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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[Lanny in AB]

Hot-Rock Insanity: Part I

“This place is insane for hot-rocks!”

That fact kept running through my brain as I looked at the long rows of huge boulders, ranging all the way from a Volkswagen Beetle to a pickup truck in size.

The site was worked with a steam shovel long decades ago. There was a significant surface run of gold on the property, with the placer gold running in size from flakes to multi-ounce nuggets. Most of the nuggets were hammered quite flat, and looking around the claim, it was easy to see why.

In the dim past during a violent ice age event, a huge glacial-melt dam broke. With the sudden release of billions of gallons of water, cataclysmic forces bore down on a significant placer deposit upslope somewhere. There was so much force in the event, that anything in the way was plowed forward. As a result, house-size boulders were mere playthings, so were any of their smaller siblings. Consequently, with the whole deposit now in motion, all of the buried gold (most-likely rounded, and possibly quite rich in character) was caught up in a massive moving ball mill of unimaginable proportions. Therefore, the nuggets and pieces were, for the most part, rolled flat, the most common characteristic on that claim, and left high and dry on the surface. This resulted because the flow was so swiftly violent that it blew the entire uprooted deposit over a large area where there were no sizable streams to redeposit the new placer event. (The exception was a small creek that did some re-depositing, but it had been worked out in the 1800’s by hand.)

Untold pounds of gold had been recovered through the steam shovel method, where the shovel went back and forth across the claim stacking boulders in long rows on either side of the excavated strips. (With so many boulders being so large, they couldn’t truck them off to remove them, so an inefficient compromise was to clear a strip, but then leave un-mined rows on every pass as a place to stack or roll the boulders they couldn’t transport out. Therefore, many nuggets and lots of finer placer were left buried in those rows. (For years, people with detectors pulled nuggets from the tops of the giant boulders in those rows, the ones the steam shovel had no power to move. The nuggets were on top because during the blowout, the gold came to rest in a haphazard fashion wherever it could, including the tops of those stone giants.)

Over the intervening years, many different placer enterprises have worked the ground, but the boulders are so prolific, that much of the area looks as it did long ago when the first steam-powered operation mined the location.

There are places on the margins of that boulder field where large earth-moving equipment has somewhat tamed portions of it, but the center of the claim remains very much the same because of the huge expense of removal or relocation.

It was into this environment that I’d cast myself. I was there because I knew nuggets were being found with detectors, and my friend that owned the claim continually issued invitations for me to work his ground. Moreover, he’d shown me many containers of sassy nuggets he’d found with his Gold Bug II.

By the way, he’s a very colorful character, and he paints the air blue whenever he’s out detecting due to all of the trouble he gets from those earlier mentioned hot-rocks.

So, the hot-rocks were unbelievable, especially if you had a VLF, and I’d tried them there before. The positive and negative varieties were a constant symphony of either painful noise mixed with positive tones. Many of the positive tones mimicked gold sounds as well, and that was maddening.

So, this time, I had the Minelab GPX 5000 with me, determined to see if I couldn’t filter the hot-rocks somewhat and tame the symphony of responses at the same time.

I have to pause here in my gold tale for a moment to help you realize that pulse machines still see hot-rocks, for even the world’s best pulse machine will still sound off on some of the nasty things. Why? It depends on the amount of metal in the rocks for one thing, and if there’s enough natural metal in any rock, the detector will “see” it regardless. And, on this particular claim, that was the issue, hot-rocks with too much metal content. In fact, some of the specimens had so much iron in them they’d jump right to the super-magnet on the end of my pick while I was investigating possible targets.

(More to follow as I find the time.)

