Hunting in New Zealand ( Lots of NZ Photos in this thread)

[Wildcat]

Here are some little babys I picked up last time I went to New Zealand for a holiday.
They were found between and to the left of the 2 rocks in 2nd image

 

[aloysius]

Well done you buggers! I say this because you beat me by a week or so! I was going to go at Xmas time, but didn't get to the site, however (two weekends back) I went and had a squiz with my 5x10. Saw all the filled-in (well done) holes and scrape marks, and thought "bugga, too late". Especially that deep hole you dug. I thought at the time that somebody had got something decent out of there! However, perservered for about 4 hours in that general vicinity, and further out to no avail. I did put on the mini UFO for a while but absolutely nothing! Only in that general area of the two rocks did I get 5 minute nuglets (big specks really) They each averaged just over 0.2 gms, for a total of a fraction over a gram in total!

Although a small take that day, I thoroughly enjoyed getting those little pieces as it showed that at the very least I think I've got the 5x10 sussed.

Having spoken to a local afterward, he said that he's seen a couple of guys up there a week or so back, which was obviously you, so well done!

Cheers and more good golding to you! (and thanks Wildcat for the opportunity!!!)

Much appreciated,
Goldnugget

 

[Wildcat]

Hope you at least had fun Aloysius. That's what it's all about. Losing yourself in Nature... Pity you missed JW up there.
Incidentally JW, I have been informed that the Minelabs tend to ignore shotgun pellets unless they are large ones. That has been the case with the 3 Minelabs I have owned. (Not counting the Xterra 70)
Now, I don't know whether to own up or not, but me and my brothers are responsible for most of those .22 slugs and shells and plenty of pellets too. In our younger days we shot rabbits nearly every day around those hills and went spotlighting hares at night time. The local rabbit board used to supply us ammo as we cleaned up so many. I remember one evening with my .22 auto I shot 64 rabbits with 64 bullets. Hopefully most of those bullets stayed in the bunnies rather than on nugget ground. The rabbits caused serious erosion in those days. Mind you, after a thunderstorm you could always find small nuggets in the gullies because of the erosion. My wife and I would not hesitate to buy that block if we could, knowing what is there and where it is. A backhoe and bucket would work wonders. I would miss the Aussie weather though. I know how cold perma frost is. Still, if we were retired.....

 

[kiwi jw]

G'day Aloysius, I was wondering if you managed to get there. I almost didnt.
Interesting that you got those .2 grammers. I really worked that ground over in the vicinity of those two rocks with 4 different size coils & all very slowly. All mono's. My smallest was two around .3 One found with the 10x5 & one with the 11". How deep down did you find them? Just goes to show, no one gets it all. I believe that different days can also have different results with differing weather conditions having an effect on ground conditions & conductivity etc.

G'day Wildcat, It was ok to be digging up the odd shell & bullet head. They certainly had a sound all to themselves compared to the gold. They were always very near the surface, a very postive signal & found very quickly. Was good to keep you on your toes & not drifting off to la la land.
I had heard that the minelabs werent too sensitive on gunshot but if the gold was the same size they would probably miss that as well. Hence some of the higher frequency VLF machines (Gold bug 2 & Whites MXT) being deadly on that really small stuff, as long as it is close to the surface.
Wow....you must have got you fair share of bunnies. 64 for 64 thats as good as you can get, unless you can get two bunnies for one shot Guess that happened on occations as well. Must admit, I scanned all the bunny holes & their diggings as well. No luck there though.


Happy golding

JW

 

[Lanny in AB]

Gorgeous pictures with all kinds of history and fantastic scenery--great shots of the gold too. You've done an incredible job.

I met a guy from New Zealand when I was mining in Alaska--he'd mine the beaches around Nome in his winter, and return to mine gold in NZ during his summer season. He did very well. Nice fellow.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[kiwi jw]

Hi there Lanny in AB, The world is full of coincidences & this one none the less so.....I get on my computer this morning, as I arent back at work yet since my xmas break, to see what additions if any have been added to this thread. I guess my interest & involvement in this thread is due to the kind sharing of info & a location by Wildcat, now living in Austarlia, & the luck I had from it in one of the most beautiful places on the face of this planet, Central Otago New Zealand!!
The coincidence is this........I see your post on this thread on first firing up my computer this morning, when last night the last posts & thread I read before switching off & hitting the hay was your postings on the thread you started on Bedrock Gold......I read the lot, took a while, & must say you do a good yarn & a lot of great info in there as well. Thanks very much for the huge effort & the time you put in to it & sharing your adventures with us. . You should write a book.

