My First Gold Nugget with the White's TDI

[Steve Herschbach]

My partners and I run a "pay-to-mine" operation at Moore Creek, Alaska. The location is noted for it's large gold quartz specimens lost in the old mine tailings. It also has a mix of both positive and negative hot rocks that makes using a VLF detector a chore.

A couple of our visitors and I decided to hit some tailing piles downstream and across Moore Creek, making them hard to get to and so less hunted by others. We loaded our detectors and waders up on ATVs and headed down to the general location. After crossing the stream we hiked down to the lowest tailing pile which I've been eying from afar the last couple years. It has a lot of brush on it, and I figured a nugget might be lurking unfound in that brush.

The tailing piles are very steep, and so I hip mounted the TDI to keep the weight off my arm while side-hilling. The only issue I found in the brush was a tendency for controls to get knocked off their settings and so I was alert for changes in the detector's response.

I found a good ground balance setting that minimized the response from both the positive and negative hot rocks. This ended up being about 8. I ran at the gold sensitive 10uS setting and was able to run the gain up to max. I set for a quiet, faint threshold.

Bob, Keith, and I spaced ourselves around the tailing pile and proceeded to hunt. I started low on one end, hunted around that end, and then worked up the hill into the brush.

Soon I got a nice, clear, high tone signal. A bit of digging reveled a nice 1.93 ounce gold quartz specimen This was almost too easy!



We hunted most of the rest of the day and although we found many targets my nugget proved to be the only find of the day. But one that paid for the TDI - can't beat that! Congratulations White's on another fine detector.

Steve Herschbach
Moore Creek Mining LLC
website www.moorecreek.com

[Hoser John]

Nice to get 1st hand feedback on new technology. I have noticed something 1,000's a times that you relate here too. Many folks,especially newbies, seem to hit the biggies right off or in the first 1/2 hour or so. Doesn't seem to matter if it's detectors,dredging,panning or whatever. In experienced miners,such as yourself, we use all our training and "instinct" to zero in on that BEST SPOT. Now if I could just keep that sort a luck going!!! Truly wish you a prosperous summer and the bigboys make ya rich beyond your wildest dreams-John