All the best,

Lanny

 

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[GarretDiggingAz]

Keep at it and the nugget will come. It seems like after you get that first one, the next one always seems to come easier for some reason. I remember how long I went before I found my first nugget. I'd dug untold buckets of trash: canslaw, a wide variety of lead from bullets of various calibers, pieces of wire (iron and copper), boot tacks (steel and brass), casings (rifle and shotgun), BB's (from birdshot to buckshot), meat tin keys made of lead, electrical bits and pieces of fittings, blasting caps, and the list goes on and on. (I've cleaned lots of forest land too!) The problem with some of the objects from the previous list of finds was that many items were highly conductive, so they made the right sounds, and they weren't magnetic either while I was in the recovery process. In other words, they behaved like a piece of gold would when you're hunting in all metal mode (with no discrimination), and they passed the proper early tests right up until I'd visually ID'd them. On that "hundreds of useless items" journey, I'm not even sure why I kept at it except that I'd read so much about finding a nugget that I believed if I stuck to it long enough, I'd eventually overcome the odds and actually find a chunk of gold. By the way, that's exactly what happened. I finally beat the odds. However, on the day I found my first nugget, I'd dug yet another bucket of trash with a high number of those finds passing the early tests (the right sounds, non-magnetic, being in an area where coarse gold and nuggets had already been found), but when I finally finished quartering the lump of dirt that passed the same early tests that day as I've already mentioned, instead of having the wrong item in my hand, there was a beautiful, sassy, thick nugget the size of my thumbnail resting in the palm of my hand. I'll never forget that moment, that magical first moment, and neither will you. As far as a detector goes, you don't need a pulse machine if you have a good, dedicated VLF gold machine. The research is on your side as the engineers have put together a machine with the right electronics to get the job done by "seeing" through the mineralization in gold bearing area by having the circuitry to balance the ground properly. I have buddies with many pounds of nuggets each that hunt exclusively with VLF machines. For if the ground is cooperative enough to allow a gold-programmed VLF to hunt, the detector will find the nuggets and find them well. By way of clarification, you don't need a pulse machine unless you're hunting extreme ground. Even if there's a large number of hotrocks, you can still learn what the negative and positive ones sound like, and often, you can learn what more than a few of them look like as well. In answer to the question, how often should you ground balance, it depends on how often or how quickly the ground minerals are changing. I hunt in transition areas (sometimes it's different types of bedrock, or different pockets of mineral concentrations) where the ground conditions change very quickly, and often, it requires frequent ground balancing. However, I hunt in areas where you can go for long periods that seldom require ground balance changes. It all depends. As for your threshold, it should be a quiet hum in your ear. Many pros say it should sound like the soft buzz of a mosquito. You have to have a quiet, constant threshold or you can't hear when the threshold breaks with a subtle disruption. It's when you investigate those disruptions that you'll find whether it's ground mineralization or a real target. If you have auto ground balance and you don't outpace your machine's electronics by moving too fast, the machine should keep up to the minerals so that they won't be falsing your threshold level. Often when you're hunting nuggets, the only tipoff you'll get will be that tiny break in the threshold. So, yes, you'll be investigating many of those breaks or bumps, but eventually one of them will be a nugget. Many beginners make the mistake of thinking they need a solid signal or they won't investigate. I'm convinced that's why I find nuggets in areas that are "worked out". I go slow where nuggets have been found, and I investigate those breaks. By investigating that doesn't mean that I dig every bump or whisper. Many times I'll quickly scrape the surface with my boot and then scan again. Often, that's all it takes and the signal disappears. Other times, with the boot scrape, the signal will firm up. That requires another scrape, or I may use the pick to scrape a thicker layer of dirt off. All of these actions happen quickly or I'd never cover any ground, and if the signal continues to strengthen, I'll keep digging until I find out what's generating the positive response. Sometimes it's hotrocks. Sometimes it's concentrated pockets or lumps of mineralization. Other times it's strange things like burned items, or it's bedrock heavy in iron or lead. But, if you don't go, you'll never know. The longer you're at the process, the faster your brain will help you filter the various small sounds you'll hear as well, until you've trained it to listen for subtle differences that matter. It's rather difficult to explain how you get to that point, but it requires a bit of advanced training and programming for the brain. Furthermore, it only comes after many hours of trial and error while out in the field. One other thing to remember, if you're hunting with a mono, you'll need to overlap your swings more than with a DD. Don't be afraid you're not covering as much ground with a mono if you're in a known nugget area, be afraid you might miss a nugget instead. By the way, don't worry about being as good as anyone else, just keep at it until you are good enough. You'll find that first nugget by swinging that detector smarter, not necessarily by swinging it longer. But, you will have to put in the time, however long that detecting time may be. Hang in there and one day you'll have your own nugget story to share with others. All the best, Lanny