All the best & happy golding

Regards

JW

 

[Lanny in AB]

Thanks so much JW, for your encouragement, and for your compliments. Now, I'll beat a hasty retreat from this posting so I'm not guilty of hijacking such a great thread!!

All the best,

Lanny

 

[aloysius]

Hi guys,
Those 5 x 0.2 grammers that I did get, I had to work really really hard for! If wildcat hadn't pinpointed the area, I'm sure I wouldn't have got them. I would have just gone over it fairly smartly, got nothing and moved on, I'm sure. Because the area was defined, I (as usual worked my 4500 on sensitive extra and very slow) and when getting a 'possible' signal, would hit it from several angles and with the coil actually right on the ground. Even if it was consistently 'iffy', I figured there was something there, and not just the coil bumping the ground. The depth I got them at would be about an inch, certainly no more then two anyway, and I certainly had to spend quite of time getting them out of the dirt!
Looking at then=m now, 2 are quite flat 6mm long and no more than 2mm wide. The other 3 are a little fatter-no more than 4mm long and 2mm wide.
I also hit several shotgun pellets, 2 of which I'm sure were steel ones which surprised me. The rest were lead, plus there were a couple of .22 bullets as well as a .22 shell as well as a shotgun cartridge. This was all with an old orange Coiltek 5x10.
As I say I had to go reeeeaaaaal slow, reeeeaaal low and work for the little buggers. Was quite a lesson for me actually!

Cheers.

 

[Wildcat]

Ah well aloysius, if there had been a bigger one I have no doubt you would have got it.
Cheers mate
The Cat

 

[Lanny in AB]

Wildcat, just curious, and maybe you've already answered this question, but how many years have you been chasin' the gold?

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Wildcat]

Lanny, can't tell you. We used to be dragged along from about age 4. Up into the hills, collect specis. Home and crush in the dolly pot, then pan it off. I never took it seriously until detectors came out and got my first in about 1977. Been looking for the retirement fund ever since. I am now 61.
Cheers
The Cat

 

[Lanny in AB]

Well--you're well-inducted into the mining order, and well-versed it sounds like--and I sincerely admire your posts and your photographs--great job!! Keep 'em coming.

I started when I was 12, much later in life than you did, and I've been at it for over four decades--I've put lots of concentrated effort into the last two decades, and the more I learn, the more I realize there is to learn. It's one of the great ironies of chasing the gold, I guess.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Wildcat]

Never look too hard... I guess that is something I learned with the detector. It is true, gold is where you find it, and some of the places I have picked it up, I just cant work out where it came from. Just keep swingin' and enjoy the stroll and maybe you get lucky now and again. There are no real good areas around here for panning or sluicing, however there are quite a number of places for detecting that have produced fairly well over the years. I am starting to think that I must have found most of it as it seems to be getting harder to find lately. Maybe age comes into the equation as well. Last gold I found was a ring in a local creek when I was road testing my new MXT. I hope to get out to the goldfields again before too long. It takes me about 1 1/2 hours drive so it's not too far.

Regards
The Cat

 

[kuger]

Fantastic post!!I would love to see some of the relics you dig around those camps too!!

 

[Wildcat]

Thanks Kuger, I see you have a nice range of detectors. Which is your favourite?

Regards
The Cat

 

[kuger]

Hello Wildcat,The M.X.T,just because thats my main machine.

 

[kiwi jw]

Hi there Kuger, I see you have the GMT as well. Which one do you think is best on gold only? I have done a lot of reading on forums to see what people say about the verious vlf's for gold detecting. It has come down to the Gold Bug 2, the GMT & the MXT. The MXT appears to be a coin machine as well & is that why you have it as your favourite, because it is pretty good at doing both gold & coins/relics? I am interested in gold only from a vlf machine. Im looking for something to get those real small suckers that my GP 3000 wont or cant. I like the idea of the "follow the black sand" from the GMT. Does the MXT do the same thing? Be good to be able to plot the highest concerntration run of the black sands in a creek/stream & then go through with a dredge/highbanker & clean up that path.
Any help would be much appreciated.

Many thanks & happy golding.

