that would make me happy. But no depth compared to the serious machines. The idea is to hunt trashy areas, but they call too many nuggets ferrous. The Nevada ground is actually pretty mild. I've seen places where a VLF will call a nugget on the surface in plain sight as a ferrous target! You really can do about as well or better using a PI and simply digging sweet tones instead. At least you still get the depth. It used to be a VLF was for the small stuff, but a 6000 hits most small stuff even better than a VLF. It’s only pinhead style Gold Bug 2 type gold where a VLF still has an edge. But one decent nugget replaces hundreds of pinheads, so hunting larger half gram or better nuggets generally is the better strategy. Long story short I really don’t use a VLF anymore for nugget detecting, even in trashy areas. Every time I’ve tried a VLF in a trashy site, I’ve gone back with a PI and done even better. So why bother… just start with the PI. Now when a new VLF comes along that purports to be able to find gold, my attitude is very much “yeah, right, whatever.”

I’m not saying there is not a place for VLF nugget hunting, especially for those on a tight budget, or with nothing but pinhead gold. Mainly it’s that the debate over this VLF vs that VLF is splitting hairs, when the big guns can get literally twice the depth, or even more.

 

[abenson]

2 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

I try and try and try to find a VLF that would make me happy. But no depth compared to the big guns. The idea is to hunt trashy areas, but they call too many nuggets ferrous. The Nevada ground is actually pretty mild. I've seen places where a VLF will call a nugget on the surface in plain sight as a ferrous target! You really can do about as well or better using a PI and simply digging sweet tones instead. At least you still get the depth. It used to be a VLF was for the small stuff, but a 6000 hits most small stuff even better than a VLF. It’s only pinhead style Gold Bug 2 type stuff where a VLF still has an edge. But one decent nugget replaces a hundred pinheads, so hunting larger half gram or better nuggets generally is the better strategy. Long story short I really don’t use a VLF anymore for nugget detecting, even in trashy areas. Every time I’ve tried a VLF in a trashy site, I’ve gone back with a PI and done even better. So why bother… just start with the PI. So now when a new VLF comes along that purports to be able to find gold, my attitude is very much “yeah, right, whatever.”

I’m not saying there is not a place for VLF nugget hunting, especially for those on a tight budget, or with nothing but pinhead gold. Mainly it’s that the debate over this VLF vs that VLF is splitting hairs, when the big guns can get literally twice the depth, or even more.

Steve and I talked about this while we were at the site. But I thought I would post this on the forum.

I hunted part of the trashy area with the Legend running Gold multi with ID's 1 and 2 knocked out (which is the ground numbers) for about an hour and recovered one small nugget that ID'd 11-12 just out of the ferrous range. That nugget was probably on top of the ground. I passed on at least 5 others signals that read between 3 and 10. Then I went back to using the 6000 a short distance away. After a while I got to thinking that maybe some of those targets I passed on could have been gold. So I marked 3 targets in the area I was hunting that I found with the 6000. One I was sure was ferrous junk because it was so loud, the other 2 I figured could be gold. Target 1 (the loud one) Legend ID'd at solid 6 and yes it was part of a can the size of a quarter. Target 2 was jumping between 3 and 4 so I didn't even dig it. Target 3 gave no signal or ID on the Legend and I thought that was strange because it sounded the best out of the 3 on the 6000. So I grabbed the 6000 again and yes there was definitely a target there. Grabbed the Legend again and opened up the horse shoe to accept everything, now I was getting a 1-2 ID. OK, hot rock I thought. Scrapped a little dirt off this hump next to some grass and the target is now in the pile. Took no more than 2 inches off the surface. Turns out it's a small nugget. So I go back to target 2 that I skipped and dig it, that one was wire. So the Legend got it right. But now I'm thinking how many targets did I skip over earlier that ID'd too low or didn't ID at all on the Legend. That proved to me the 6000 is the way to go for all the sizes of gold I'm interested in.

I do have some of the above on video. Day 2 of our hunt that I will try and finish up later this week.

[GB_Amateur]

3 hours ago, abenson said:

All the detectors running their gold modes experienced coil knock issues which was the result of the alkaline soil not allowing the VLF's to ground balance correctly.

Was that using Ground Tracking?

[abenson]

30 minutes ago, GB_Amateur said:

Was that using Ground Tracking?

Tried tracking on the Equinox, didn't make a difference.

[phrunt]

I've been saying for a long time VLF's ID small gold as iron, it happens here all the time and I'm in mild soils by comparison to some, many of my nuggets start off with a very bouncy Iron ID and later as the nugget gets closer to the coil improve to be more stable.  It's only the more sizeable nuggets give a good ID the entire time.  As much as PI's are dig it all machines gold prospecting, so are VLF's if you want to do the best with them, they just help you skip the big obvious iron targets.

[Gerry in Idaho]

Andew,  Sorry I couldn't get over the hill to meet up with you and the Steve twins but as you know I was trying to keep my customers focused on learning their detectors.  

Great write up/read and video on the trip for you all.

It just amazes me that for all these years of your detecting, you found more gold nuggets on 1 trip than ever before.  I can only think the capabilities of the GPX-6000 is most of it as well as your good coil control.  Now location is the other key and being able to Swing with (not just 1, but both) Steve and the ground they hunt is a huge bonus.

I'll have a GPX-6000 in your hands before you know it now that you have the fever.

Be talking with you soon and thanks sharing the event.