I cant believe Ive never detected gold!

[idowa]

I can't believe I've never detected gold!

I've had my detector for over a year and live in a very gold rich area... I've spent hours detecting prime areas and nothing but iron, steel, lead, and copper.

I've been panning in an area where there is lots of flake gold and the occasional nugget. I didn't feel like doing labor intensive panning today, so I just brought my pan, scoop, and the Tesoro.

I know where there is gold in this area and was hoping I could use the detector to find some big pieces. I brought about 2 grams in a vial to help calibrate the detector and thought for sure I would find something...


Nope! lots of nails and other crap but no gold. I gave up after 2 hours of digging on signals and only finding crap and stared just panning the areas I detected and ended up with about 20 pieces of gold after 2 hours...

I know other people have great success with their same detectors in the same area...

 

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[63bkpkr]

idowa,

I've been there years ago with the Original Fisher Gold Bug, it ain't fun. If you put a hunk of gold down on the ground either at home or out in the field will the machine detect it? If yes then I would suggest you PM Terry Solloman to see what he suggests. If no then I would contact Tesoro. I've heard the Tesoro STL is a good machine and I know Terry use's them all the time at his AZ mining claim. I wish you the best in figuring out what is up with the machine.....................63bkpkr

 

[nuggetshooter323]

You can easily go a year or more before you find your first gold with your metal detector. A guy that owns the shop I bought my GMT from told me about a mine to go to detect the tailings. I found gold on my first trip there, the guy said that it took him two years before he found his first gold there. So you never know.

 

[gsxraddict]

I've been hunting for 20 years, I've never found gold.

I don't target it, but should have found something by now. I mainly have been hunting civil war relics.

 

[Ausgoldhunter]

I've got the TSL myself... as well as GMT, GB2, GBP, Eureka, GMZ, Diablo 2, etc etc lol...

Here's what i know about the TSL.. Great machine for its 17.9kHz gets good depth, and decent sensitivity on small gold.. but not great.. I've found good with this machine.. best was a 12 gram nugget at 7" in Western Australia last year..
and this year a .21 gr picker in a tailing pile, maybe half an inch.

Some stuff to think about,
(Threshold) is it too loud/soft? (Remember you wont always hear that "ZIP" sometimes its just a repeatable change in threshold.
Stay away from the (Silent Search Discriminate) mode and any disc..
Keep the coil LOW! if its an inch off the ground you're missing gold..

Talk to some of the local nugget shooters, find out the average depth on good targets. They might simply be too deep for VLF (though you said others with the same machine have had success)
Try a new area, could be the place you're hunting is just baron or hunted out..

And as 63bkpkr said, find yourself a small sub gram picker drop it on the ground.. take a few swings, if Zip.. you're good.. if not.. you may have an issue..

I always test with a .1 and .2 picker... put them in a little baggy bury them at about 5" (good headphones help) really you're just looking for a slight fluctuation in threshold @ 4" bring it up an inch, try again. etc..
Now you know "generally" what a small piece of gold will sound like.. (kinda) things get weird in the field..


One thing I think people do A LOT! is overestimate the capabilities of these mid/high frequency machines.. at 17.9 kHz You've got a slight depth advantage over the Gold Bug 2, and GMT which are HOT 50-71kHz machines..
but we're talking an inch (ish) on the bigger nuggets..

 

[Ausgoldhunter]

I've been hunting for 20 years, I've never found gold.

I don't target it, but should have found something by now. I mainly have been hunting civil war relics.

20 years?... damn...

 

[Terry Soloman]

You just haven't put your coil over a nugget or picker yet - that's all. The Tesoro Lobo Super Traq is an All Metal killer! I've found sub-gram pickers 5" deep with with it. The key is low, slow detecting in All Metal, with a pair of headphones on. I know LOTS of nuggetshooters that went multiple years without finding a nugget with Minelab SD, GP and GPX machines! Most places in the Bradshaws you can find flake gold by just putting a shovel in the ground, but we have been pounding "known" areas since 1978 with every metal detector on the market. All of the EASY gold is long gone in the Bradshaw and Weaver mountains - but, last year several large nuggets were found at Rich Hill (8-ounce, 5-ounce, 2-ounce), so even in pounded areas they are still waiting. Instead of quitting after only two-hours, next time take a break and a deep breath, then nuggetshoot another six-hours.

If nuggetshooting was easy, there wouldn't be any beach hunters!

 

[Goodyguy]

I gave up after 2 hours of digging on signals and only finding crap and started just panning the areas I detected and ended up with about 20 pieces of gold after 2 hours...

Ausgoldhunter gave good advice. It's obvious you were over gold and either the detector failed to read it or you failed to hear it.

There is a possibility that it's not the detectors fault since it obviously does respond to metal. It could be that you have a high freq hearing problem and you simply failed to hear the faint signal, you wouldn't be the first to have that problem. Did you try putting a tiny piece of your gold in the ground to test the detector?

I have found that by connecting a headphone frequency equalizer with 10dB volume boost in line between the headphones and the detector and adjusting the slides so that high frequency tones have more bass, a person with high freq hearing loss can then hear the faint high pitched signal.

Here is what I'm talking about..........
http://www.amazon.com/Koss-EQ50-3-Band-Stereo-Equalizer/dp/B00005UPF6/ref=pd_sxp_f_pt



http://www.ebay.com/itm/Koss-EQ50-P...=US_Home_Audio_Equalizers&hash=item19dbe27ef1

GG~

 

[idowa]

I have nice $10 picker that is in a little plastic holder that I drop in the dirt and go over to make sure it's picking it up...

I honestly can't distinguish the difference in tones between deep iron and shallow gold... I dig up everything! So, 2 hours of detecting means an hour and a half of digging up junk and a half hour of swinging the machine...

I should probably put in a fresh set of batteries as well... Still has the originals.

I also had no idea there were different tones; just thought it was different levels of the same tone. Of course, I do have hearing loss in my left ear and Tinnitus that the VA pays me for...

 

[Ausgoldhunter]

Really isn't a difference in tones.... its pretty much a case of dig it all... which means you'll dig a hell of a lot of crap... this past weekend i pulled over 30 bullets, lead shot, the tip off someone's pick, a 1924 shilling in the root ball of a fallen tree.
And not one bit of gold..