This is an anecdote about using a metal detector to find gold. I have sensed that there are some who put so much emphasis on the equipment to find and recover placer gold, that they rationalize not finding gold because "I didn't have good enough equipment." But in many cases I have found they have the argument upside down.
A true story:
I have been mining in the Klondike gold fields of Yukon Territory for thirty-four years. Many of the larger miners there think metal detectors are of little use and even come under the classification of toys. I have found them to be of valuable use not in my production of gold but in the prospecting process. I will say that I have recovered over sixty ounces of nuggets in the process.
Every Friday afternoon, my wife and I go to town to get supplies and whoop-it-up. About 4 o'clock we always stop in the Snakepit to meet at the back table with what I call "the upper-creek miners." These are the smaller, but mechanized, operations that mine on the steep narrow-sided gulches that are very difficult to mine. The back table is usually reserved for us and was where the Hoffman boys from the Gold Rush show were setting when they made the deal for where they are mining on Quartz Creek just over the ridge from us. The nerve of them sitting at our table!!!!!!! We have done this for so many years that the townies joke that if they don't see us there on Friday afternoon they will call out the Mounties because something must be wrong.
One Friday afternoon when we were there, I noticed someone sitting at the next table with a Minelab metal detector. Naturally, I had to have a conversation with him. I asked him if he found any gold with it yet. He said "No, but I have the best metal detector in the world right here." I pulled out my moosehide gold sack and showed him two-2 1/2 oz, 2-1 1/4 oz, and a 1 oz nugget. Over 8 ounces, and said that I found them with an old blunderbuss of a detector, a Garrett's ADS3 I bought in 1983. The detector wasn't even designed for gold. Of course, the argument could be made that I could have found more with a better metal detector.
A good quality metal detector is very important, but there is an order of importance to be a successful finder of nuggets. The primary element in finding nuggets is to put yourself in a spot where there are nuggets. The metal detector or any other equipment isn't going to find the gold for you, they can only aid you.
The successful miners in the Klondike who make a living at it, and the many old-timers I have listened to who were from the 1920s and 1930s, were successful because they first practiced the art of prospecting. Anyone can call themselves a prospector, but not everyone is a successful prospector.
A true story:
I have been mining in the Klondike gold fields of Yukon Territory for thirty-four years. Many of the larger miners there think metal detectors are of little use and even come under the classification of toys. I have found them to be of valuable use not in my production of gold but in the prospecting process. I will say that I have recovered over sixty ounces of nuggets in the process.
Every Friday afternoon, my wife and I go to town to get supplies and whoop-it-up. About 4 o'clock we always stop in the Snakepit to meet at the back table with what I call "the upper-creek miners." These are the smaller, but mechanized, operations that mine on the steep narrow-sided gulches that are very difficult to mine. The back table is usually reserved for us and was where the Hoffman boys from the Gold Rush show were setting when they made the deal for where they are mining on Quartz Creek just over the ridge from us. The nerve of them sitting at our table!!!!!!! We have done this for so many years that the townies joke that if they don't see us there on Friday afternoon they will call out the Mounties because something must be wrong.
One Friday afternoon when we were there, I noticed someone sitting at the next table with a Minelab metal detector. Naturally, I had to have a conversation with him. I asked him if he found any gold with it yet. He said "No, but I have the best metal detector in the world right here." I pulled out my moosehide gold sack and showed him two-2 1/2 oz, 2-1 1/4 oz, and a 1 oz nugget. Over 8 ounces, and said that I found them with an old blunderbuss of a detector, a Garrett's ADS3 I bought in 1983. The detector wasn't even designed for gold. Of course, the argument could be made that I could have found more with a better metal detector.
A good quality metal detector is very important, but there is an order of importance to be a successful finder of nuggets. The primary element in finding nuggets is to put yourself in a spot where there are nuggets. The metal detector or any other equipment isn't going to find the gold for you, they can only aid you.
The successful miners in the Klondike who make a living at it, and the many old-timers I have listened to who were from the 1920s and 1930s, were successful because they first practiced the art of prospecting. Anyone can call themselves a prospector, but not everyone is a successful prospector.
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Amen Ray--ifn' ya don't go-- you get nuttn'. So many times in the past it's been proven that no matter how good, or bad, a machine a man has, it's the man who puts it all together. Local yokel club sponsored a hunt and my son was 12 and his good detector had been stolen. He took his tiny antique radio shack detector he had as a 6 year old and beat the pants off the pros in a head to head competition. Little booger beat me out for the first place gold coin in a flip of the coin as we had tied for first place hahahaha. I bought a chain and coin holder and he wears it to this day over 20 years later. And that's the LAST time he's beaten his Popz at detecting 
Get up---get out--and get it on Ray style(but you must be 1/2 mountain goat to keep up with him though pray tell)--tons a au 2 u 2-John
man it would have been so cool to have experienced that
