Let's Give The Detector A Little More Credit

[Gold Hound]

Hi Hawkeye, guys

There is no luck but that you make!

Every time I make a good find I always analyze how it happened.

Mainly so I can learn from it and hopfully repeat it.

And not once was it luck!

Let me tell you about a patch I found.

I was in the Australian dessert prospecting new ground in an un proven area over 150km from the nearest known gold area I was systematically running gullys just trying to find a my first piece, I had already done 2 months for virtually nothing.

I was walking from the head of one gully that I had just finished to ward the next one across a hill.

When I reached the summit of the hill I serveyed the surrounding hills and noticed in the distance that a few of the hills about 5km away were a different

Color, so i decided that I have to check those hills the next day to see why the hills are a different color as they were to far to walk to that late in the day.

That night I decided I would move my camp to a place in between the hills and the gully where I left off giving me better position to ether continue my work or investigate the hills.

So the next day I move my camp to a spot on a dry creek where I belived the water table should be within 2m of the surface in between the hills and the last gully I finished.

I bush bashed my way to the spot in the car and when I got there I dug in the best looking spot to try and find water after about 10 mins of digging I hit the water table.........cool!

Now that I had water I could stay as long as food supplys last and could systematically invesigate the surrounds no worries about water.

I then grabbed my detector and pick and power walked the 2km to the hills to have a closer look.

As I got closer I saw a main creek that fed from in between the hills and decided to run up the creek and try jag my firzt piece.

As I was walking towards the hills up the creek I noticed the soil change color, so I hoped out of the dry creek to have a look at the low hills around me and I imedetly noticed that the rock type had changed and it had good fulting and quartz and ironstone out crops and the tops of the hills were covered in broken conglomerate.

I started to get excited and decided to run every creek, gully, fedder gully and storm gutter that cut's this geological feature.

So i started in the creek I was in and decided to run all of the left side first.

So I walked up the main creek until the first left.

It was just a storm gutter that fed off the side of a low hill.

And right at the mouth I got my first piece about .3 of a gram.

Cool the area carry's so I continued up the gutter and got a few more pices for about 2g total.

When I reched the head of the gutter I looked at the gradual slopes ether side of the gutter and noticed that the right one has a ironstone and quartz baring fault that goes under the conglomerate on top of the hill.

I carefully serched the 2 slopes... Nothing.

So i decided that the gold definatly came from the fault but under the cap.

So I decide to walk over the hill to the opposit fall of the same hill.

I proceded to detect down the gully on the opposit side of the hill and about 100m from the top I got my first bit on that side, a 10g waterworn piece.

So I kept going down the gully and picked up about another 40g in smaller pices ranging from .3 to 5g.

It was getting late so I headed back to camp for the night.

Next morning I went back to the hill again and looked at the terrain and I noticed that the fault came out of the cap and ran allong the right hand side of the gully so I decided to look there first.

I walked straight down to the first 10g nugget spot and started zig zag ing the hill side.

I started picking up nuggets every few steps so I decided to grid the whole hill side with my 14in coil.

After a week of gridding I finally finished the hillside with the 14in coil and ended up with 2351g.

Whilst I was gridding with the 14 I built up a mental picture of the depth of the soil and I picked out one area at the bottom of the hill that was deep so I decided that I had to re-grid this section with the 25in coil.

After about 10 min I got my first deep target, a 8oz specie at about 850mm.

Then only 4m away 2 more a 6.5oz and a 13oz nearly in the same hole at about

900mm.

Then 3m away from them a 22oz solid nugget then only 2m away I got another signal after 3 hours digging out poped a 32ozer.

To say I was excited would be an understatement I was over the moon!

When I had finished I ended up with just over 4.5kg for 13 days gridding.

Ok now tell me that I was lucky........ I don't think so!

I was methodically working the area I identified an anomaly and and went to investigate, then I found good indicators and followed them, then I followed the gold run.

Where is the luck?

Just hard work, persistence, and sound operating procedures if you ask me.

[mn90403]

Thank you for your prospecting procedure.  It serves as a 'model' for prospectors with and without metal detectors.

We all know that more gold has been 'found' without detectors than with.  The early prospectors in the states would take off with their mules and pans and seek out features that held gold.  This is not luck. (Except for that storm that made them go to a different set of mountains.)  They weren't looking for gold on a sand dune!  They didn't have Google Earth to 'pre-prospect.'

