Bedrock and Gold: The mysteries . . .

[Lanny in AB]

Do you love to chase the gold? Please join me--lots of gold hunting tips, stories of finds (successful and not), and prospecting poetry.

Nugget in the bedrock tip:

I had a visit with a mining buddy this past weekend, and he told me of an epic battle to get a nugget out of the bedrock, and of what he learned from the experience. I thought some of you might like to learn from his mistake.

While out detecting one day, he came across a large sheet of bare bedrock. The bedrock was exposed because the area had been blasted off with a water cannon (a monitor), by the old-timers! It was not fractured bedrock, in fact it was totally smooth.

He was not optimistic at all of the prospects of a nugget. But, for some reason (we've all been there) he decided to swing his detector over that bedrock. After a long time, just as he was about to give up on his crazy hunch, he got a signal, right out of that smooth bedrock.

There was no crevice, no sign of a crevice, nada! So, he had to go all the way back to camp to get a small sledge and a chisel. The signal in the rock intrigued him, but he still wasn't overly optimistic. For those of you that have chased signals in a similar situation, sometimes there's a patch of hot mineralization in the bedrock that sounds off, but this spot, according to him, was sharp and clear right in the middle of the signal, not just a general increase of the threshold like you get when you pass over a hot spot in the bedrock.

Anyway, he made it back to the spot and started to chisel his way into the bedrock. If any of you have tried this, it's an awful job, and you usually wind up with cut knuckles--at the least! Regardless, he kept fighting his way down, busting out chunks of bedrock. He kept checking the hole, and the signal remained very strong.

This only puzzled him all the more as he could clearly see that it was solid bedrock with no sign of any crevice. He finally quit at the end of the day, at a depth of about a foot, but still, nothing in the hole.

An experienced nugget shooting friend dropped by the next morning to see him, and asked him how the hunt was going. My buddy related his tale of the mysterious hole in the bedrock, and told the friend to go over and check it out, and see if he could solve the riddle.

Later in the day, the other nugget hunter returned. In his hand was a fine, fat, sassy nugget. It weighed in at about an ounce and a quarter! After my friend returned his eyeballs to their sockets and zapped his heart to start it again, he asked where the nugget had come from.

Imagine his surprise when he heard it came from the mystery hole!! He asked how deep the other guy had gone into the bedrock to get it. "Well, no deeper" was his reply.

So, here's the rest of the story as to what happened. When the successful nugget hunter got to the bedrock, he scanned the surface got the same strong signal as my buddy. He widened out the hole and scanned again. Still a solid tone. He widened the hole some more so he could get his coil in, and here's the key and the lesson in this story, he got a strong signal off the side of the hole, about six inches down, but set back another inch into the side of the bedrock!!

My unlucky friend, the true discoverer of the gorgeous nugget's resting place had gone deep past the signal while digging his hole!!

Now, of course, a good pinpointer would easily solve this problem. The problem was, my buddy didn't have one, so why would he widen the hole, right? Well, the other guy was the one with more experience, and that's why he did. It was a lot more work, but what a payoff!

So, my buddy's butt is still black and blue from where he kicked himself for the next week or so for having lost such an incredible prize.

Some nugget hunting lessons are harder than others to learn. . . .

All the best,

Lanny


P.S. When in gold country--check the bedrock, regardless of whether it looks likely or not! Mother Nature likes to play games sometimes.

 

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[63bkpkr]

Lanny, just awesome story telling and sharing. And yes, the old timers really performed some amazing amounts of work and thinking! I've been in a few mines here in NorCal and from the smallest to the largest they are a marvel of labor to look at, both placer and hard rock. Those placers with the rotted timbers and the big boulders in the ceiling along with curiosity sure are tempting but I've stayed out of most of the placer mines myself. One of the largest hardrock mines I've been in is just a few feet above the high water mark of the river. On the other side of the river is its sister mine where the tailing end of the vein was, the river had cut right through the mountain and the vein.

The tunnel of the larger of the two mines is 6' tall and about as wide, with ore cart tracks going deep into the mine. Along the path of the main tunnel are sub tunnels where the miners chased after a wandering stringer of gold. As I walked I 'felt' something around me had changed. Pointing my light up to the ceiling I found a large wooden chute was over my head. Stepping out from under it and with my light illuminating the undulating ceiling I found sets of old wooden ladders going up, up way past the power of my lights beam. Way up into the darkness the ladders seemed to extend, likely right up to the very end of the vein and then the miners climbed back down never to go up there again. I can not really imagine the effort it took to climb, hammer, chisel, bring up more lengths of ladder, having the rock chips falling into one's face all day long for months, what a hard life!

Yes the the miners performed some amazing feats of energy and engineering just to get at Gold. The left over mines are a testimony to hard work and danger that exist today even in the humble efforts of we prospectors. Thank you for sharing those wonderful pictures and words..............63bkpkr

 

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[Lanny in AB]

Lanny, just awesome story telling and sharing. And yes, the old timers really performed some amazing amounts of work and thinking! I've been in a few mines here in NorCal and from the smallest to the largest they are a marvel of labor to look at, both placer and hard rock. Those placers with the rotted timbers and the big boulders in the ceiling along with curiosity sure are tempting but I've stayed out of most of the placer mines myself. One of the largest hard-rock mines I've been in is just a few feet above the high water mark of the river. On the other side of the river is its sister mine where the tailing end of the vein was, the river had cut right through the mountain and the vein.

