signals,to ignore or not

[Tony_agr]

I just bought a Fisher Gold bug.. I had been researching all of the different Prospecting detectors and decided on this.. it was relatively inexpensive and good for my area (so I've been told) due to the Ground Grab and my highly mineralized ground
My question is this.. what signal do I ignore? the first thing I did when I got it was check the signals on Iron,zinc, and other trash also checked with silver dime,Quarter,Half,and Morgan, also a 1/2 oz & 1oz gold coin and then my little bottle of gold.. I discriminated out up to 40.. and I will get this real slight signals up in the 50-90 range, my small bottle of flake,little(mini)pickers produce a similar tone. Do you dig these? I live in Placerville CA and the area I live in was/is very rich in mining history, lots of mines around me.. being a newbie to AU detecting this real lite signals take a good bit of time for me to find nothing..I do keep the dirt and classify and pan it later.. but for the time being, Dig or ignore? I use headphones so I pick up very slight variances in tone..
Love this board, Thanks
Tony

 

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[AU_Solitude]

There are a lot of us on the forums that don't live far from you. Starting out new to gold detecting you need to dig everything, you are going to dig a lot of junk but if you are too picky, especially before you are proficient with your detector you are going to be missing gold. Being in a gold rich area is only half the battle. Best of luck, the GB Pro is a great one!

 

[GreyGhost]

With that detector I'd stick to shallow ground like exposed bedrock because it won't punch down that deep.
Check all the cracks in that stuff. Gold will almost always be faint signals because it settles deep down into the ground and bedrock cracks. If you're hunting bedrock and you get a faint whisper it might be a small nugget in a crack, or lead.
I'd probably ignore what the screen is telling you, we dig everything when we're gold prospecting except for some of the loud and obvious surface trash targets.
Use the sensitivity of that detector to your advantage to find the small targets missed by others. Don't bother reading the target ID because that might cause you to walk away from nuggets.

 

[Hoser John]

Which model Bug did you buy?? Great units and good to use anywhere and, as with all detectors, the bigger the coil the deeper they go which is everywhere for me. John

 

[meMiner]

I really notice a difference with my GB between all metal and discrimination mode. As soon as discrimination is turned on, the depth on small targets is significantly affected.

 

[Goldwasher]

I have a gb pro it is surprisingly deep on small targets bullets at 5 inches. You'll start to recognize the broken tone of iron...but, dig everything.....remember that butte nugget sounded like large shallow trash

 

[Aufisher]

Leave the ones that sound like fire hydrants for me!

 

[Lanny in AB]

Hi there.

As others have said, in gold country, you really should dig everything. Having said that, I really like the displays on the Bug Pro. For me, for shallower stuff anyway, it sure rules out a lot of ferrous trash by Id'ing it so that I can quickly swipe my super-magnet on the telescoping wand through the dirt or across the surface of the bedrock to get the iron or steel trash out of the way in a hurry which allows me to scrub the bedrock, slow down, and then carefully listen for genuine signals.

Moreover, it the meter then jumps to that 40 range and holds steady, I'll get out a hammer and chisel, bar or whatever to bust some bedrock to see what the heck's in there! It's been my experience that if the signal holds at 40, even for faint sounding, little stuff, it's got a great chance of being gold. There are a couple of hot-rocks that will ring in in that same range, but most of them will "bounce" on the meter a bit or sometimes if you sweep back across them at 90 degrees to the original sweep, you might rule it out.

Sometimes it will ring higher on gold than the 40 which really surprised me this season, but I'm sure it's not out of the ordinary.

For a bunch of hot-rocks you'll get so that you can ID them by their unique sound and the way they have a broad signal or blanking or a "boing" sound, and that will eliminate some targets for you as well.

You really do need to get out and put hours and hours on your machine to learn the sounds it makes when contacting various targets, good and bad. Listening to the sounds is crucial, and learning to listen for tiny breaks in the threshold is the ticket to getting nuggets that a lot of people will walk right over. The Bug Pro is not a classic deep-seeker, so listen carefully to whispers and threshold breaks, scrub or scrape off some soil and scan again. I corralled a lot of small nuggets that way this past season.

If you hit a patch of nuggets in a tight area (did that twice this past season), you'll get a broad signal. I saved myself some time by taking every bit of dirt from the bedrock, then panning it out! You should have seen the nuggets. I was baffled by why the signal was so broad, and that was why, lots of targets crowded into a small area.

So, really, investigate everything until your ears start to filter things as they feed you hot-rock sounds that you'll learn to ID, or common trash sounds, but you really should dig all positive signals or mysterious signals just in case. From personal experience, I've been shocked often enough by what my ears were telling me was trash, that was in fact gold, that if I've learned the value of digging everything.