Thx Lanny for the inspiration. Or at least a great explanation for the threshold. Many times I've had breaks in the threshold and I figured it was the iron from the wash I was in. This is one way I go over bedrock though. I often thought, heard and read about doing this, but I figured if I found a nugget it'd sound off. To prove this I tried my .4 gr nugget under the detector. It does pick it up in an inch or two but after that nothing. Sorta. I started to notice the break in the threshold. So here I am thinking, how many times do I hear this? About the same amount of trash sitting in my buckets in my back yard. Lol. Like I said before I heard about this before, but ignored what I've been told.
Now since I know that this break actually helps me track the iron in the wash, and the gold is in there as well, I should stumble on one soon. Though now I use this technique to find digging start points. Especially since a lot of our gold is flower gold. Though the nuggets are there. I know I've got my first detected nugget coming soon.
I sure was disappointed when my first nugget came from sluicing. LOL! I still wish it came from detecting. After the couple hundred hours spent. I figured I was due. Just the gold gods want me to break another bone or stumble around the desert hills a bit longer. But I DO know it's coming. You'll probably hear me jumping for joy when I do up there.
Thx Lanny for your stories. I surely have enjoyed them now for over a year. I'm always glad to get your input on how to do things. Been detecting for over a year now and I enjoy doing it when I'm able. Just haven't done much lately. Been working some washes with pick and shovel and the detector has been resting in the truck. I shack my head each time, because I know I'm leaving a valuable tool behind. Not anymore. It's coming on my next outing and going to definitely use. Plus I've got my digging crew with. So that gives me even more time.

 

[Lanny in AB]

You're right that with detectors, things other than gold will cause the threshold to break as well, but the thing that will always bother you is if you don't investigate what's making it break. (If you're in an area where fine or flour gold is the norm, you may need to move to a spot known for producing nuggets.)

It may be ground noise, charcoal, high concentrations of minerals, etc, etc. But, if you don't investigate, it very well may be a nugget, especially if you're in a nugget bearing region. And, that's where the difference is. The only way you'll truly know is to check it out.

If you're in an area known for nuggets, you need to investigate every bump, disturbance, break or whatever name you choose as the label for it. Always remember that you need to investigate.

Moreover, you need to go slow especially when you find a nugget, or when you're in someone's old nugget patch, truly, go very slow. Have on a set of excellent headphones, have the threshold set just right, invest in a signal enhancer if necessary, and listen intently to that threshold. When it alters, find out why. Don't give up until you know why.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[GarretDiggingAz]

Well I'll be definitely give it my best shot in a couple days.

Have you ever encountered finding very little gold in the carpet, but most to all got caught in the trap area (custom built on my sluice) which is just before the matting and carpet? Just today I finished panning my cons, and with what I pulled out in the clean outs of the sluice (Not stuff in carpet) I figured I'd probably double my total. To my surprise there wasn't much in the cons. Possibly 10-20 colors ranging from dust to pepper size. I'm starting to think that the traps definitely doing it's job and panning the cons then is just a waste of my time. Well at least this time. Lol. So much for doubling my total from last pic.

So now it's time to get ready for the trip. Definitely detecting more this trip. Teaching my son and fiancé how to use it. It'll be in the 70s here so should be a good time for all. Hopefully we could post a pic or two of something other than bullets. My sons first find was a miniball. He got hooked after that. He's been wanting to go back again and now we've finally got our schedule to match up. I'm hoping that he finds something. I'd rather it be me with my detector, but if he can find something good. Well that'd be even batter. Watching my kids do something and succeed. Can't wait.