The tunnel of the larger of the two mines is 6' tall and about as wide, with ore cart tracks going deep into the mine. Along the path of the main tunnel are sub tunnels where the miners chased after a wandering stringer of gold. As I walked I 'felt' something around me had changed. Pointing my light up to the ceiling I found a large wooden chute was over my head. Stepping out from under it and with my light illuminating the undulating ceiling I found sets of old wooden ladders going up, up way past the power of my lights beam. Way up into the darkness the ladders seemed to extend, likely right up to the very end of the vein and then the miners climbed back down never to go up there again. I can not really imagine the effort it took to climb, hammer, chisel, bring up more lengths of ladder, having the rock chips falling into one's face all day long for months, what a hard life!

Yes the the miners performed some amazing feats of energy and engineering just to get at Gold. The left over mines are a testimony to hard work and danger that exist today even in the humble efforts of we prospectors. Thank you for sharing those wonderful pictures and words..............63bkpkr

Hi there,

Sure good to hear from you again, and I really enjoyed your description of the hard-rock mines you've explored. This past winter, I had the privilege of touring two hard-rock mines, one a silver producer with an insanely rich glory hole, and one a gold mine with a tremendously rich vein, the discovery of which perpetrated a multiple murder of the principal finders of the deposit!

I'd toured coal mines before, so I was familiar with ore chutes, raises, stopes, winzes, etc, but it was something else to get inside the metal mines.

One fascinating aspect of the mines I toured was to see the long ladders you've described that ascend into the gloom, and the crooked tunnels taking off from the roof of the mines as they chased the rich veins was something to see as well. In addition, I couldn't believe the size of some of the stopes they carved out when they hit a rich spot. (I like to watch Youtube videos of mine explorations as well, but I stick to the commercial tours, much safer. I have a son that lives in Nevada, and it's absolutely crazy the number of abandoned mines in that state!!)

As for placer mines, they had to adapt and modify to meet the needs of a completely different mining environment, for without the nature of solid rock with convenient ribs of the mother rock for support, an insane amount of timbering (with few exceptions, conglomerate material being one of those which you can see in a couple of the pictures, plus cribbing made of river rock for support too) was necessary. That timbering need was something I didn't even address in my earlier post about the placer mines, but that backbreaking work had to be done as well, so my hat is truly off to those old boys for the tenacity required to get to the gold.

I've read of how they'd enter the mines in the early morning dark of the northern winters (the days being short), then they'd work in the dark of the mine to emerge in the dark of the evening, completely missing what small daylight there was, and this was their pattern for the entire winter! I'm not sure a sun lover such as myself could have done that, ever.

I have a few artifacts that have come out of those old mines, including hand-forged rims around wooden wheels, and old encrusted shovels with rusted concretions of adhering rocks, shovels that were entombed in the 1800's. As well, I've marvelled at the hand-cut timbers, all of that fine axe work, all done and assembled without a single nail or spike anywhere to hold all that fascination of timbering together!! Simply remarkable.

There's another item I didn't mention either, and that's the track they had to lay, and the bedrock they had to cut through for raises, but I did refer to the bedrock they had to cut to keep that steady slope back to the entrance for drainage. We did find one spot where the gold must have been so rich that they used picks to excavate deep into the bedrock, completely ruining their drainage slope, and there were still lengths of rotted hose from where they'd had to rig some kind of pump to keep the water out of the low spot they'd created to pump the water farther back down the tunnel to hit the drainage slope. A really cool thing I did get to see the summer before last was where three tunnels met (or where they had originally branched off, and the tracks for switching to the various tunnels were still in place.).

So, thanks for dropping in Herb, thanks for sharing your memories, and thanks for sparking a few of my own.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[63bkpkr]

Hi Lanny, your comments deserve a response so here it is.

We were on a desert run in CJ-5's when we happened on an old hardrock mine. So hot and sweaty we went into the cooler mine tunnel walking on the ties for the ore cart tracks. We were in a ways so only our flashlights gave off light when it seemed like my light became very dim. I stopped and waved my light to the walls and it worked fine but when I put it down on the tracks at my feet it was like the ground swallowed the light. I dropped down on my knees and realized that the roof of the tunnel below had caved in so there was nothing for my light to reflect off of. My only question is why am I always the person leading the rest of the guys into places like this!

Of course all of my friends are too old to be doing what I'm still doing so now I'm the only one to even see these spots. I have become a bit more careful about going into mines and I've only been a short distance into the one or two man operation placer mine tunnels. Old prospects can be dangerous..............63bkpkr

 

[Lanny in AB]

Hi Lanny, your comments deserve a response so here it is.

