How Long Did It Take To Find Your First Nugget?

[Valens Legacy]

For years I had only looked for gold by panning or sluicing with my grandfather, but since he passed away I thought it would be a good idea to try my hand with a detector on the creeks near me. I still took a pan with me to check the targets with since I was at the creek with plenty of water, and with amazement I was staring at the pan with a nice little nugget. I had only used the NOX 800 for about a year, actually about 20 times, but since I could hit on deep silver I knew if there was anything I had missed it would show up. Yes I found plenty of shot pellets rolling in the pan at times, but I knew that I had to take the good with the bad. I found that it enhanced my creek trips by over 90% more gold than without it.

As far as searching only on dry ground with a detector for gold I can say that I have only found 1 nugget with it and soon I will be writing about that nugget with a couple of pictures.

So I can honestly say for sure that i hit gold the first time I looked for it within the first hour, and every time I have gone out to the creeks since. Now I may have only found one or two pieces each trip out, but it sure makes for a good day and it all adds up by the end of the year.

[blackjack]

Garrett ground hog for me as well, I found quite a few hot rocks before I found my first lead bullet. I was convinced by the sound I was digging a nugget, it was pretty disappointing to dig lead, I had to find two more before I found gold. Honest answer is at least 100hrs over a two year period, 23 grams. 

[Nedkelly]

About 1 hour on an old puddler, 5 gram solid bit with a minelab eureka duel ace back in the early nineties. That piece got me hooked for life. Looked huge at the time doesn't look so big now. 

[IDMineralSurveys]

I bought my GB2 from Gerry mid-April 2017. Spent a year in historic good gold area finding tacks, bullets, the tiniest of lead pellets. Early April 2018 saw me back up too soon - snow still between 4 to 8 feet deep in the mountains, so was  forced to hit the only sunny ridge I could access - my first was 218 grains and I was hooked!

[phrunt]

I was having some success with sluicing and little success with my Gold Bug Pro, I was very new to all this stuff and had no idea what I was doing, after a couple of months of no success with my Bug JW who was a member of this forum came to visit me sluicing on a river near his house while he was going detecting in the area.  I wasn't all that inspired by detecting as I couldn't find gold doing it yet I could take my sluice and find gold every time.

He decided he'd help me out and we went to a local public fossicking area to have a go with detectors, prior to this I decided I'd upgrade my GBP to a GM1000 which gave me a big sensitivity boost.   JW gave me plenty of advice on the day and showed me what I should be doing and success, 6 nuggets in one day and not only bigger easier ones, the one to the right of a bottle in my usual tiny spec ? I've never looked back since and have found gold regularly since and with improvements in my detecting fleet I've gone from gold rarely to gold virtually every time I go out.

My first nugget

The days finds for me on my first nugget day, all from a heavily flogged public fossicking creek, bizarre, we've never been able to repeat that days success in the same creek.

Having a friend like JW that knows what they're doing and very experienced in the area and helps you out is invaluable.  Without him I imagine I'd have given up.  Very generous thing for someone to do, and still to this day we go detecting together and he helps me out often.

[Aureous]

I started detecting in 1981 and only used low-end TR machines on the beach, which was very financially rewarding. But when a school friend showed me the gold his family got in WA (it was kilos), I went gold crazy lol. My Family moved to a near-gold location and I bought an older version Garrett which was (unknowing to me), totally impractical for Goldfield use. After some advice from a detector shop, I got the Garrett modified and after a quick trip to Tibooburra, I was finally on the board! Only .2gm and several more afterwards. Only 2 years after starting detecting I was regularly finding gold. By 1986 I had over 5,000 pieces to my name. So, I suppose after actually obtaining a useful gold-finding detector, it was only 3 months from go to whoa.....    If only I realized just how much gold I was walking over.....if only I knew then what I know now  

[snakejim]

Maybe a couple of hours before I found my first nugget in a dry washers tailings pile. A Garret Deep seeker worked. 1985

[Jim McCulloch]

After reading all of (what little) had been published at the time (1983), and spending several hours practicing in my backyard with my Garrett Groundhog A2B, my first piece of (really choice) high-grade ore came off a tailings pile in Dayton Nevada after 20 minutes detecting.  Totally ruined my life...

[GaryC/Oregon Coast]

It took me two years, mostly because I was in the WRONG club (not helpful people).  Once I found a dedicated bunch of people in the RIGHT club who had detectable claims to hit, then it only took six months of limited hunting time.  Still have stretches of skunks!!!  GaryC/Oregon Coast