My first day out with my new MD!

[idowa]

I've been wandering around the Arizona back country, checking out old mine sites, picking up pretty rocks and enjoying myself immensely since I moved to the Prescott area 6 years ago.

With gold prices getting so high, I thought I better concentrate on finding gold while out exploring...

I started poking around the tailings piles and checking the creek beds below the mines, bring home a 5-gallon bucket of material to pan at home.

That resulted in a couple of measly flakes and some flour gold. What I needed was a metal detector to find the nuggets.

I found a local prospecting store with an older gentleman working there that was very knowledgeable and helpful. He steered me to a Tesoro Lobo ST and gave me a great price ($675). I took it home and was soon able to set it to hit on the $15 gold nugget I bought, and tell what the different sounds mean't.

I took it out yesterday and spent about 10 hours near the mines. I searched rose quartz veins in the hillsides, went up and down dry washes, and poked around tailing piles.

I found everything but gold...

My first find was a hot rock... After finding about a dozen of those, I figured out what they look like and learned to get them out of the way quickly and re-scan the area to make sure there was nothing else.

I then found a tiny 3/8" antique shoe nail about 3" down.

I found a rock that may or may not be a meteorite; will have to clean it up and do more research to rule it out.

When I went around the mining sites, they were so trashy that it was simply too time intensive to check everything.

I also realized that the area that I thought was remote had been well looked over. I kept stumbling across claim tags, washes with lots of recent dig spots from prior folks with metal detectors...

So, I do enjoy using the metal detector, and the Lobo was easy to set up and get a quick grasp on what it was telling me.

My next step will be to find a promising area with restricted public access that hasn't been combed over. Which I have found and will be going there next week.

I guess I did have inflated dreams of finding ounce nuggets in every dry wash that had just been waiting for someone with a metal detector to discover them, but I'm not totally defeated and will keep on hunting...

 

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[Charlie P. (NY)]

Be patient. There will come enough finds to keep you searching.

Where there's life there's hope!

 

[idowa]

The new spot I want to try is a year round creek that is only accessible from private land. I used to live nearby and have been exploring down the creek since I know the landowners.

It is on a ranch and the old caretaker told me years ago that there are Indian petroglyphs along the creek and some old prospector panned about $8k worth of gold, so I know it is a good area.

I figured I'd use the Lobo along the way and fill some 5gal buckets with some good material and bring it home and sluice and pan it out...

I'm hoping since it is on private land, it will not have been searched to death like Lynx Creek and I will finally be able to break my cherry for finding a nugget...

 

[mlayers]

once you find that first nugget you will be hooked forever. Happy hunting and good luck....Matt

 

[TheRockDoc]

I have found that my "inflated dreams" keep coming back, again and again and again-no matter what I seem to find.... So you will be ok.

Happy hunting, and good luck.

Chris.