We were on a desert run in CJ-5's when we happened on an old hardrock mine. So hot and sweaty we went into the cooler mine tunnel walking on the ties for the ore cart tracks. We were in a ways so only our flashlights gave off light when it seemed like my light became very dim. I stopped and waved my light to the walls and it worked fine but when I put it down on the tracks at my feet it was like the ground swallowed the light. I dropped down on my knees and realized that the roof of the tunnel below had caved in so there was nothing for my light to reflect off of. My only question is why am I always the person leading the rest of the guys into places like this!

Of course all of my friends are too old to be doing what I'm still doing so now I'm the only one to even see these spots. I have become a bit more careful about going into mines and I've only been a short distance into the one or two man operation placer mine tunnels. Old prospects can be dangerous..............63bkpkr

Thanks for the reply, and your story about wandering into the mine is a bit spooky for sure.

I don't go into the tunnels, as the items we saw were when they tore the roof off the tunnels with the big excavator bucket, and this was after they'd removed forty feet of overburden. But it was rather cool to see what had been going on underground. I was able to zoom in with my camera and with the help of some light, get some pictures of some of the workings without going inside.

I went into a hard-rock mine (gypsum) outside of Vegas once, lots of tunnels going everywhere and huge stopes, but the freakiest part of that exploration was when I found myself walking across timbers that I didn't even realize were there because of debris, but when I finally figured it out, I moved off to the rock side of the tunnel quickly, and then I worked my way around where the timbers were, and there was an opening. I looked into the opening and below the timbers the floor dropped about sixty feet! That one trip into an abandoned, non-commercial guided mine was enough for me.

I agree with you that old prospects are flat out dangerous, and I've had numerous offers made to me to enter opened placer tunnels, and my answer is always the same, no thanks.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Jim Hemmingway]

Hi Jim,

As for Mr. Garrett, he certainly pioneered a lot of great metal detecting technology, and I remember reading his materials when I was starting out. In fact, the first metal detector I bought was a brand-spanking-new Garrett Scorpion, one I took to the goldfields of Montana for one of its first runs. I chased a vein of gold in a prospect tunnel, chiseled out the material, crushed the quartz and panned out gold! I couldn't believe it, but that old Scorpion Gold Stinger could track veins. As for finding nuggets, it would do that too, but the ground I was trying to find nuggets in at that time was far in the Northern wilderness of British Columbia, and the ground was so insanely hot, the little Stinger just wouldn't even run, nothing but overload. So, that's when I switched to PI's and started to find the nuggets in those awful conditions.

However, I did read all of the material I could get my hands on that Garrett had published on how to chase gold, and I watched a video of him working an ancient channel out in the desert where he was detecting the downside of boulders held in a high exposed wall, and he found nuggets! He even demonstrated how to dry pan I believe. Here's a link to his obituary with some interesting history: https://www.garrett.com/mediasite/charles_garrett_obituary.aspx

Lanny… not easy to pick one of your posts to reply to because all are most interesting, particularly enjoyed the instructive post about placer mines and the extraordinary photos that you included. Thankyou, it was an informative and enjoyable read.

The reply quoted above perked my attention because my first prospecting unit was a Garrett Scorpion Goldstinger too. Some 20 years later, I think it was about 2008, I bought a new Stinger privately from a young fellow in California who decided he didn’t like it for goldhunting. On comparing it with my older Stinger, I discovered that Garrett had somewhat improved the unit’s depth and sensitivity in the true motion all-metal mode.

I had always felt that the motion all-metal mode was sufficiently deepseeking on coin and larger size material for the technology available at that time, but it just wasn’t quite sensitive enough to small stuff compared to the Fisher / White’s nugget detectors. However, it was an excellent unit for hunting larger silver, and for poking around dilapidated log homes out in the woods. I still have the newer Stinger and all the coils for it, including an original 12" concentric. Nice mellow tones too, very pleasant to listen to in the headphones.

Attached is another non-detectable Bancroft area mineral. Nothing special, certainly no textbook classic, but we’re glad to have it anyway. Hope you find it interesting too. I like to place these unusual rocks on my bookshelves where I can see them at a glance, they’re a refreshing change from silver.

Nice to have a chance to talk with you again, thanks for indulging my chatter, and we’ll be back in touch at a later date. Take care…................. Jim.

​

 

[Cariboo5]

Nice picture Jim & they are all special as I can relate to rocks on the shelf....Down stairs My son has his shelf, the grandson has his and I mine...

 

[Lanny in AB]

Lanny… not easy to pick one of your posts to reply to because all are most interesting, particularly enjoyed the instructive post about placer mines and the extraordinary photos that you included. Thankyou, it was an informative and enjoyable read.

The reply quoted above perked my attention because my first prospecting unit was a Garrett Scorpion Goldstinger too. Some 20 years later, I think it was about 2008, I bought a new Stinger privately from a young fellow in California who decided he didn’t like it for goldhunting. On comparing it with my older Stinger, I discovered that Garrett had somewhat improved the unit’s depth and sensitivity in the true motion all-metal mode.

