Deep Gold

[Lunk]

During a recent detecting trip to the Rye Patch region of northern Nevada, I was intent on searching for the ever elusive large nugget at depth, wielding the Minelab GPZ 7000 equipped with the GPZ-19 coil, set to Extra Deep Gold Mode in Normal Ground Type. This combination of Gold Mode and Ground Type handles the local alkali ground very well, allowing the faintest signal responses to be heard; and good thing, too, as I would have certainly missed a couple of nice bits had the threshold been variable due to ground noise or EMI masking. They were buried at a depth of 18 inches and recovered from cracks within the weathered shale bedrock. A friend who was detecting with me swung over the undisturbed target zone with the Minelab GPX 6000 and 17-inch mono coil and there was no discernible response, so that added to the anticipation of deep, chunky gold…not exactly the large gold I was looking for, but at 3.3 grams and 2.2 grams, I'll happily put them in the poke any day!

[lostmypassworddude]

Amazing to find those that deep, my ML 4500 could not touch those. Although did find a 15 gram solid nugget at 22 inches with the 19 nuggetfinder mono. Congrats!

[cobill]

1 hour ago, Lunk said:

This combination of Gold Mode and Ground Type handles the local alkali ground very well, allowing the faintest signal responses to be heard; and good thing, too, as I would have certainly missed a couple of nice bits had the threshold been variable due to ground noise or EMI masking. They were buried at a depth of 18 inches and recovered from cracks within the weathered shale bedrock. A friend who was detecting with me swung over the undisturbed target zone with the Minelab GPX 6000 and 17-inch mono coil and there was no discernible response, so that added to the anticipation of deep, chunky gold…not exactly the large gold I was looking for, but at 3.3 grams and 2.2 grams, I'll happily put them in the poke any day!

Keith, beautiful gold you found at RP. Was this area heavily hunted in the past and missed by other detectors, coils, settings? You must have had some open areas between sage bushes to swing that GPZ 19" coil. Thanks,

Bill

[phrunt]

You're onto something Lunk.  You don't necessarily need a new detector to find gold others including yourself have missed in the past, you need a different approach to those before you and that's exactly what you've done with your settings.  Good work and hopefully this method keeps paying off for you in the near future.  You've let the cat out of the bag now though, everyone will be trying it 🙂

 

[Lunk]

9 hours ago, cobill said:

Keith, beautiful gold you found at RP. Was this area heavily hunted in the past and missed by other detectors, coils, settings? You must have had some open areas between sage bushes to swing that GPZ 19" coil. Thanks,

Bill

It's an old patch of mine, Bill. There are indeed open areas for the big coil, some deep ground and a history of big solid nuggets; always trying new angles here to try and snag another prize.

9 hours ago, phrunt said:

You're onto something Lunk.  You don't necessarily need a new detector to find gold others including yourself have missed in the past, you need a different approach to those before you and that's exactly what you've done with your settings.  Good work and hopefully this method keeps paying off for you in the near future.  You've let the cat out of the bag now though, everyone will be trying it 🙂

 

Simon, it may be a closely guarded secret amongst savvy Zed owners, since discussions about the Extra Deep mode are virtually nonexistent. 🤷‍♂️ At any rate, cats let out of bags tend to run off very quickly; I doubt many still have or would even care to swing the 19-inch “beast”, so no worries there, mate. 🙂

[Gold Catcher]

Awesome job ,Lunk! Any reason why you chose the 19 ML beast over the 17 NF? I would think the NF would be at least as good as the 19 depth wise despite slightly smaller size. I only hunted a few times in extra deep, mostly becasue I use the 12 NF as my default coil. For that size General covers most of the depth I need.

GC

[phrunt]

Out of interest what makes you think a 13" wide coil would be as deep as an 18" wide coil?   It should barely exceed the depth if at all of the 14x13" stock coil, its primary purpose is more ground coverage would be my understanding of its existence.

 

 

[Gold Catcher]

I don't own the NF17 but read/heard owners praising it for its depth. I would imagine that size is not the only thing that matters when it comes to depth performance, but would love to hear from someone who is actually using both coils.

GC

[Lunk]

2 hours ago, Gold Catcher said:

Awesome job ,Lunk! Any reason why you chose the 19 ML beast over the 17 NF? I would think the NF would be at least as good as the 19 depth wise despite slightly smaller size. I only hunted a few times in extra deep, mostly becasue I use the 12 NF as my default coil. For that size General covers most of the depth I need.

GC

Thanks, GC. The reason I chose the GPZ-19 coil over the NF-17 is simply that a good used GPZ-19 costs less than half the price of the NF, albeit being twice as heavy. I was using Extra Deep instead of General Gold Mode because it handles the alkali soil better, in addition to another reason, but that is another story for another time…

 

[Arky]

Well done my friend. You always manage to find a new angle in hunting!