 

[Lanny in AB]

Well I'll be definitely give it my best shot in a couple days. Have you ever encountered finding very little gold in the carpet, but most to all got caught in the trap area (custom built on my sluice) which is just before the matting and carpet? Just today I finished panning my cons, and with what I pulled out in the clean outs of the sluice (Not stuff in carpet) I figured I'd probably double my total. To my surprise there wasn't much in the cons. Possibly 10-20 colors ranging from dust to pepper size. I'm starting to think that the traps definitely doing it's job and panning the cons then is just a waste of my time. Well at least this time. Lol. So much for doubling my total from last pic. So now it's time to get ready for the trip. Definitely detecting more this trip. Teaching my son and fiancé how to use it. It'll be in the 70s here so should be a good time for all. Hopefully we could post a pic or two of something other than bullets. My sons first find was a miniball. He got hooked after that. He's been wanting to go back again and now we've finally got our schedule to match up. I'm hoping that he finds something. I'd rather it be me with my detector, but if he can find something good. Well that'd be even batter. Watching my kids do something and succeed. Can't wait.

It could be how steeply or shallow you've got your tray set (if you're drywashing) or how steeply or shallow your sluice is set (if sluicing). I have a buddy that drywashes a lot in the winter in Arizona, and if there's any moisture in the dirt at all, it really affects his recovery rate negatively. If you're sluicing, you can adjust the pitch of your sluice and experiment with that.

Sometimes the top part (not the matting) will catch a lot of the gold, but there should be something in the carpet, at least when I sluice or dredge there's always something in the carpet.

Good luck with the detecting, and by all means post some pictures please.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Hot-rock Insanity, Part II

So, I checked with the claim owner to see where they’d been working recently. He told me to check between the rows for a spot where they’d dug out a shallow test section with the excavator.

After a bit, I found the spot.

There were boulder rows on either side of the dig. On the western end of the excavation, they’d built a ramp to get the excavator in place to test the spot they’d selected.

The excavator rested on a pad they’d built for it, with the excavation off to the south and west of the pad. The pad was made from material they’d scraped from the surrounding area between the rows, and it looked like some of it had come from the surface of the excavation as well.

There was a cabin-sized chunk of bedrock to the south and west that my buddy suggested I detect around first, as they’d found some nice nuggets there a few weeks earlier.

The day was hot, and among those rows of boulders it gets even hotter with all of that rock to reflect and trap the heat.

I worked in the shade as much as I could for there were some large poplars and pines just to the west that cast some nice shade on the east side of that cabin-sized chunk of bedrock. (That massive block of bedrock was blown out during the glacial dam burst untold eons ago, and its size impressed me with the force of the event, and the raw power it took to transport it all the way down the canyon onto the flat where I was working. It also told me why so many nuggets had been found on this claim for if the water was moving rock of that size, the gold was in transit as well. Moreover, that’s why the place was famous for surface gold, for it was if a nugget and boulder explosion had gone off and tossed gold and rock helter-skelter, then quickly moved on until the titanic event had exhausted itself farther down the slope.)

While in the shade, I noticed where my buddy and his friends had been digging. I worked at a very slow pace and investigated every break in the threshold. When I moved away from where they’d worked, I got some nice positive tones.

I dug them with some excitement, but soon found it was signals coming from small hotrocks laced with iron, the ones that jumped to the magnet on the pick, just like before. However, I was only bothered by two types of hotrocks this time (the other one was bedrock shards with a high iron content as well), instead of the legion of hotrocks that had bothered me before. The pulse detector was weeding out most of the hotrocks, thus saving me a lot of time.

I worked the area for a couple of hours, but I got skunked.

I looked down from the top of the bedrock and noticed the ramp.

To make the ramp, they’d scraped as much loose material from between the rows as they could. The more I looked at that ramp, the more I thought I should check it out.

So, I got at it and soon had the super-magnet on the end of my pick looking like a hedgehog from all of the bits of track and bucket sluffed from the excavator! But, no gold.

However, I kept at it, and soon I had a signal that was moving around in the dirt and cobbles. I ran my big magnet over the material, but there was no contact as nothing jumped from the target area onto the super-magnet. So, I pulled out my little telescoping magnet and ran it through the material just in case it was a small iron-laden hotrock. Still, nothing on that little magnet either.

