Fisher F75 for gold nuggets

[wally62us]

Purchased a Fisher F75. Wanted to try and find gold nuggets up in Douglas Creek,Wyoming. I purchased a 5" coil for the detector for finding gold nuggets. I tried to get it to read a nugget about 1/8". And had no luck. Can anyone out there maybe tell me what would be the best settings for finding nuggets?

 

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[loby]

Hiiii....

Fisher F75 Special Edition and Gold

I looked forward to the introduction of the Fisher F75 with great anticipation since the lead engineer behind it was Dave Johnson. Dave has had a hand in many of the best VLF gold detectors ever designed.

I admit to being put off when I got my first F75. The stupid thing seemed to false constantly when I used it in Anchorage. And on top of that there were numerous reports of problems with product quality issues from users far and wide. I sold my first unit in fairly short order.

But then my friend George reported how much he liked his F75. Then buddy John got one and reported how great it was. Then detector pal Gary told me how much he liked his. Obviously I was missing something.

So I got an F75 Special Edition, an all black limited edition model with gold trim, which comes with two coils and which has a special Boost Mode for extra depth where it can be used.



I took that detector to Moore Creek in 2010 and found gold nuggets with it in trash infested areas others avoided. I went to Ganes Creek next with it and did ok but no special love on that trip. I took it to England last fall and did exceptionally well for a first visit. Then off to California for a High Sierra visit and my first gold outside Alaska. Then back to Ganes Creek this spring, and gold nuggets every day.

I like a few things. First, the weight and balance is superb. I can swing the F75 all day and then some. Add to that exceptional battery life. This detector just keeps on going. It comes with a meter cover and control box cover that are perfect for rainy conditions. The small coil is great on small gold. It is a very hot 13 kHz detector.

I learned a lot at Ganes Creek. I ran in all metal mode. What makes the F75 rather unique is that the meter is always in discriminate mode even when the unit is operating in all metal. All metal gets you max depth and sensitivity. So I would hunt and listen with all settings jacked to the max. Boost all metal sensitivity set to 99. Any audio response is a reason to stop, slow down and examine the signal. If the meter is blank, dig on down until the meter kicks in. If you get solid 15 or lower meter readings repeatedly take a pass and move on. If the target does anything else on the meter (bouncing from high to low) dig that puppy. Most gold reads about 22 but the larger the nugget the higher it can read. I wish I could get my first week at Ganes back this spring as it was not until week two that I really zeroed in on how the machine works. I consistently was getting small nuggets that most of the other people were leaving behind.

Over three ounces of gold my F75 found at Ganes Creek:

ganesf75.jpg

So hunt all metal, hunt by ear, study each target with the meter, and dig anything not 100% bad. This ability to hunt in all metal to get 100% performance allows targets to be found that would be missed in a discriminate mode. The signals that give an audio but no meter reading would not be found if the detector is run in discriminate mode.

If there is a lot of trash or hot rocks running in all metal and examining every target can be overwhelming. At Moore Creek there are so many hot rocks I was better off running in disc and setting the discrimination to knock out the hot rocks.

No machine does it all, but the F75 Special Edition is a detector that I will be using a lot in 2012 because for what it does well it does exceptionally well. What it still does not do well is run quietly in urban areas. The machine is rock solid out in the middle of nowhere but is a chatterbox in town. Still, I like how it feels on my arm and I am convinced I have an edge on the next guy. I can't ask for more than that. And it shows how a detector that I once disliked can end up being one of my favorites.

Thank you,