California Flakes

[mn90403]

Ok, it is not the kind of flakes you normally think of when you think CALIFORNIA.

We had a 'cold snap' in the west the last 3 days and that gave me a chance to go out and detect the hot deserts of Southern California.  

The cold snap came after a Wednesday fishing trip.  It started off slow for the white sea bass and the yellowtail.  We didn't get any so we went after the rock fish in deep water.  This was my first trip of the year and it was a lot of fun.  I went over my limit (10) but there were others on the boat that got my extras.  At the end of the day we were near the island and managed to get our version of a barracuda and another fisherman got a white sea bass.

So I left out for a 3 hour drive to our most productive nugget patch.  Last summer we were working it pretty hard and found most of it but Swifty has been finding new patches so we went back.  My last 4 trips had resulted in skunks.  I was beginning to question my technique and settings.  I was finding shots, lead, wires and hot rocks but NO GOLD.  My headphones were sounding scratchy and losing the signal when trying to pinpoint.  I bought a new set of headphones to make me feel better.   (Superlux HD668B Dynamic Semi-Open Headphones)  These were recommended on my other post about 'What Can You Hear?.'

Now I know what I can hear!  I heard all of the same trash but the sound was smoother than my worn out headphones.  They were also comfortable (until the very end of the day).  So I'm going along with the normal signals and a bit 'long in the tooth' attitude and I heard another hot rock.  Even the 7000 and the 2300 find hot rocks in this field.  Sometime in the late morning a hot rock was not.  It was the rough flake nugget.  I saw it in my scoop and could barely see any gold as it was covered in caliche.  After a bath in my mouth I knew it was a skunk breaker.  I also knew it was thin so I logged it in to my findpoints as .5g.  It is really .82g.

Friday I had gotten to the field at 4:00 AM and it was a full moon.  Sunrise was 6 AM but you could see around 5:30 AM.  Sunday's trip was similar but I got there at 5:00 AM and the wind was blowing about 25 mph and the temperature was under 50F.  I was cold and went back into the car for a nap.  Once the sun was up about an hour I got out and braved the wind until about 2:30 PM.  Along the way I found the second corn flake that is 'smaller' but weighs more at .92g.

It is a lot of work having fun sometimes but someone has to do it, right?

[fredmason]

nice fish, nice gold...good boy!

fred

[Chris Ben]

Good job on both accounts.white sea bass is on my bucket list. I have a 3.5 day trip coming up out of San Diego.  

Chris

[Randy Lunn]

Well done Mitchel!  Great surf and turf.

[Andyy]

Jeez, Mitchel ...  once I got past the California flake idea, I thought you were talking small gold.  But that gold is big compared to what I have been digging up lately.   My last 8x finds didn't add up to that weight!  Nice work!! 

Andy

[californiagold]

Nice fishing both gold and fish. 

[mn90403]

2 hours ago, californiagold said:

Nice fishing both gold and fish. 

Thanks.

How is that Monster working out for you in those trashy spots?

[Mike Dawson]

Picking up hot rocks by the truckload here but my detector discriminates them by tone so saving my back to a degree.I am digging up small brown smooth stones which give a higher tone-not iron.Looking forward to the day when a stone turns into that elusive nugget.Persistence is the key.