As a side note, there’s lots of deer, elk, and moose hunting that occurs in the area on a regular basis. Moreover, the claim owner’s grandkids like to shoot pellet guns and 22 rifles when they visit. So, there are lots of spent bullets on the claim, and I already had a collection of more than a few. Therefore, the possibility of lead was quite realistic.

(More to follow as I find the time.)

All the best,

Lanny

 

[63bkpkr]

Interesting story, I hope there will be a picture of the rows of monster boulders! I can just imagine all the brute force required during all of the previous mining work and now electronics and a magnet are doing the work. So thinking of that, what would happen if they were to swing a very large electromagnet over the area?........................63bkpkr

 

[Lanny in AB]

Interesting story, I hope there will be a picture of the rows of monster boulders! I can just imagine all the brute force required during all of the previous mining work and now electronics and a magnet are doing the work. So thinking of that, what would happen if they were to swing a very large electromagnet over the area?........................63bkpkr

Thanks for dropping in. I hope you're finding some more Texas gold buddy!

I've got some pictures somewhere, it's finding them that will be the trick.

A giant electromagnet over the area? That would be a trick, and it just might remove a lot of obnoxious useless targets.

All the best my friend,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Hot-rock insanity, Part III

Now, if you’ve detected for gold nuggets before, when you finally get a target that’s not a hotrock, not magnetic, and still has a sweet tone, you’ve eliminated a lot of non-nugget contenders. So, at this point in the process, I ran the edge of my coil over that dig spot to pinpoint where the signal was originating, so I could trap it in my plastic scoop.

Next, I passed the scoop under my coil to be sure I had the target in my scoop. I did not. Now, I’m not sure why, but sometimes when I’m pushing a target around that’s high in specific gravity (lead, etc.), if I’m just slightly off with the scoop when I go in to the dig hole, I miss trapping the target. It never seems to happen if it’s a piece of junk, but anything heavy seems almost to want to slide one way or the other if I’m even slightly off when I’m trying to recover it.

So, I used the edge of the coil again, moved in slower this time and scooped where I thought I’d trap the target. I passed the scoop under the coil and this time I had it.

After that, I started the process of shaking dirt onto the coil, discarding the silent dirt from the coil, shaking more dirt onto the coil, discarding it and then passing the scoop under the coil to make sure the target was still in the scoop.

The target was still in the scoop.

However, by this point, there was not a lot of dirt left in the scoop, and while shaking the scoop, the target was sluggish and didn’t want to work its way to the tip of the scoop. This was another indication that whatever the target was, it was heavy.

Through the process of elimination, I got down to the last bit of dirt and dropped it onto the coil. Whap! Then, a loud growl. I moved the dirt around with my finger until I found the target (it sure sounds off when you move it).

I picked it up and hefted it. It was heavy compared to the companion stones, unnaturally so. Furthermore, as there was a lot of clay on the ramp, all I knew was that whatever it was, it was nonmagnetic and heavy. No character or color was visible. Nonetheless, with a bit of water in the scoop, I washed off the target.

It was unmistakable.

It was a sassy gold nugget!

After all of those pesky hotrocks, all of those bits of bucket and track, all of those hours of hot, reflected sunlight, I had myself a nice nugget.

That nugget had been scraped up by the excavator when they built the ramp. Moreover, it would have been easy to give up that day, as I don’t even recall how many useless targets I dug during that session. Regardless, I stuck with it, went slow, investigated every disturbance in the threshold, and that paved the way to finding the gold.

(More to come as I find the time. There’s more to this story yet.)

All the best,

Lanny

 

[IMPDLN]

Hello Lanny, Dennis from Az. here. Just finished reading all of your and Eagle's long threads. I had to add my 2 cents over on Eagle's thread. I sure like the way you express your adventures and of course the scenery is second to none. Kudos to you sir. You might enjoy what I added over on Eagle's thread, I know the pictures you will enjoy. Have a golden year, Dennis

 

[Lanny in AB]

Dennis,

That was a great post. Please feel free to repost it here on my thread. Like Eagle said, I learned a couple of tricks from you too.