I had always felt that the motion all-metal mode was sufficiently deepseeking on coin and larger size material for the technology available at that time, but it just wasn’t quite sensitive enough to small stuff compared to the Fisher / White’s nugget detectors. However, it was an excellent unit for hunting larger silver, and for poking around dilapidated log homes out in the woods. I still have the newer Stinger and all the coils for it, including an original 12" concentric. Nice mellow tones too, very pleasant to listen to in the headphones.

Attached is another non-detectable Bancroft area mineral. Nothing special, certainly no textbook classic, but we’re glad to have it anyway. Hope you find it interesting too. I like to place these unusual rocks on my bookshelves where I can see them at a glance, they’re a refreshing change from silver.

Nice to have a chance to talk with you again, thanks for indulging my chatter, and we’ll be back in touch at a later date. Take care…................. Jim.

​

Hi Jim, as always, great to have you drop in to visit on the thread! It's an honour to have an expert willing to stop by to leave comments.

I enjoyed reading your reflections about the Garrett Stinger, and I'm glad you had a good one that treated you well.

I love the picture of the Feldspar/Sodalite, a beautiful piece. I too love rocks, and collecting rocks. In my boyhood days, I used to love hunting for unique rocks, and I used to bring all kinds of rocks home: my mother had a lot of patience with my hobby. In addition, I was lucky enough to meet an archaeologist who let me tag along for a couple of years while he did work on some early ancient-people's history sites; he taught me how to catalogue finds too. As well, we found quite a few beautiful artifacts that dated back many, many thousands of years.

As for the Stinger, I have a bit of a haunted memory of nuggets left behind. I was up in the north-central part of B.C. in the middle of nowhere, and I didn't really know my machine all that well when it came to chasing nuggets (I'd found a whack of coins with it.). I was a raw rookie when it came to nugget-shooting, truth be told

So, I was swinging my coil over some exposed bedrock along the river's edge when I got multiple hits. I started moving the river rocks and exposed square nail after square nail. Therefore, I quit checking the bedrock. (Dumb move in hindsight.) However, I went upstream a bit and did a test with a river sluice, found some coarse gold, then moved back downstream a bit to where the river had been spinning out the heavies, and by panning, I started to find nugget after nugget! And, this went on the rest of the day. By the time I was done, I'd moved a lot of heavy rocks and big rocks off that bedrock, and I'd had to pry a lot of rocks out of clay to boot, and there were nuggets stuck in the clay where the rocks had slowed the water enough for the gold to drop. In addition, those nuggets were rounded, not flat or hammered. I worked until it was dark, and then we headed out.

I mean, I was happy, I'd got a nice bottle of nuggets just by panning, but for some reason, my brain wasn't nugget-shooter tuned at that time in my life, as today, I'd have hammered all of that bedrock with a detector just downstream from where I was panning the nuggets! Think about it, all kinds of square nails from old workings located upstream somewhere had been spun out as heavies on that bedrock, so there's a great chance the gold was tagging along too. (Square nails since then have led me to a lot of gold.)

Oh well, that's not the only place I have unsettled dreams about leaving gold behind, but I've made sure I haven't made the same mistake since, and maybe that's what making mistakes is all about, doing things smarter the next time around.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Jim Hemmingway]

I too love rocks, and collecting rocks. In my boyhood days, I used to love hunting for unique rocks, and I used to bring all kinds of rocks home: my mother had a lot of patience with my hobby. In addition, I was lucky enough to meet an archaeologist who let me tag along for a couple of years while he did work on some early ancient-people's history sites; he taught me how to catalogue finds too. As well, we found quite a few beautiful artifacts that dated back many, many thousands of years.

As for the Stinger, I have a bit of a haunted memory of nuggets left behind. I was up in the north-central part of B.C. in the middle of nowhere, and I didn't really know my machine all that well when it came to chasing nuggets (I'd found a whack of coins with it.). I was a raw rookie when it came to nugget-shooting, truth be told

So, I was swinging my coil over some exposed bedrock along the river's edge when I got multiple hits. I started moving the river rocks and exposed square nail after square nail. Therefore, I quit checking the bedrock. (Dumb move in hindsight.) However, I went upstream a bit and did a test with a river sluice, found some coarse gold, then moved back downstream a bit to where the river had been spinning out the heavies, and by panning, I started to find nugget after nugget! And, this went on the rest of the day. By the time I was done, I'd moved a lot of heavy rocks and big rocks off that bedrock, and I'd had to pry a lot of rocks out of clay to boot, and there were nuggets stuck in the clay where the rocks had slowed the water enough for the gold to drop. In addition, those nuggets were rounded, not flat or hammered. I worked until it was dark, and then we headed out.

I mean, I was happy, I'd got a nice bottle of nuggets just by panning, but for some reason, my brain wasn't nugget-shooter tuned at that time in my life, as today, I'd have hammered all of that bedrock with a detector just downstream from where I was panning the nuggets! Think about it, all kinds of square nails from old workings located upstream somewhere had been spun out as heavies on that bedrock, so there's a great chance the gold was tagging along too. (Square nails since then have led me to a lot of gold.)

