Using The 7000 To Pick Up The Scraps Missed By The 6000

[dig4gold]

2 hours ago, Gerry in Idaho said:

Heck, just a simple thing as soil moisture content or EMI, can easily effect a detectors capability and miss a nugget that otherwise would have been heard. 

Quite the opposite here in New Zealand. I have found that moisture in the ground enhances depth & sensitivity in our mild ground. 

D4G

[Lesgold]

The soil moisture on the east coast of Australia will increase significantly over the next couple of days. Detecting well in these conditions may require the user to be able to hold their breath and duck dive or use SCUBA to keep a coil on the ground.

[Lesgold]

Yesterdays largest nugget was a bit of a strange find. I watched and partially helped Joe dig two really deep holes for junk. He was exhausted and frustrated that neither target ended up being the right colour. It was just one of those days where his junk to gold ratio was higher than mine. My turn will come next trip. I moved a bit further upstream and started detecting the bottom of a long pool of water. Everything about it seemed right. It was much lower than the rest of the gully and it had washed out to a light grey decomposed shale bottom. It was potentially a good gold trap. Over the past couple of months we had popped a detector in that pool every time that we had walked past it but had never made the effort to work it properly. We were not setup to detect in water as we never carried waterproof clothing to enable this to happen. We had also dismissed the pools potential as we had met two groups of people on previous trips that had waders and wet suits with them. They were focussing on that type of area so we naturally assumed that this pool would have been given a thorough workout. I started detecting the bottom as well as I could with the z search coil by pushing it down onto the bottom of the pool and progressively moving out until I would run out of reach. There was no way the boots were going to get wet. This coil is hopeless in water. It is so buoyant that it takes considerable force to keep it on the bottom. Detecting efficiency is lost as you need to use both hands to keep the coil down. After a couple of minutes of detecting, I ended up getting a screamer of a signal. Joe was called up on the radio and he quickly arrived to help out. After listening to the signal, he had his boots off and was in the water before I could draw breath. After pinpointing the target, the scoop was used to bring up the clay/gravel mix from the bottom. On about the third or fourth scoop a shiny piece of gold came up sitting on top of the clay. It was a beautiful piece sitting there just smiling at us. We momentarily stopped and looked at it with our mouths open. Our plan was to find bigger gold at depth with the zed but this piece could have been found with an ice cream container lid bolted to a broom handle.

As Joe had his boots off and pants rolled up, he detected the rest of the pool for no other signals. It just goes to show you that you must never assume anything in this game. We moved back closer to an area where I had picked up the earlier piece. I detected the right side of the gully when I found the first bigger nugget and decided to concentrate on the other side on the return trip. We had to leave early to get home so time was running out. About 20m down stream a very faint sound was heard which pulled me up. Again rocks were moved to get the coil a bit flatter to the creek bed. The subtle sound didn’t go away so hot rocks were ruled out. If it was going to be a target, it would be deep. Some material was removed and finally a signal started to develop. Stone and gravel was dug out using the pick and I continued until I hit a yellow decomposing bedrock material. By this stage the detector was really singing and I knew I was in with a chance. Joe came up and took one look at the hole and knew straight away that this was going to be a nice piece. He gave one big scrape with the pick, looked down and turned to me and said - “Did you drop that?” He pointed at the shiny, polished piece of gold sitting on the clay. We couldn’t believe what we were looking at. It had obviously moved with the last flood and had the appearance of a piece that had been sitting in acid. We picked it up and admired it before placing it back into position for the photo.

We had to walk to where we left some gear and as per usual, Joe picked up another nugget on the way back. He has this uncanny knack of doing this on a regular basis. What started as a reasonable day ended up exceptionally well. The gold was cleaned up a bit last night. Here is a couple of shots showing what we ended up with.

Its a good feeling when a plan comes together and you get results. It was interesting to note the difference in how the 6 and 7 ran in this particular area. The threshold on the 7000 was perfect. Very occasionally it would pick up a faint signal on a hot rock. These rocks appeared to be basalt. I reckon I hit less than ten of them for the day. The 6000 on the other hand was more erratic and reacted to the iron rich hot rocks which were generally red in colour. We would be constantly kicking those out of the way as they often gave off a signal similar to a deeper target. Darker soils and wet clay were also an issue for the GPX . With that being said, the 6 was still quite usable and had excelled in this gully. We both believe that the depth capabilities and the perfect threshold of the zed combined with the sensitivity of the Z Search coil helped us immensely in the past couple of trips.