Thanks for dropping in, and thanks for your kind words. They mean a lot to me as that's what keeps me writing!

All the best, and thanks again,

Lanny

 

[EagleDown]

Dennis, That was a great post. Please feel free to repost it here on my thread. Like Eagle said, I learned a couple of tricks from you too. Thanks for dropping in, and thanks for your kind words. They mean a lot to me as that's what keeps me writing! All the best, and thanks again, Lanny

I really enjoyed his post (including the photos of his gold finds). (lol) I hope he posts more of his helpful advice. It seems that we have another 'teacher' to assist us.

Well, I'm off to confront our "Public Servants" again. This time, I'm trying for an 'eye to eye' conversation. (lol)

God, deliver me from the insanity of the BLM!!

 

[Lanny in AB]

I really enjoyed his post (including the photos of his gold finds). (lol) I hope he posts more of his helpful advice. It seems that we have another 'teacher' to assist us. Well, I'm off to confront our "Public Servants" again. This time, I'm trying for an 'eye to eye' conversation. (lol) God, deliver me from the insanity of the BLM!!

Eagle,

I agree that it was a great post. And it does sound like he's got lots to offer.

Well buddy, it sounds like you're about to have Zero Fun!

Ain't it frustrating going around and around? You'd think that sooner or later they'd (bureaucrats) realize that all it does is make people dizzy.

Oops! Maybe that's exactly what they're hoping will happen that you'll get so dizzy from their antics that you'll give up before your throw up!!

All the best my friend, and I hope you get some answers this time instead of endless circles,

Lanny

 

[EagleDown]

Eagle, I agree that it was a great post. And it does sound like he's got lots to offer. Well buddy, it sounds like you're about to have Zero Fun! Ain't it frustrating going around and around? You'd think that sooner or later they'd (bureaucrats) realize that all it does is make people dizzy. Oops! Maybe that's exactly what they're hoping will happen that you'll get so dizzy from their antics that you'll give up before your throw up!! All the best my friend, and I hope you get some answers this time instead of endless circles, Lanny

(lol) That's really funny!! I was advised by a friend to keep bugging them until they're sick of me. I guess it's just a matter of who throws up first. (lol)

Anyway, the answer is out there somewhere, (as Mulder would say), and I won't give up until I find it.

 

[Lanny in AB]

Indeed Eagle, the truth is out there.

I just hope you don't have to hop in a UFO to get the BLM to cough it up from their X-Files!

All the best,

Lanny

 

[IMPDLN]

Thank you Lanny and Eagle for your appreciation and kind words. I'm not sure how good of a teacher I am. I just know what has worked for me. The area I work the most is semi damp most the year. Rarely is there enough water for any kind of wet operation, and rarely is it dry enough for a dry washer. Metal detecting is just the most efficient method to put some gold in my poke. Luckily the area has nuggets, however not much for fines. I just hate to see people move buckets full of material for a meager return. There is good gold out there in pockets.

I too used to bring lots of dirt home to run through a recirculating device, but I found it to be a rather inefficient way to sample. As you guys know, volume doesn't necessarily mean a better return. Everywhere I have been so far has been worked before, and most have been worked multiple times. What I tend to find is leftovers or gold that was previously missed. It just makes more sense to be selective about what I dig for a better return for my efforts.

In my opinion we have technology on our side with metal detectors. We can see things in the ground with these devices and I believe we should take advantage of the technology to better our chances of finding a good deposit. You know what I mean, work smarter not harder. I am still looking for a proper pay layer or deposit and learning more every day. Until then I'll keep all the pesky little sassy nuggets I find along the way, lol. Dennis

 

[Lanny in AB]

Thank you Lanny and Eagle for your appreciation and kind words. I'm not sure how good of a teacher I am. I just know what has worked for me. The area I work the most is semi damp most the year. Rarely is there enough water for any kind of wet operation, and rarely is it dry enough for a dry washer. Metal detecting is just the most efficient method to put some gold in my poke. Luckily the area has nuggets, however not much for fines. I just hate to see people move buckets full of material for a meager return. There is good gold out there in pockets.