Hi Lanny… your experience with the Garrett Goldstinger along the river’s edge primarily tells us that despite not being able to necessarily detect some of those small nuggets, the detector helped to put you on to a very productive spot. I imagine many of us would have been restricted to whatever gold was detectable with that unit, but there’s no doubt that you were following the gold with your mind (and goldpan) as well. And that, plus your willingness to work at it and be persistent, was the underlying basis for your success there.

Incidentally, there’s currently a story on CBC News about archaeologists / paleontologists examining human footprints out your way that apparently date back some 13,000 years. We shouldn’t be too surprised that artifacts dating several thousands of years are occasionally unearthed there. I don’t want to get too far off topic, but can only imagine that finding very old implements or artifacts such as valuable copper spear points is a very rare occurrence outside of any currently identified ancient encampment sites.

Jim.

PS: I’ve been rummaging through my photos for something appropriate to spruce-up this post. Hope this works for you, it’s bright and cheerful, and the rocks are not from Bancroft!!! The blue background sample was detected with a 1980ish Garrett ADS Master Hunter / 7” concentric whereas the other three rocks were found with the Goldstinger / 12” concentric.

​

 

[Hoser John]

Been dangling from a rope when the floor gave way in the VC Highlands one time and sure was happy with all the safety precautions. No rope tie off=no hope for either of us. John

 

[russau]

John , we all are glad you "hung around" !

 

[Lanny in AB]

Hi Lanny… your experience with the Garrett Goldstinger along the river’s edge primarily tells us that despite not being able to necessarily detect some of those small nuggets, the detector helped to put you on to a very productive spot. I imagine many of us would have been restricted to whatever gold was detectable with that unit, but there’s no doubt that you were following the gold with your mind (and goldpan) as well. And that, plus your willingness to work at it and be persistent, was the underlying basis for your success there.

Incidentally, there’s currently a story on CBC News about archaeologists / paleontologists examining human footprints out your way that apparently date back some 13,000 years. We shouldn’t be too surprised that artifacts dating several thousands of years are occasionally unearthed there. I don’t want to get too far off topic, but can only imagine that finding very old implements or artifacts such as valuable copper spear points is a very rare occurrence outside of any currently identified ancient encampment sites.

Jim.

PS: I’ve been rummaging through my photos for something appropriate to spruce-up this post. Hope this works for you, it’s bright and cheerful, and the rocks are not from Bancroft!!! The blue background sample was detected with a 1980ish Garrett ADS Master Hunter / 7” concentric whereas the other three rocks were found with the Goldstinger / 12” concentric.

View attachment 1571649​

As always Jim, thanks for your input, your insight, and your detecting wisdom.

Nice specimens, in fact incredible specimens, but that seems to be what you're excellent at finding, although I know that a lot of dedication, research, and intense reading and training on how to get the most out of your machine has always been what's got you to where you now are. There's no easy road to what you've accomplished. However, that is what puts a lot of detectors in closets, people that believe it's easy to head out and find material with a detector, far from it.

Lots of ancient artifacts lurking out here in the West as I'm sure there are where you're located as well.

All the best, and thanks again,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Been dangling from a rope when the floor gave way in the VC Highlands one time and sure was happy with all the safety precautions. No rope tie off=no hope for either of us. John

My goodness John, that does not sound like any kind of fun at all, and I'm glad you went about it in an intelligent manner and had the foresight to take the proper safety precautions.

I sure do enjoy your comments.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Hoser John]

Turned out to be a air shaft and learned long ago never to go into any mine/tunnel without adequate precautions. Living in Nevada was a great education. The things I saw as a firefighter/rescue opened my eyes WIDE as to who,what and where. John

 

[Lanny in AB]

Tried out a new detector today:

Due to some delays, I finally made it out with my Makro Gold Racer on the weekend to see what it could do.

I don't know about where you live, but winter here just didn't want to let go this year. I mean, we had one of the coldest, longest winters we've had in forever, and snow, snow, snow (we're about four feet over the average mountain snowpack at the higher elevations as I write), but Old Man Winter finally took a breather, and so I got a chance to head to the mountains to swing the coil again.

The place I picked was one that didn't have a lot of exposed bedrock, just a small section really, with the rest of the ground covered with six to eight feet of overburden on top of the bedrock, and that's just too much overburden for the size of gold I commonly find.

As for the weather that day, it was a true mixed bag. I mean this time of year, we can get all four seasons in one day! Saturday was no exception. It rained early in the morning, then the sun came out and it was nice and warm, then it clouded over, started to rain again, then turned to snow, then the wind blew a cold blast of air for about an hour, then the sky turned blue and the sun came out once more, the wind stopped, and the weather did its best spring imitation for the next three hours.

I unlimbered the Gold Bug Pro first, and you can't make this stuff up, within three minutes, I'd found a three gram nugget, one my wife said looked sort of like a four-leaf clover. And, Nature indeed had made it look kind of like one. The nugget was sitting in some tough clay that held a lot of former river stones, so it seemed to me that it was likely what used to be the bottom of a crevice long ago, as the surrounding bedrock had been cut down at least a couple of feet by the former placer miners whose actions would have left the sort of deposit I've described.

