Hello everyone,

Yesterday a good friend and I met at Mcdonalds resturant in Wickenburg, AZ. We made arrangements the previous night to meet here at 5am Friday. We loaded up my friends gear and headed off into the Wickenburg Desert. We arrived at the location where we were going to detect at about 6am. The weather was great with some cloud cover in the sky. After telling my friend of some of the locations were I have found nuggets nearby, we suited up the detectors and gear. After about a 5-10 minute walk we arrived at the location where I found a little patch in January of this year. I started a little higher up than my friend did. We were going to work this area for awhile to see if we could come up with any nuggets. This area has been gridded by some personal friend and me previously. After about an 1/2 hour I looked down to my friend Bill, I noticed he was using some type of steel bar left from someone else to pry a large boulder out of the way. Where he was trying to move the boulder was a good looking spot. That's where I found most of the nuggets in January of this year. I started to detect around above him a little bit. I ran across an area that I remembered I found a couple of little nuggets before(under 1DWT). It was a pretty flat area, in which I call a shelf. I detected for a couple of minutes covering some of the ground that I found nuggets before. I had no luck whatsoever. I moved over to a large bush and detected around and under it. I was hearing a faint signal as I was pushing the searchcoil around the roots of the bush. I decided to investigate this target by removing a couple of inches of soil. After that, the target increased in audio. I had a pretty good feeling that this was going to be a nugget. At that time I seen Bill moving his way up to my direction. I was curious if Bill's Tesoro Lobo could hear this target. I called Bill over to check this target with his detector. I didn't seem that the Tesoro was getting a very good signal on the target. I dug about 2 more inches from the hole and redetected it. The target was still in the hole under the roots of this bush. Bill passed his Tesoro back over the hole and was getting a small signal. Bill told me that he couldn't tell if it was a target or just mineralization. As I passed the SD2100 with 11" mono coil back over the hole, it was screaming. We were finally able to retrieve the target and find out that it was a small nugget. It weighed in at 30 grains exactly. I believe that Bill was impressed of the depth abilities of the SD2100. We decided to detect a little more around the area just incase there were a few more nugget around. I was able to get a couple of more target in the general area, but no more nuggets. I asked Bill about the boulder that he was trying to move below me. Bill told me that it was just the mineralization that was giving his detector a "chirp." After about 10-15 minutes more I lost sight of Bill. I looked around and noticed he was making his way back to the vehicle. He told me that he would later go down for a drink and a small bite to eat. So I managed to make my way down while I was detecting. I was trying to head down a route that I haven't taken before. Hopefully I would be able to detect a nugget this way. I managed to make it about half way down while detecting a few pieces of trash. Just before turning the detector off I was able to get one last good signal. I decided to dig this target. The target was located in a large red bank. After a couple of inches dug out the target was gone. I thought that it was a small piece of iron until I turned around and detected another target. The target fell out of the hole in the bank and managed to slide down the bank a couple of feet. I pinpointed the target and grabbed the target out of the soil. After opening my hand I seen a small glint of gold. It was indeed a nugget about the same size as the one I just previouly detected. I detected around a couple of minutes with no more success and decided to shut down and walk back to the vehicle. After arriving back at the vehicle Bill asked me if I had any more luck. I showed him the other nugget and he seemed to be pretty amazed. We decided to take a break while we ate and drank a little. Just about that time an older fellow named Ray drove up on a ATV. Ray is a great friend with alot of experience and knowledge around this area. Ray has hunted alot with the famous Bob "Nugget" K. They know of alot of nugget patches around this area. After talking to Ray for awhile he was able to turn us on to another likely location. After a small rest and a goodby to Ray, we headed over to this other location. Bill and I spreaded out and started detecting. In no time I was getting a pretty good target in some red clay. I called Bill over to verify what I was hearing. Bill was having some trouble detecting in this red clay. The mineralization was pretty bad for any other dectectors beside the SD's. This target was about 8 inches down. After getting the target in my hand I passed it over the searchcoil. The target was a loud one. I had a pretty good idea that this was a nugget. Not to much trash gets down in the red clay this far. After opening my hand I was able to see a smaller nugget coated with red clay. After cleaning the nugget off, it weighed in at 25 grains. I was having a great day out here and Bill was seeing the potential of having an SD in this area. After griding this area we were able to come up with 4 more nuggets. The biggest being the one I detected at about 14 inches in red clay. That nugget was roughly at 720 grains(1.5 ounces), with great character. The gold was shot all through the quartz. It contained mostly of gold with some quartz and iron. I was able to take home 5 nugget and Bill with 2 nice nuggets. This was a great day and I think Bill really injoyed his first of many outings with me. I think Bill was a little skeptical about all the stories of the SD2100's. Now I think that he is a believer, since he as seen it in action. Well that was how the day turned out, hopefully are next outing will be just as productive. I injoyed your company and friendship Bill. Take care and good luck nugget hunting everyone.

P.S. Thanks again for the diner, Bill.

Robert.....

• Re: Another Successful Nugget Outing... phil 15:45:00 8/02/98 (0)