I too used to bring lots of dirt home to run through a recirculating device, but I found it to be a rather inefficient way to sample. As you guys know, volume doesn't necessarily mean a better return. Everywhere I have been so far has been worked before, and most have been worked multiple times. What I tend to find is leftovers or gold that was previously missed. It just makes more sense to be selective about what I dig for a better return for my efforts.

In my opinion we have technology on our side with metal detectors. We can see things in the ground with these devices and I believe we should take advantage of the technology to better our chances of finding a good deposit. You know what I mean, work smarter not harder. I am still looking for a proper pay layer or deposit and learning more every day. Until then I'll keep all the pesky little sassy nuggets I find along the way, lol. Dennis

How about putting your post from Eagle's thread on here too Dennis so everyone can see it. (Or, give me your permission please, and I'll copy it from Eagle's thread over to this one.)

You did a great job, and I think readers of this thread could benefit from it as well.

I agree that working smarter not harder is a great way to get some nice, sassy nuggets.

I too spend a lot of time in areas that have been hit hard over and over again.

Thanks for your time, and all the best,

Lanny

 

[IMPDLN]

Hello Eagle and all others that frequent Eagle's fine parlor. My name is Dennis, from central Az. Took me awhile but been here reading these 105 pages for days, along with Lanny's fine stories. I just had to sign up so I could add my 2 cents here and there. Super fine stories Eagle, kudos sir.

A little about myself.....I've been prospecting a few years now. Mostly metal detecting as I have found that works best for me. Got a little experience under my belt mostly with my Minelab SD2100 V-2. Took awhile to get consistent with it but I have been successful and seem to be getting better all the time.

While reading through this parlor of fine posting I can't help but feel a need to offer some assistance to a particular poster here, GarrettDiggingAz.
Sir, I know what you are going through as I have been there in similar situation myself. I am self taught with my metal detectors and a very persistent individual. I feel that I can offer some advice that might shorten your learning curve here in Az. Of course others here might benefit from my way of looking at things as well.

By the way, I don't mean to hijack this fabulous thread, but I think what I have to say might be appreciated by others as well. Be patient with me as sometimes I am a little long winded even when typing, lol.

Ok, to the point......Garrett Digger, no offense, but you are doing too much work for too little reward. I think I can help. First of all don't waste your money buying yet another metal detector to collect dust. You have a fine machine already you just need to take it for a walk more often. If you have a need to spend some money on more gear I suggest maybe get a second coil for the machine you have. If you don't have the smallest coil already, that is the 1 you should concentrate on getting and using to locate at least your 1st Az. nugget, and I will help you refine your tactics to do so.

What I mean by refining your tactics. Instead of going out doing all that digging for little return, try a different approach. I suggest you concentrate your efforts on swinging your metal detector. Get them kids to dig your targets to save on all the bending over. Concentrate your efforts on dry washes with either exposed bedrock or at least shallow bedrock. Remember gold is heavy and nuggets out here are mostly found on bedrock, and often down inside cracks and crevices. Don't get in a hurry. You must be patient and pace yourself. Be very thorough and make sure to overlap your coil swings and keep the coil flat to the surface. Being thorough and taking your time is more important than covering a lot of ground. Always run in all metal mode, dig all targets, especially faint questionable signals as those are the signals that most people miss that are often nuggets. As you scrape overburden off questionable signals, a valid target will become more positive.

It is very important to read your manual cover to cover multiple times and doesn't hurt to reread to the point that you pretty much have it memorized. Now a few tools will also help you. I recommend a good metal detecting pick, you know the ones you see with the triangular shaped head. IE, sharp point on one end and wide blade at the other. I also recommend a plastic bristle brush, like a large tooth brush looking brush, with good stiff plastic bristles......plastic because wire brushes just make more junk targets. Three more tools I recommend are a plastic garden trowel, crevicing tool, which could be as simple as a flat blade screw driver or like the ones sold at prospecting shops with a sharp pointed end and a small scoop end......the type I use....and a straw. I prefer a more durable straw than the typical disposable type. The thicker expandable straws like what come with the really large, like 64oz mugs.