I kept working the exposed bedrock and any places I could find where bedrock had been tossed out in case some gold had ridden out with it. (I have found nuggets this way before.) I really took my time and went slow, because I wanted to be sure I'd cleaned the area before I broke out the Gold Racer so I'd have as accurate a comparison as I could. By the time I'd finished with the Fisher, I'd gathered another gram and a half of small stuff that I'd thrown in the bottle.

My wife had wandered off, and I found her panning near the foot of channel wall, but she wasn't having much luck; however, she pointed out something to me that I'd have completely missed. To the north and east of where she'd been panning, there was a short section left of what had been a bedrock drain, and there were small sections of bedrock still exposed that the boulder clay hadn't reclaimed.

Nevertheless, I headed back to the original bedrock I'd worked with the Gold Bug Pro, and I broke out the shiny new Makro Gold Racer. The ground balance worked flawlessly, and setting the sensitivity was a breeze. The ground was moderate to a little hot, so I didn't have to worry about adjusting the ISAT, and I was pretty familiar with the types of hot-rocks I'd likely find, so I knew most, if not all, of them by sight.

I started by running the coil slowly over the areas I'd hit with the Bug Pro, and after a few sweeps, I had several quiet but distinct signals. When I dug down, the signals got louder. I called by wife over, and she took the dirt with the signals and panned them out. Neither one of us could believe the tiny gold in the pan! The Gold Racer really did deliver on finding small gold. However, the first bedrock area was not where I realized how good the Gold Racer could perform.

Remember I mentioned the bedrock drain? I headed over to it with both detectors. First, I scanned the small exposed areas exceptionally carefully with the Bug Pro, and I got a few small pieces, then I ramped up the sensitivity on the machine as far as I could, fought the background chatter, and all in all, liberated about half a gram of gold from the bedrock.

I swapped out the Bug Pro for the Gold Racer and covered the same areas again. Almost immediately I had a signal. I couldn't believe it, but the signal was clear, and I could see a previous dig mark where I'd nailed some small stuff with the Bug Pro, and the Racer was giving a crisp signal, quite unmistakable, right in the same dig hole! To make a long story short, three inches of bedrock later, a nice picker was in the bottle! This blew me away, as the Gold Racer had found the target while running nice and quiet, with the sensitivity not ramped up, yet the signal was very clear.

I kept at the small sections of bedrock, and kept getting quiet, but clear, signals until I'd added another gram and a half of small gold to the vial. (Sometimes I'd get a break in the threshold too, but when I dug down, the signal either disappeared or it turned out to be a target. [Some heavy iron deposits in the bedrock did give a weak signal, but I soon learned that due to the broad nature of their signature exactly what they were.])

What this weekend's outing made me realize is that if I'd have given the Gold Racer a run the end of last summer, I'd have undoubtedly recovered a lot of small gold, and I do mean a lot, that the Bug Pro just couldn't see (this test was carried out with virtually the same coil sizes on both machines, elliptical shapes and DD's as well), and knowing now what I likely left behind last summer makes me a bit sad. (Out of six grams of gold for the Saturday, a gram and a half was fine stuff from the Gold Racer, and that's a pretty good added portion of gold recovery I'd say.)

So, I learned my lesson well on Saturday, and I gained a whole lot of respect for the little Gold Racer for how sensitive it is to small gold, how good it punches into the ground to find it, and how quietly it goes about its job of doing so. Furthermore, The Makro is a great little gold machine I can swing all day long, and I'm looking forward to really taking it for a long, dedicated run this summer to add more gold to the poke because it sure gets the job done in style!

All the best,

Lanny

 

[bcfromfl]

Very interesting comparison, Lanny! So, is this going to change your plans for this season...as in...going back to last years' ground instead of exploring new places?

 

[arizau]

Tried out a new detector today:

Due to some delays, I finally made it out with my Makro Gold Racer on the weekend to see what it could do.

I don't know about where you live, but winter here just didn't want to let go this year. I mean, we had one of the coldest, longest winters we've had in forever, and snow, snow, snow (we're about four feet over the average mountain snowpack at the higher elevations as I write), but Old Man Winter finally took a breather, and so I got a chance to head to the mountains to swing the coil again.

The place I picked was one that didn't have a lot of exposed bedrock, just a small section really, with the rest of the ground covered with six to eight feet of overburden on top of the bedrock, and that's just too much overburden for the size of gold I commonly find.

As for the weather that day, it was a true mixed bag. I mean this time of year, we can get all four seasons in one day! Saturday was no exception. It rained early in the morning, then the sun came out and it was nice and warm, then it clouded over, started to rain again, then turned to snow, then the wind blew a cold blast of air for about an hour, then the sky turned blue and the sun came out once more, the wind stopped, and the weather did its best spring imitation for the next three hours.

