Golden Grams Of Goodness: Nugget Shooting Stories

[Lanny]

Golden Grams of Goodness: Part 1

November is not usually a time of year that I get to chase the gold, as by the time November rolls around the ground usually requires some dynamite or some equally powerful force to break through the frost to get to the gold. However, this year has been a year of exceptions. In September, we had early snow and frost with well below seasonal temperatures that carried into October, and that doesn't happen very often as usually the weather is rather mild. However, after the early blast of Arctic bad temper, the weather shook itself out until the first week of November with temperatures soaring above average, so this allowed the chance to engage in some gold sleuthing when normally I'd be reduced to only dreaming of chasing the gold.

I have two sons, and the eldest loves to chase the gold, while the other will chase the gold given the opportunity, but he doesn't have the same level of passion. Me eldest was with me on this trip, and he was with me on our epic gold adventure when we truly slew an army of nuggets early in the summer (I have yet to post that story), so he was eager to have a chance to hone his detecting and sniping skills.

The area we dropped into to work was full of bedrock pinnacles. These pinnacles were formed of an iron-hard bedrock, so hard that the big equipment had negligible effect. In fact, smoke was pouring off the bucket teeth and blades of the excavators as they tried to outmuscle the mother rock. As a result, there was a section of ground about the size of two school buses parked side-by-side, but slightly longer.

Looking down into the excavation, there were three pools of standing water as well as a small stream of clear seepage water running diagonally across the northern, more elevated end of the bedrock. The southern end was where the largest pool of water was, and the eastern side of the excavation had a culvert that was collecting the water from the stream to then divert it through a long series of interconnected culverts to a sump where a six-inch diesel-powered pump was working night and day to keep that sump cleared. 

Over the entire area of exposed bedrock, there were many buried, small gutters with high, then lower humps, and throughout the area, there were those dark pinnacles of super-hard bedrock, some of them rising up almost four feet, resulting in an area that could not be cleaned out properly by the modern miners with their big equipment. The area was perfect for detector and sniping work, making it a perfect area for us to tackle. 

To be continued . . .

All the best,

Lanny

[Lanny]

Golden Grams of Goodness: Part 2

First, we set up the detectors, then started to ground balance our machines. The first thing I noticed was the iron bars were high! It didn’t seem to matter where I swung the detector, the background feedback was high in iron. I knew instantly that was going to affect the detection depth on the VLF, and the high concentration of iron in the bedrock was also going to cause problems for the Minelab PI as well, and that heavy mineralization did run interference on both machines. (After all, whether a VLF [very low frequency] or a PI [pulse induction] machine, they’re both wired to find metal, and iron is definitely a metal. For whatever reason, many rookies forget this fact, and they think there’s something wrong with their detector if their machine won’t ignore high concentrations of iron.) Moreover, when I’d get a signal, the numbers would jump around on the VLF display and would not pin dead on, which they do quite often in milder ground, necessitating that I dig down to the target, disturb the target, then scan again.

Of note, many times nuggets were over the top of big pieces of ironstone, or under or beside them, and sometimes chunks of gold were sited in intact material that overlay thick bands of high quality iron that was running in veins about two inches thick! With all of the natural metal everywhere, it was turning out to be a challenging day. In fact, several times I got the coil over such thick intrusions of iron that the detector overloaded; now, that really is hot material to try to find nuggets in for sure! Furthermore, depth was seriously limited, and the proof of this was that in any material around several inches thick, which was still tight on bedrock, I couldn’t even get a reading on half-gram pickers down in the bedrock cracks.