All the best, and hope this helps,

Lanny

 

[californiagold]

Which coils are using on the gold bug pro?

 

[Lanny in AB]

Which coils are using on the gold bug pro?

The 5" round, DD, and the 5x10 elliptical DD.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Tony_agr]

I bought the Gold Bug.. Not the pro.. little 5" coil, went out yesterday.. I skipped lots of signals that the screen showed "FEo something" I read it was supposed to indicate the iron content..No I didnt get any "good" signals.. thats not to say I walked right over some gold, which I probably did.

 

[Tony_agr]

Think I blew it

Ok so reading these posts.. I think I blew it.. In the all metals mode that thing was never silent, never.. I had a good ground balance and was able to set the threshold about halfway.. not smart enough to leave well enough alone, I went into discriminate mode and canceled out anything below 40, that looks to be a big mistake..I was under the impression that even small gold signals? at or above 50? the other thing is that I'm not real organized about the most efficient way to pack my pick, shovel, strainer ..whatever so right now its kind of a pain in the *** hauling the stuff around.
I'm the only one on this 200 acre parcel outside of Sutter creek that looks for gold.. the place is used as a firing range most of the time.
I have to stay away from the the backstop areas or I'd big digging lead all day.
Thanks for the replies.. I have gained more knowledge and maybe next time I can post some finds.. the guy who owns the land said that there is 3-4 old homestead sites from the mid to late 1800's that he'll show me next week
Thanks again

 

[californiagold]

First if your just detecting gold just take a pick. A good prospecting pick. I think apex picks make some good ones. All you need to do is get a signal , scrape or dig the signal till you move it. Should have the signal in a pile of dirt off to the side of where signal was. Now pick up a small amount of dirt and sprinkle it on the coil. When the object falls on the coil, it will beep. Even small stuff. Just listen good. Just repeat process until you get the signal on your coil. Then use 1 finger and start moving dirt around on the coil till you move it. Then you should find your target.

 

[californiagold]

Also if you are using all metal, dont turn up the threshole past 15-20 on the strength of threshold number in the corner of screen. If you turn it up too loud, you will miss the small signals. Also dont trust the iron bars ready in the lower left of screen in all metal. You can miss gold if it is sitting next to a iron object in the ground or iron rich dirt can throw the bars up and make you miss gold. Or a piece of gold with ironstone attached or a gold/quartz specimen with iron in it will also throw off the iron bars reading

 

[californiagold]

If the detector is too noisy in all metal switch to iron disc. Usually all metal you can only turn up the sensitivity to 40-50. But in iron disc turn it up to 100. It works great. I used the gold bug pro few years ago and I had to use iron disc alot at very high mineralization. The depth is about the same when one mode is sensitively off 40-50 and iron disc is at 100. Easy math. What ever mode you are using. You will hear some chirps from the ground here and there from minerals. But you are after signals that repeat a beep each swing. If it dont respond with beep each swing more then likely it is the ground.

 

[californiagold]

When detecting in either mode dig everything from 40 on up. The nonferrous target signals including gold is based on size more then anything. Small gold goes off in the 40's little bigger gold hits in the 50's and bigger gives even more higher numbers. I found alot of big gold with gb pro that hit in the 70-80 range. But the size also goes for other nonferrous targets like lead. Unfortunately you will find alot of junk. We all do. Dont fret. After awhile you will start to recognize certain nonferrous junk targets like pellet gun ammo, 22 rifle empties and such. They usually hit around the same number each swing. Same for coins. But most gold is erratic shape so the signal jumps around a little. You have to watch, some tiny gold or a deep target will jump the id number from iron ( below 40) then above 40 on next swing. These jumper signals are not loud. One other trick in all metal the big number in the center of screen is the ground phase reading. It is constantly changing. Usually 50 or above depends on what the soil reading is at the time. But when you go over any metal. That number will drop below 20. Usually even lower then that. Then you know you went over a piece of metal. Just have to check target id to see if you should dig it.

 

[californiagold]

Dont forget that in all metal mode the big number in the middle of screen is the ground phase number. But in iron disc mode that same big number in center of screen is the target id number instead. Also in all metal the iron bars reading on the bottom left is now actually the signal strenght in the iron disc mode. I dont use either, but in case you do.
Where did you say you are detecting at? What county? Have you done alot of research for places to go?

 

[Lanny in AB]

Californiagold, great tips! I'm really enjoying the read and learning a few new tricks from you to boot!

Thanks for sharing, and all the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Which coils are using on the gold bug pro?

Sorry, think I misunderstood this request.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[californiagold]

Lanny you said you use the 5" round but what is the 7"x5 " eliptical. Do you mean 10x5 eliptical?