Advice On Where To Begin. Join Gpaa? Pay For Some Training Or Just Read Everything Here

[mn90403]

On 3/25/2024 at 6:07 AM, Swegin said:

My Electronic Prospecting Course is one on one unless you have a partner or buddy. It is held in Redding, Ca.

My wife and I took Ray's course.  It is highly recommended.

[GotAU?]

54 minutes ago, mn90403 said:

My wife and I took Ray's course.  It is highly recommended.

Mitchel, of all the courses you took before, if you could only do one due to limited time off each year, what would you recommend for the first one?

Also, check your DMs!  ?

[mn90403]

I'm in Gold Basin.  We spent yesterday looking for gold and meteorites.  nada between the 3 of us using x-coil, 6000 and 2300.  I'll admit it wasn't full day on all 3 but we went at it for over 6 hours on 4 different locations where gold and meteorites have been found before.

If I was bringing someone new with me I wouldn't expect the results to be different but there is always beginning 'luck!'

Things are much harder to find.  I need someone to show me spots.  haha

Is that training?

[mn90403]

9 hours ago, GotAU? said:

Mitchel, of all the courses you took before, if you could only do one due to limited time off each year, what would you recommend for the first one?

Gerry's crew (I had a lesson from Lunk before I took Gerry's course) taught me more about machines than any other course.  It gets you confident in your equipment which is essential.  Gerry's training area is Rye Patch so you learn some about the ground and how to read it there.

Ray Mills gives you tour with his course.  There is a certain amount of assumption that you know how to use your detector well enough to find gold.  There are turn it on and go detectors that will find it if it is there but you need to be able to read the land.

Chris Ralph's readings are good at showing you how to read the land.

While I've not taken a formal course of Kevin Hoagland he has taught me a lot about the 5000 and how to read ground.

I'm short on time this morning and I'd tell you something good about all of them.  More later ...

Now, what do you do after training?  That is another topic but more than ever you have to use what you have been taught and get lucky.  Both of those take TIME.

Time now should be spent with someone who has a pointy finger who needs a hunting partner.  I think most of us would go more if we had a hunting partner.  I did when I had a good one.  We pushed each other and shared with each other.

Don't let politics or personal issues get in between you and your hunting partner.  You will have idle time where you share and that could let strong feelings bubble to the surface.  Detectorists like us can be a hardheaded lot.  

Gold can do strange things to us as well.  Be careful out there.

[tim907]

I second the recommendation of Chris Ralph's book. Also the magazine ICMJ's Mining Journal is full of interesting articles every month.