Bushwhackin' For Relics

[Lodge Scent]

Very cool CPT! Tough place to swing a coil but your efforts were well rewarded. That extra effort to swing a coil where others might not is a great strategy. 

[Cal_Cobra]

Nice finds!  

TomCA and I converted an electric weed eater to a bush whacker by swapping in a brush blade, looks like a big saw blade.  It works great!  We found a lost c. 1860'ish stage stop in the middle of the desert.  80% was under heavy sage brush growth, so we returned and cleared out small areas, and it paid off with a rare seated quarter, a rare 1829 English silver coin, and ultimately I found my first gold coin there, although it was on a deer trail.  That place is wall to wall sage brush, so there's tons more to detect if you can clear it out.  I keep hoping a wildfire will roll through there as there's absolutely nothing out there, but what a blessing that would be!

[GB_Amateur]

On 8/15/2023 at 3:48 PM, CPT_GhostLight said:

A couple of weekends ago I got to go on a permission that according to the owner has never been metal detected. It was a gold mine from about 1876 to 1889 and has a small ghost town nearby.

Nice write-up.  That's the kind of site some us can only dream of (and are envious over!).  Just out of curiosity, what is the site's altitude?  Given there's a mine and also from the looks of the photo I'm thinking it's pretty high, which likely means you only get a short few months to detect there.  Also, was the mine for gold or silver?

I was thinking the same as Cal_Cobra -- some kind of modified weed-eater would likely be as good as a bush hog and a lot easier to haul up there.  With the amount of metal in the ground you're going to be limited to the total area you can detect in a day anyway.

It's probably a longshot, but high grade ore could be a possible find, too.  (Land owner should be consulted on that, if you haven't already.  He may be more possessive regarding the minerals but even then he could well be interested in knowing the potential.)

[CPT_GhostLight]

2 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

Nice write-up.  That's the kind of site some us can only dream of (and are envious over!).  Just out of curiosity, what is the site's altitude?  Given there's a mine and also from the looks of the photo I'm thinking it's pretty high, which likely means you only get a short few months to detect there.  Also, was the mine for gold or silver?

I was thinking the same as Cal_Cobra -- some kind of modified weed-eater would likely be as good as a bush hog and a lot easier to haul up there.  With the amount of metal in the ground you're going to be limited to the total area you can detect in a day anyway.

It's probably a longshot, but high grade ore could be a possible find, too.  (Land owner should be consulted on that, if you haven't already.  He may be more possessive regarding the minerals but even then he could well be interested in knowing the potential.)

Thanks GB! I think we were at about 8000 feet or so. The property owner has expressed interest in reopening the mine which yielded gold, silver, and lead, so any high grade or nuggets are to be given to the owner. We are currently in talks about future activities and if we can aid in clearing the townsite area. We'll see how it goes.

[Tom_in_CA]

On 8/19/2023 at 12:12 AM, Cal_Cobra said:

....

TomCA and I converted an electric weed eater to a bush whacker....

 

 

Yup.  When I read the O.P.'s post, I thought :  "Hey !  Cal_Cobra and I did that too !".   But you beat me to the draw.   😜  

 

Yes, it has come in handy on some sites.  And a few nice coins can be attributed to it.

 

  I used it a week ago as matter of fact, where a lady thought she might have lost her ring in some deep grassy iceplant.    10 minutes with that thing allowed me to get my coil closer to the ground (but her ring wasn't there durnit ).