*** Prospecting tip: when your detector is finding good and juicy concentrations of nuggets in some sections of bedrock with milder conditions, yet the detector is so obviously struggling to handle the conditions in still other sections, break out the sniping tools! The detector has already proven to you that the gold is there in concentration on the bedrock, so you must be smarter than your detectors’ limitations (PI or VLF) due to mineralization. Instead of fighting a losing electronic battle, put the detectors down and test, test, test by sniping!! We were amazed at what we were missing due to the detectors’ blindness in those severe conditions. Yes, amazed really is the right word as we took home a lot of gold we’d have missed if we’d dumbed ourselves down and only relied on the detectors’ brains which had a serious case of iron flu. ***

To elaborate, we knew the sassy pickers were there because sometimes we’d get a broad signal over an area, something normally interpreted as ground noise, not as a positive target, yet by digging and panning, we gathered all kinds of pickers in the pan the little VLF would normally scream on. The proof of good gold certainly was in the pan! However, on this day, the symptoms of the iron flu offered only silence from the detector. The iron mineralization had clearly infected both machines as the PI wasn’t doing any better on the small stuff because a positive target to any detector is a positive target, whether ferrous or non-ferrous. 

Furthermore, with such a massive concentration of ironstone and banded iron in the bedrock, shallow depth was the rule of the day, and smaller targets that were normally a breeze to hear on average bedrock either didn’t make a peep or the broad disturbance in the threshold sounded like ground noise. To compound matters, many of the nuggets and bigger flakes were pancake flat. Now, for those of you that have done a lot of detecting, anything on edge is much harder to detect vs. a target lying flat and face-up or one which is resting at a fairly shallow angle while mostly face up. Moreover, with many of the larger flakes being so flat and on edge, going super slow while using small coils was a necessity to try to hear any tiny fluctuations in the threshold that day amongst all of the iron clatter. However, just try to imagine the concentration required to filter the genuine gold signals from the false signals generated by all of that iron, and you’ll have some picture of what we struggled with.

All the best,

Lanny

To be continued . . .

[Lanny]

Golden Grams of Goodness: Part 3

Even though the bedrock was super hard in that location, it did have some fractures, but it was a rare exception to find any breaks in the stone that had much depth due to the hardness of the rock. However, what that bedrock did have was lots of little gutters with bends indented into it, decorated with twists and dips, and those made for some great little gold traps for sassy pickers, lonely nuggets, and juicy flakes, and there was lots of gold to go around, and I do mean lots!

(Pinnacles in the cut)

When conditions would allow, we scrubbed the coils right tight on the bedrock listening for faint breaks in the threshold or for those aforementioned broader signals, and every time we’d get a hit, we’d shut off the detectors and go to work with the sniping tools. After cleaning the twists and turns of the little gutters, we’d detect them again and find gold that could now be heard because we’d removed so many ironstone chunks with the sniping tools and the super-magnets.

However, the non-magnetic dark hot rocks (one less oxygen molecule from the magnetic ones I believe?) still caused trouble, but there were less of them compared to the the truly troublesome ones we’d got out of the way. (The iron bands couldn’t be dealt with by detecting though, and I’m sure we left gold behind along their edges when we finally ran out of time.) By continuing to scan the bedrock, we hit some nuggets in the 2-3 gram range as well, and a few bigger ones to boot—right sassy, beefy brawlers. Regardless of the bigger pieces, lots of flat nuggets were wedged down in any crack they’d been able to work their way into while travelling over that iron-hard bedrock, and we really had to work to liberate them.

(Some smaller pieces of liberated gold)

In addition, we took our time to carefully scan any clay or channel material that was stuck to the sides of those bedrock pinnacles I mentioned early in the story, and by careful scraping after we got a positive detector response along those sides (when we could), we captured a lot of additional pickers from their slopes. Having already learned from our previous finds in hot ground, we’d shut down the detectors after finding any detectable gold on around or near the base of the pinnacles as well, and it sure paid off with lots of nice gold we would have missed electronically. In retrospect, it was somewhat ironic that we had to revert to age-old gold gathering techniques used thousands of years ago because our modern electronic wizardry was overwhelmed and outclassed, but that just goes to show why it’s good to be well-rounded in gold getting techniques, with a healthy collection of excellent tools as well to use for specialized purposes; because, does anyone really know what they’ll be up against when Mother Nature’s been scheming and plotting to hide her gold?