I unlimbered the Gold Bug Pro first, and you can't make this stuff up, within three minutes, I'd found a three gram nugget, one my wife said looked sort of like a four-leaf clover. And, Nature indeed had made it look kind of like one. The nugget was sitting in some tough clay that held a lot of former river stones, so it seemed to me that it was likely what used to be the bottom of a crevice long ago, as the surrounding bedrock had been cut down at least a couple of feet by the former placer miners whose actions would have left the sort of deposit I've described.

I kept working the exposed bedrock and any places I could find where bedrock had been tossed out in case some gold had ridden out with it. (I have found nuggets this way before.) I really took my time and went slow, because I wanted to be sure I'd cleaned the area before I broke out the Gold Racer so I'd have as accurate a comparison as I could. By the time I'd finished with the Fisher, I'd gathered another gram and a half of small stuff that I'd thrown in the bottle.

My wife had wandered off, and I found her panning near the foot of channel wall, but she wasn't having much luck; however, she pointed out something to me that I'd have completely missed. To the north and east of where she'd been panning, there was a short section left of what had been a bedrock drain, and there were small sections of bedrock still exposed that the boulder clay hadn't reclaimed.

Nevertheless, I headed back to the original bedrock I'd worked with the Gold Bug Pro, and I broke out the shiny new Makro Gold Racer. The ground balance worked flawlessly, and setting the sensitivity was a breeze. The ground was moderate to a little hot, so I didn't have to worry about adjusting the ISAT, and I was pretty familiar with the types of hot-rocks I'd likely find, so I knew most, if not all, of them by sight.

I started by running the coil slowly over the areas I'd hit with the Bug Pro, and after a few sweeps, I had several quiet but distinct signals. When I dug down, the signals got louder. I called by wife over, and she took the dirt with the signals and panned them out. Neither one of us could believe the tiny gold in the pan! The Gold Racer really did deliver on finding small gold. However, the first bedrock area was not where I realized how good the Gold Racer could perform.

Remember I mentioned the bedrock drain? I headed over to it with both detectors. First, I scanned the small exposed areas exceptionally carefully with the Bug Pro, and I got a few small pieces, then I ramped up the sensitivity on the machine as far as I could, fought the background chatter, and all in all, liberated about half a gram of gold from the bedrock.

I swapped out the Bug Pro for the Gold Racer and covered the same areas again. Almost immediately I had a signal. I couldn't believe it, but the signal was clear, and I could see a previous dig mark where I'd nailed some small stuff with the Bug Pro, and the Racer was giving a crisp signal, quite unmistakable, right in the same dig hole! To make a long story short, three inches of bedrock later, a nice picker was in the bottle! This blew me away, as the Gold Racer had found the target while running nice and quiet, with the sensitivity not ramped up, yet the signal was very clear.

I kept at the small sections of bedrock, and kept getting quiet, but clear, signals until I'd added another gram and a half of small gold to the vial. (Sometimes I'd get a break in the threshold too, but when I dug down, the signal either disappeared or it turned out to be a target. [Some heavy iron deposits in the bedrock did give a weak signal, but I soon learned that due to the broad nature of their signature exactly what they were.])

What this weekend's outing made me realize is that if I'd have given the Gold Racer a run the end of last summer, I'd have undoubtedly recovered a lot of small gold, and I do mean a lot, that the Bug Pro just couldn't see (this test was carried out with virtually the same coil sizes on both machines, elliptical shapes and DD's as well), and knowing now what I likely left behind last summer makes me a bit sad. (Out of six grams of gold for the Saturday, a gram and a half was fine stuff from the Gold Racer, and that's a pretty good added portion of gold recovery I'd say.)

So, I learned my lesson well on Saturday, and I gained a whole lot of respect for the little Gold Racer for how sensitive it is to small gold, how good it punches into the ground to find it, and how quietly it goes about its job of doing so. Furthermore, The Makro is a great little gold machine I can swing all day long, and I'm looking forward to really taking it for a long, dedicated run this summer to add more gold to the poke because it sure gets the job done in style!

All the best,

Lanny

Great story...again. Your results are pretty much in parallel with the already impressive reviews on their website and a review from you would be a great addition to their list.

Good luck.

 

[Lanny in AB]

Hello Lanny, Dennis here. I know I still owe you some pics and a story or 2, just haven't had the time, for like 2 years now, but I promise I will not forget. However, if you get the ICMJ magazine you can look at the July 2017 issue for part of one of the stories I owe you. On page 34-36 is the story, by my partner Rod, and a pic of us is on page 36. I am the guy wearing the lighter color clothes and a fishing hat, lol.

Anyway, I too have had the same issues as you trying to recover targets under water. I wish I could tell you that I've got a solution, but that just isn't the case. Fact is under water targets are difficult to say the least. Even though it tears the heck out of your skin, the best I have found is using my bare fingers and going slow trying not to move the target seems to work best. Of course as you know, being in a mud puddle with no water flow just makes it harder unless you can bail the water out. The problem I have had here is those targets are usually some form of junk and not worth the time spent to recover them. I also tried the hand dredge. I made my own with the one way valves like the Gold and Sand unit sold commercially. Problem is they just don't seem to want to pick up nuggets very well, especially when wedged into a bedrock crevice. I guess it comes down to how bad you want to know what that target is and what you are willing to do to recover it. Guys like you and I are getting it out of that hole even if all our fingers are bleeding when we finally succeed, lol.