Some of us have been lucky.  We have found gold in placer deposits that moved to its found location without a direct link to a specific lode.  No known gold feature clues would be available for the find.  (My 20.5/8 ozt specie is both luck and work.)

We also have been unlucky by going to places just as you describe and there is no gold to be detected.  

Now, armed with the great confidence you have we should move on to the next set of gold clues and be confident (not lucky) to repeat your success.

Congratulations again.  I hope to be more confident and less lucky.

[Gold Hound]

Mn90403

I had never tought about the confidence factor before.

Now that I think about it confidence is a very important part of prospecting!

As you have to have the confidence to keep going through the lean times.

[flakmagnet]

Confidence, knowledge, research, an adult attention span, persistence, an understanding of your machine, using your eyes, concentration, positive attitude, sense of humor, intuition

and yes, luck.

 

So many factors to utilize. 

 

An interesting thread folks…lots to think about.

 

Gold Hound, that experience is in a class by itself.

[hawkeye]

Gold Hound,

 

Thanks for sharing that experience.  What a great prospecting lesson.

[Steve Herschbach]

Then there is metal detecting in tailing piles. I made a trip to Ganes Creek, Alaska with three other people and we spent three days. The tailing piles have been mined several times and mixed up multiple ways. Gold, gravel, and trash is randomly mixed and scattered.

We would all walk up to a huge pile of tailings material. We would randomly choose sections to detect. I would walk right into my section and bang a one ounce nugget. We would then all furiously hunt some more but little or no gold would be found. We would move to another pile. Same scenario would repeat.

By the middle of the second day I was actually apologizing. It was just too weird. I wanted my friends to find gold also, but I seemed to have a near corner on that activity for the weekend. But at the end of three days I had over a pound of gold, the other three had a couple ounces among them.

Now, I like to think I know what I am doing, that I have skill and knowledge, and that I work hard at what I do. But there is no doubt in my mind that weekend I was just plain lucky.

[Norvic]

Thinking on this luck thing, Steve, like your 1 ozer, I can think of a day in mid summer, hot as hell, myself, mate and son went for a drive in A/c Troppie to check out road condition re. recent wet conditions, we threw in our detectors in case as per norm. Got out on track a fair bit after couple of hours and decided to return home. For the hell of it we started detecting on a likely flat, I had gone 20 metres off track, massive signal. 4 inches or so down a quartz speci. size of cricket ball, on crushing had a whisker under 8 oz. Not another piece got off that flat, although will be running GPZ over it this winter.

But you know how many times over 30 years done a similar thing for nothing, of course mate and son gave me plenty, it called you etc etc.

Luck or is it due to happen if you do it enough, sort of cutting the odds? We could have stayed and been comfy in A/c Troppie, stubby in hand. Lucky, fortunate don`t know but it definitely was a Magic moment.

[strick]

On 3/10/2015 at 10:34 AM, Steve Herschbach said:

Then there is metal detecting in tailing piles. I made a trip to Ganes Creek, Alaska with three other people and we spent three days. The tailing piles have been mined several times and mixed up multiple ways. Gold, gravel, and trash is randomly mixed and scattered.

We would all walk up to a huge pile of tailings material. We would randomly choose sections to detect. I would walk right into my section and bang a one ounce nugget. We would then all furiously hunt some more but little or no gold would be found. We would move to another pile. Same scenario would repeat.

By the middle of the second day I was actually apologizing. It was just too weird. I wanted my friends to find gold also, but I seemed to have a near corner on that activity for the weekend. But at the end of three days I had over a pound of gold, the other three had a couple ounces among them.

Now, I like to think I know what I am doing, that I have skill and knowledge, and that I work hard at what I do. But there is no doubt in my mind that weekend I was just plain lucky.

Luck can be earned as well.  Per your previous posts you went many years before you found your first nugget with a metal detector...no? 

 

strick

[Steve Herschbach]

On 3/10/2015 at 9:18 PM, strick said:

Luck can be earned as well. Per your previous posts you went many years before you found your first nugget with a metal detector...no?

strick

16 years. The story at this link was written in 2002. https://www.detectorprospector.com/magazine/steves-mining-journal/first-gold-nugget-with-a-metal-detector/