On a different note, we used the waterproof coils to search the bottom of the pools and we found some gold that way too, but not much as where the pools were, the bedrock had been softer which allowed the excavator buckets to dig deep. A Cheechako (greenhorn) and a Sourdough (seasoned miner) joined us in the excavation for a while, and they too found gold, with the lucky Cheechako hitting a nice multi-gram nugget (the size of my thumbnail) with his detector, a chunk that had been drug, with some larger rocks, off to the side of the bedrock drain that was channeling water into the culvert of the drain. We were happy for him, and happy for the Sourdough (a veteran of many a gold chase) too who sniped like a man possessed with the pure golden fever, a sight to behold! Well, he walked away with a nice catch of pickers and small nuggets in his bottle as he’d set up a little high-banker so he could process more material. However, neither of them came close to our tally in weight, but they sure had fun, and we did too.

It was a great day, and I walked out with lots of nuggets in my gold bottle (that bottle had weight issues, good ones though) and my son did better than me as he went back the next day in the rain and rescued a third more gold than he’d gathered the previous day. As for me, I was content to just hunker down in my wet-weather gear and watch him have fun in the drizzle, and then I helped him haul his equipment out of the excavation up the boulder strewn slope back to the waiting 4X4 diesel. However, what should have been an easy exit from the site got highly sketchy in a hurry as the rain had caused a big slump right across the road by sliding muck down the north side of the excavation, with the mess beginning about seventy-five yards from where we were working. Moreover, it’s a good thing my diesel has lots of clearance or we’d still be glued there in the goo, but with the high clearance and the awesome torque of that diesel, it chewed us safely through. Now, if I’d have been in my gasoline-powered 4X4, which has lower clearance and not near the torque, it likely would have been a bad ending to a great gold trip.

(Ironstone and gold)

(High-torque, high-clearance blue mule.)

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny]

On 2/19/2019 at 11:02 AM, kiwijw said:

Thank you Lanny. Awesome. Looking forward to parts 4, 5 ,6....etc ?

Very best of luck to you out there

JW 

JW, always great to hear from you, and I always appreciate your posts on detecting.

I added a few pictures to the last post (Part 3) to give you a peek at a few things.

Thanks again for taking the time to let me know you enjoy the posts, and all the best,

Lanny

[Lanny]

Golden Bonanza Days, Part 1:

I got the call last season for the chance any nugget shooter dreams of.

A friend of mine owns and operates a large placer mining operation. They had been working an ancient channel deposit (60,000,000 years, plus or minus, but hey, what’s a million years here or there, right?) and as I wrote this account, they were in the final stages of moving all of their heavy equipment to anther site. So, I got a call that people usually only dream of ever getting.

I was invited to bring my family to nugget shoot a section of virgin bedrock. After sixty million years, it was finally exposed to the sun’s rays once again, and as the entire mining operation was shut down, with no active mining in progress for the changeover, my buddy wanted us to come and check the bedrock for him before they had to do the reclamation work and bury it once more for perhaps another sixty million years.

I couldn’t believe it! What a chance, perhaps the call of a lifetime . . .

I called my son, who I’ve been training how to detect sassy nuggets, and he said to count him in. My wife, who is a speed-panning wonder of target-rich scoop dirt, said she was in too. So, we packed our gear and headed for the mountains.

For whatever bizarre reasons the weather gods had last winter (2017-18), the weather was terrible right up until the first of May, and then it was like someone hit the sun-and-warmth switch for instant summer. The transformation was surreal and wonderful. Fresh pine heavily scented the valley. A wide variety of mountain song birds were back in force, the flowers were blooming on every slope, wild honey bees, heavily laden with pollen, buzzed a honey-hunter’s symphony. While high above, the hawks and eagles choreographed their ageless aerial ballet as they rode the invisible thermals of the cobalt blue expanse. In addition, red-throated, as well as iridescent green-breasted humming birds initiated impossible angles of changing flight as they darted from spot to spot while visiting the innumerable mountain blossoms. To say it was breath-taking is a feeble attempt to capture the impossible, and those of you that frequent the wild reaches of the Rocky Mountains already know of what I speak.