Now I think most can figure out what to do with these tools. All of them help with recovery. Oh, by the way, your pick should have a few super magnets as well. Some models come with them already installed. Never hurts to have 3-4, I have 3 on mine.....2 on the blade and 1 on the top.....this helps get iron targets out of the way faster. Because I use a PI my pick has the 36'' handle so digging deeper holes when using the larger coils is easier. Not necessary to carry the extra weight of the larger pick when using a VLF.

Ok, I'll get on with my method that I think might help you. Instead of digging willie nillie sample holes all over creation, try metal detecting first. As you go along and detect targets you want to find gold of course. Don't concern yourself so much with typical iron junk, but when you dig a lead slug, old bullet or even a larger heavy chunk of iron on bedrock, then I suggest take a sample of the dirt on bedrock around the slug. You can just carry a small bucket with some ziplock freezer bags or something similar. Clean the bedrock real good using the brush and trowel and just bag that dirt up for later. You should mark the bag or you can put the slug in with the dirt. I myself remember which targets came from which hole, but do what works best for you so you can relate what bag of dirt came from whichever hole. Give it some time and be patient.

By doing this you will accomplish a few things at the same time. First of all you will become more accustomed to using your metal detector and the more you use it the better you will get with it and the better your chances of realizing that nugget you desire. Second, this is a much more methodical way to sample. Third, as an individual looking for gold you will actually increase your chances of finding a nice pocket as gold will often land where lead does.

After cleaning off the area use the straw to gently blow off any left over dust and such and if a crevice exists with material wedged in it use the crevicing tool to scrape that material out and save that too. Pay attention when blowing off the fluff as often small flakes will be revealed in this process. Of course this technic applies if the soil is dry. If there are multiple cracks and crevices and you see some flakes, by all means this is possibly a good place to scrape the fluff off and clean the bedrock nooks, cracks, and crevices.

With the exception of using the straw, this method of detecting and sampling works well in wet places like Lynx too. You will find pockets of lead with your metal detector up there and may not immediately detect a nugget. But certainly metal detect, find lead pockets and clean them up, bag that stuff and process later at home or at camp after supper. I assure you if you try this method, some day soon you will be pleasantly surprised when you start finding pickers, then nuggets, and then you might even just straight up detect a nugget in the process.

A little more about me.....I detected my 1st nugget in about 35 hours of actually sweeping my coil.....not typical.... Never used a metal detector in my life and taught myself. My second, third, fourth, and fifth nuggets detected took another 14 months....more typical. However with the method I described I dug out many pickers and 3 nuggets around 1 gram or so in size that I never heard on the detector. This let me know I needed to try harder and listen better to my machine. I am sure my machine saw those missed by me nuggets, but I didn't know what it was telling me. Now I have been doing this long enough that I find nuggets often. I am sure I don't get them all, but I miss fewer that is for sure. Oh, by the way be diligent about ground balance, do it often as ground changes often. Also wear headphones.

I'll throw a couple pics of my most recent Az. nugget. 10.9 gram, as Lanny would say, sassy gold nugget. I've taken enough space on this thread for now. Nice to meet all of you here in advance and I hope some of you, especially Garrett Digger are able to benefit from this post. Good GOLD to all......Dennis

 

[IMPDLN]

Okie dokie I got the post transferred here. Took me a couple tries and had to reload the pics but there you go. I have another book report type story I think people might enjoy that I posted on another forum. I'll put it out on the metal detecting for gold forum. I hope you all enjoy it. Dennis

 

[Lanny in AB]

Okie dokie I got the post transferred here. Took me a couple tries and had to reload the pics but there you go. I have another book report type story I think people might enjoy that I posted on another forum. I'll put it out on the metal detecting for gold forum. I hope you all enjoy it. Dennis

Nicely done Dennis, and many thanks for doing so. I'm sure other people will enjoy reading your transferred post above, and I'm looking forward to reading your other one as well.

All the best and thanks again,

Lanny