So anyway, nice to see you posting some of your adventures as stories again. So enjoyable to read about your adventures. I haven't been getting out much these days. I've been over 2 years working on my house getting it in sellable condition, hoping there will be an end to my insanity sooner rather than later. I'll try to make time to get you the rest of the story, and also some pics and the other story from about the same time. It really sucks since I live where I could hunt year round, just can't seem to get this project done so I can get back out there. Someday soon, I hope, my life will get back to normal.

I hope all is well with you and yours, and wish you many years of sassy gold in your future. Dennis

Hi Dennis,

Read the article in the July issue of the ICMJ.

I'm sure finding that fresh spot to detect must have really put a smile on both of your faces! What a blast you must have had seeing that big old sun-baker to boot!!

My detecting experience in Arizona is quite limited, but I loved the adventure of being out in the desert, loved the great people I met, and I loved the history of the areas I detected. Moreover, that desert gold is mighty beautiful too.

From reading the story, it sounds like you really love to get out to explore the places others have likely not been to for a long, long time, and it sounds like you enjoy long hikes to get to fresh areas others can't drive to as well which likely provides a better chance of hitting some nice stuff that's located in places that are just too tough for most people, nice recipe for success when you couple that with the research you obviously engage in before you set off on an adventure.

Thanks again for the tip to read the story, and thanks for sharing your golden adventure.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Very interesting comparison, Lanny! So, is this going to change your plans for this season...as in...going back to last years' ground instead of exploring new places?

Well, it will encourage me to revisit some past sites, but for others (the real cherry sites) it's already too late due to years of ongoing reclamation work nearing completion that's now buried some of those locations, as well as claim ownership transfers and sales during the winter (resulting in lost access), etc. However, there are still some spots that I'll check again to see what I've left behind, and there is one area littered with hot-rocks that I'd like to check with the discrimination programs to see how the detector will handle that noisy ground.

So the answer is yes, and no, but not because I wouldn't love to give all of it a second chance!

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Arizau wrote: "Great story...again. Your results are pretty much in parallel with the already impressive reviews on their website and a review from you would be a great addition to their list.

Good luck."

Thanks for the suggestion, but if I don't get selected to go that route, I'll definitely be letting the company know what I think of their fine machine.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Took the Gold Racer out for a coin shoot last night.


Found a handful of pennies from the 1940 war years, all the way back to 1932. Also found a very old silver spoon (late 1800's/early 1900's Rogers Brothers) that looks like it was in a fire. That's the first time I've ever found a silver spoon, but I have no idea if it's plate or sterling, doing a little research on that, (no copper showing through, and I scratched it pretty good when I hit it with the pick).


I had permission to detect an old home site that's being repurposed for a new business, so while the whole area is torn up, I'm using it as a test bed.
The Gold Racer ran well, and it took a while to get used to using the discrimination modes, and I played around with the tone break after I learned the digital ID's of a few trash targets and some highly conductive ones too, so that helped. In addition, I was surprised at the depth it hit some of those coins, no ID digital display numbers, but a sweet tone to guide my ears. Furthermore, when I'd dug down five or six inches, I'd get a digital readout, and then it read solid and pinned at 84. Then I used the Garrett Carrot to pinpoint.

Newer pennies were hitting at 80. The silver spoon, much higher of course.


I have other machines I like better for coins, but I thought I'd see what there was in the Gold Racer tank anyway, and I wasn't disappointed. Not a coin machine for sure as that's not its purpose, but it will lead to the goodies regardless. (Still a lot to learn about the machine for me yet.)


All the best,


Lanny

P.S. Took it out again tonight, 10 more pennies from WWII, two silver dimes, 1927 penny, 1916 large cent, old pocket knife and a cool toy gun!
I'm finding out over the last two days that the sweet spot on the Racer isn't the same as the sweet spot on my Bug Pro, so I'm having to make a few changes when it comes to narrowing down the location of the target signal, but luckily the Garrett Carrot is getting a good workout, and by using it, I'm quickly learning where to look in relation to the signal under the coil vs. my Bug Pro, so that's a plus.


Once again, I was quite surprised at how deep I was digging to get the pennies from WWII years (1939-1945), some of them down as much as eight inches, but the silver dimes (from 1960, both of them!) were only down about four inches with both signals nice and crisp from the get go). Once I get a high tone, I'm finding that the target ID quickly goes active and then locks on if I move off some dirt to get the coil closer to the target. I found it did the same thing with the pickers I detected with it last weekend.

I'm taking advantage of the coin-shooting at the old home site to learn all of the differences in the make up of the Gold Racer as it gives me the opportunity to dig lots and lots of targets in a short amount of time so I can tune my ear to the different sounds the Racer makes as well. In addition, I'm learning what small targets sound like (found some 22-short blanks, and tiny bits of copper and lead which gave nice, soft signals, much like gold did when I was hunting it last weekend).