[Lesgold]

We ended up with some good rain last week and some minor flooding resulted. Joe and I were keen to get back to the gully with the hope that the rocks and gravel would have moved around and hopefully provide some new opportunities. When we arrived, it was obvious that the changes were only minimal but there were areas where some erosion had taken place or deposition of material had occurred. We decided to use the Zeds as they would be much quieter in the wet conditions. The six can be a real pain when the mineralised soil becomes damp and can, at times, be unusable. The Zed also suffers from the same disease but not to the same extent and can mostly be tamed. When we arrived we noticed that water was still flowing which restricted our movement. We thought this would be the case and knew that we would only be able to work the shallows and edges without filling our boots. Joe picked up a piece fairly quickly and got the monkey off his back. We have always said that once we have a piece of gold each, the rest of the day is a bonus and we don’t go home skunked. Don’t get me wrong, we still have enjoyable days where the rattle jar just doesn’t rattle but having a piece of gold in your hand puts the icing on the cake. After moving upstream, I decided to inspect the pool where a good nugget was found on a previous trip. The water level was obviously higher than a couple of weeks ago but there was evidence of erosion on the steep edge below the water surface. After a couple minutes a good signal was detected and Joe came up to help get the target out. This meant removing snake gaiters, boots and socks and then rolling pant legs up above the knees in preparation for the extraction. I noticed a leech had attached itself to my leg and had begun to draw blood. He was quickly dispatched and I climbed into the water to dig the target while Joe guided me with the detector. After a couple of minutes a nice little nugget was recovered in the scoop. Joe suggested that I should check the remainder of this pool while I had my boots off. I continued detecting and thought I had a target in a deeper area of the pool but it turned out to be a false signal. We both found that the Z Search coil would false in water once it was submerged over about 12”. Perhaps it’s the pressure compressing the top and bottom faces that makes it a bit more bump sensitive. This combined with the mineralised material was probably contributing to the issue. After slowly detecting most of the pool, a broad, faint signal was picked up. I dug down about 8” and by this stage, the zed was getting pretty excited. It was already quite difficult as I was in about a foot of water and every dig saw the pick head and much of the handle totally disappear below the surface. Digging continued until the target finally moved location slightly. The scoop was then used to recover what turned out to be a nice piece of gold. 

With no other signals found, it was time to get out of the water, kit up and move on. Two more leeches had found me while I was walking in the water and needed to be encouraged to find another food source. That was my final contribution for the day. Joe found some more pieces near a patch that we had worked recently and made the tally look a little more respectable. The final drama occurred late in the day. I had been walking through some thick scrub and somehow dropped my radio. I didn’t notice it until much later and thought it was lost forever. It must have got caught in some bushes while I was pushing through the dense undergrowth and snapped the catch causing the radio to drop. Joe and I retraced the path and used his radio to call up the lost unit. We eventually heard the other radio and were able to follow the sound until it was recovered. That was the signal to call it quits for the day. We didn’t end up with a huge number of pieces but we were happy with what we had found. We may visit this spot again when the water level drops.

 

 

 

[Lesgold]

There’s an old saying that goes something like this - “never walk away from gold to look for gold.” We knew that the detectable yellow in this spot was starting to hide itself away from us and the only thing that we could do was to work harder and try to change our approach. Joe and I decided to mix things up a bit during yesterdays playtime. We agreed that instead of both of us using the one type of detector, we would take one zed and one six. Joe had the 7000 with the 12” Nuggetfinder and I took the 6000 with the 12x7 attached. We also decided to wear waders so that we could focus on detecting the deeper pools and also protect ourselves from leeches. It was a beautiful, cool day which kept us comfortable while we were wrapped up in plastic. Joe still had problems with the zed giving false signals in the deeper water but he eventually solved the problem. We had thought that the issue was due to the pressure of the water compressing the coil and making it touch sensitive but we were wrong with our assumption. The actual cause was the slight flexing of the shaft due to the forces involved in keeping the coil submerged. Joe found that if he placed his left hand quite low on detector shaft and guided the machine with his hand, the problem disappeared. Repositioning the guide arm much lower than usual could be worth trying if we continue to detect in water. We started working our way up the gully after finding a couple of small pieces of flood gold on the bank of the creek. We had to stand in water to detect this area which made it obvious as to why they were still there. I made it to a pool that had produced some nice gold on previous trips and decided to detect it really well. Having waders on allowed us to take our time to cover areas well without having to worry about getting wet. The six ran reasonably well most of the time but wasn’t as stable as the seven. The mineralised black or red soil in any wet area would upset it but it generally ran well. The Nuggetfinder coil did its job and picked up a target in about knee deep water. Joe and I had to fluff around for about 5 minutes before a nice little piece ended up in the scoop. We moved up to another patch that had produced a lot of small pieces a few weeks ago. On our last trip we were not able to go over this area as it was still submerged. Joe picked up a good signal where rock and gravel had moved with the recent rain. It was an unusual signal that had a distinct wobble to it. As usual, we always try to analyse what we are hearing and have a guess at what the result would be. We decided that it would be gold and that it would have an unusual shape. A long, C shaped piece quickly ended up in Joe’s hand. A few more small pieces were recovered from this area after moving some rocks and gravel. We continued to detect our way upstream without finding anything but rubbish until Joe ended up with a beautiful low/high signal in a long pool of water. He called me over to have a listen and as we often do, both machines were put over the target before the surface was disturbed. Both detectors picked up the signal well with the seven giving a better response. As it was in water, the dig was a bit slow but after a few minutes the best piece of the day was in the rattle jar. A few more small nuggets were found upstream before we decided that the day was done. It was another good, productive trip out in the bush. We still have at least one more day to finish this area before moving on to a new spot.