Regards

JW

 

[kiwi jw]

Hi there Wildcat, You tiger you , Yep I spent a fair bit of time looking at that slope, the chinamen stones, the schist, the heaps of quartz float all over the place, thinking of your uncles hard rock mine somewhere further up, try to make sense & rhyme & reason as to why/how the gold got to where it got & where it came from. Does your head in & like you said, "Gold is where you find it". I climbed up to the top flat part of that slope & the chinman stones cut out, or seemd to cut out cause I couldnt see any more of them. But the theory of loaming for gold & the fact your uncle had a hard rock mine somewhere above that you have some great specimens from, would/could indicate that the gold could have come from that as it is down slope from it. But then of coarse we know Central Otago has been through a torturous time in its geological make up. With faulting & folding, land upheavial & down folding, massive glaciation which is a mountain & gold bearing quartz reefs demolisher & huge transporter of material that has been carried god knows how many miles from it original source when it is dumped by a retreating glacier when the ride is over & the glacier movement stops, the ice melts & dumps its load, gold included, in no particular place that today makes any sense. Check out the photo of the glacier I put up earlier in this thread & take a look at the rock material riding on it.
But wouldnt an excavator be a grate tools to have to carve off a couple on inches & work up hill loaming & detecting toward your uncles hard rock mine.

Happy golding

JW

 

[kuger]

Hi there Kuger, I see you have the GMT as well. Which one do you think is best on gold only? I have done a lot of reading on forums to see what people say about the verious vlf's for gold detecting. It has come down to the Gold Bug 2, the GMT & the MXT. The MXT appears to be a coin machine as well & is that why you have it as your favourite, because it is pretty good at doing both gold & coins/relics? I am interested in gold only from a vlf machine. Im looking for something to get those real small suckers that my GP 3000 wont or cant. I like the idea of the "follow the black sand" from the GMT. Does the MXT do the same thing? Be good to be able to plot the highest concerntration run of the black sands in a creek/stream & then go through with a dredge/highbanker & clean up that path.
Any help would be much appreciated.

Many thanks & happy golding.

Regards

JW

Hello JW,I have to admit I have not spent the time detecting for gold as I probably should.I do stay abreast of whats working and whats not,and research to the end.The G.M.T. is an incredible machine that hangs with the best of em,especially specie gold(on quartz and such)something about the make up of the rock and such causes the M/L machines to fall short in that dept.I have used the G/B and was impressed with its ability to pick up extremely small gold but I think the GMT offers that and then some.
The MXT is a very versatile machine as well and I have friends that have found an incredible amount of gold to attest to that fact.I hunt mostly relics and it is a monster at that!I can also tell you I have dug pants rivets at 10" deep!!You can track black sand with it by watching your ground read out while in the prospecting mode too

 

[Wildcat]

JW I concur with Kuger. After using my MXT it is a far more interesting machine when goldhunting as it has the LCD readout that tells you, 1. Ground mineralization, 2. Iron content of target (very low reading is indicative of gold) 3. VDI of target. It gives you all these 3 at the same time on the screen.
So if you get a VDI of around 40 or below and your Iron Content is 10 - 20 at the same time, it is a good chance it is gold. I have never been a fan of large coils that most use on the Minelab machines and as I mostly used my 10" coil I could see no need for the 4000 so I sold it.
Love the MXT.
Re your last comment on the excavator.... Wouldn't a grader be great on that hill?

The Cat

 

[kiwi jw]

G'day Wildcat & Kuger, Doesnt the GMT have an LCD readout as well??
Yes lots of people love the MXT. I need to try them both & a bug2. Opinion seems to be the bug 2 will find the smallest gold, which makes sense as it has the highest frequency. The whites machines will find maybe not quite as small as the bug 2 but they will go deeper.
Wildcat, didnt you say you found lots of small gold with a bug 2 amongst the old diggings? Was that at Ophir? I did drive down that gravel road that goes down to the river. All those river flats have been heavily cultivated. All be it still very dry & rubbley. Not much top soil or grass. Do you still have the bug 2 & use it? WHY DID YOU SELL YOUR 4000? The coil excuse doesnt make sense. They are a great machine. Is that your 4000 in your first pic in this thread with the "babies" on it?? I thought you said you had a 3000 & I thought that pic was the 3000?? If you fitted a larger coil then you are going to find bigger deeper gold.
A grader at the hill......yes yes yes. I was thinking excavator with a wide scraping blade & an excavator for trenching. Im in love with that hill it haunts me Wouldnt it be great to have a back yard like that to keep one out of trouble & the toys to play on it??

Take care & happy golding

JW