We set up our gear, and I unpacked the feisty Makro Gold Racer and connected my shiny new sniper coil. I was going to take the Racer for a hard run, as I was still getting used to it, and with all of the ancient cracks and crevices exposed, I believed it had a good chance to sniff out some gold. The other nugget shooter, my son, would be learning more lessons on the Gold Bug Pro. (For final clean-up, I always check the bedrock with my GPX 5000 after running the legs right off of the VLF’s.)

So, I set my son up with the Gold Bug Pro, outfitted with the 5X10 elliptical DD. I reviewed the basics of the detector with him (I love how quick the learning curve is on the Bug Pro), and off he went to a corner where the bedrock rose steeply, a jagged wall of bedrock rising close to 45 degrees up from the floor of the excavation, and that bedrock was iron hard (similar to some other bedrock we hunted later in the season) so there were lots of gutters, cracks and crevices visible that held intact material due to the hardness of the host rock. My son ground-balanced, adjusted his headphones, then made a few swings. He stopped dead right quick, then repeated a swing. With the numbers on the meter in the sweet zone (40-70 on the meter, if you’re familiar with the Bug Pro, usually depending on the size of the piece of gold), he quickly captured the target in his scoop and dropped it in one of our green plastic gold pans we’d already set out. A few more swings, and he dropped another scoop of target-rich dirt in the pan. Having got off to such a fast start, it looked like it was going to be a good day.

To be continued . . .

All the best,

Lanny

[GB_Amateur]

13 hours ago, Lanny said:

May, and then it was like someone hit the sun-and-warmth switch for instant summer. The transformation was surreal and wonderful. Fresh pine heavily scented the valley. A wide variety of mountain song birds were back in force, the flowers were blooming on every slope, wild honey bees, heavily laden with pollen, buzzed a honey-hunter’s symphony. While high above, the hawks and eagles choreographed their ageless aerial ballet as they rode the invisible thermals of the cobalt blue expanse. In addition, red-throated, as well as iridescent green-breasted humming birds initiated impossible angles of changing flight as they darted from spot to spot while visiting the innumerable mountain blossoms. To say it was breath-taking is a feeble attempt to capture the impossible, and those of you that frequent the wild reaches of the Rocky Mountains already know of what I speak.

Quite the skill you have with that pen, Lanny!  And you keep us hanging in anticipation of the next installment.  Thanks.

[klunker]

I ain't gunna push the like button till you finish the story.

[OFS]

If an opportunity like that fall into my lap I would fast be unemployed and on my way to dig!

Sounds like the start to a fantastic trip.

 

Shane

[Lanny]

On 2/20/2019 at 11:33 PM, kiwijw said:

You tease...how can you leave it there???? I can see we are in for a treat. Cheers Lanny & thanks for the time & effort you put in to sharing your epic journeys with us. I am now hanging off the edge of my chair for the continuation. ?

Best of luck out there

JW  

Not meant to be a tease, but hope you can make it to the next instalment.? Thanks for taking a moment to let me know you enjoy the stories, much appreciated.

All the best,

Lanny

[Lanny]

On 2/21/2019 at 12:07 AM, phrunt said:

Thanks Lanny for taking the time to do your posts so we can ride along with you, you're living the dream.  I'd love to be doing what you're doing.  Good to hear the GBP doing well too, It sure is a simple detector to use.  Very much looking forward to hearing more of your stories.  I could read a book of them ?

 

Much appreciated, and I'm glad you're enjoying the gold-chasing journey. The opportunity to chase the gold, given the conditions I enjoy, is wonderful indeed. 

All the best, and thanks for dropping in,

Lanny