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Gold detecting - part V (final)
Zot
Posts: 825 ✭✭✭
This will be my last gold detecting post for the foreseeable future. I’m back in Europe after a year in Australia (I originally intended to stay just a few months..)
Here are the previous ones:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
The stuff that follows is primarily from Maryborough, Victoria – here represented by its magnificent railway station, big enough to serve a much larger town.
I’ve heard all sorts of stories why it ended up being “overdimensioned” like it is. Still not sure which story is actually the correct one.
There had been heavy rain in the days prior to my arrival.
I thought this looked like a promising spot. Maybe the rain had washed out some of the good stuff..
After digging junk for an hour or two, I got a promising faint signal in one of the banks.
It was a thin piece of very clean gold
Diggings, Las Vegas desert style
Next up, a lengthy hike to some old diggings outside town.
I’d never been in this area before. I spent the first 6 hours wandering around and finding very few targets. Not too promising...
The ground looked great, with plenty of mineralization. I used a variety of coils, but no luck.
Then, suddenly, a solid signal. Out pops a piece of the good stuff
The digging this day involved a mishap that provided amusement to people I ran into during the following days:
I was detecting in a hole dug by the old-timers. When done, I made an ambitious leap to get out of it. I made it back up, but ripped my pants. Ughh....
The next day started on a much more positive note. I was using a small elliptical coil (14x7 inch) that can be jammed into tight spots around trees and rocks, and was focusing on “difficult” spots only. No point bothering with detecting the open ground in the area I was in, as it had been hammered by a thousand coils since detectors first came out.
Almost right away, I got a signal right up against a tree. I was quite optimistic about this target, as signals this tight against trees and rocks have proven to have much better than average odds of being gold. Once the distance starts approaching an inch, the odds appear to drop to about normal again.
It was indeed a piece of gold. Not a big one, but has an interesting shape.
Later the same day I got my smallest piece to date, just 0.04 grams.
Didn’t bother with a picture of that one. It was a hassle to even find it in the scoop!
On the next trip (and with new pants purchased!) I dug this thing, which beeped with a target inside. It’s more compact material than it looks like, and targets inside such lumps tend to have a decent chance of being gold.
Yup
Amazingly enough, I’ve managed to stay alive in the Australian bush for quite a while. With the winter approaching, the risk of running into snakes should be quite low by now. I did, however, run into this red-headed mouse spider (in the center of pic below). Highly venomous of course.
I was taking extra care before poking around in the dirt with my fingers the rest of the day!
Getting the gold out of the ground was hard work. Most of my finds were like this (about 2.5 hours worth, so multiply by 3 or 4 for a day’s haul)
Final picture and detecting site:
Here’s my grand total:
With an Australian 5-cent coin for scale (coin is about US dime-sized)
Happy to hit 10 grams, but man it adds up slowly when you keep accumulating such tiny pieces!
Sharing a box with some Finnish gold
I’m now back to detecting for coins and jewelry, which feels a bit odd after a year’s hiatus.
I’m going to miss the gold detecting for sure… Will hopefully make it back at some point.
If nothing else, I’ll have a make a trip just for that purpose!
Happy hunting!
-Z
Minelab: GPX 5000, Excalibur II, Explorer SE. White's: MXT, PI Pro
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Comments
<< <i>signals this tight against trees and rocks have proven to have much better than average odds of being gold >>
Why do you suppose that is? Because they're less likely to have been affected by a washout? Or deposited there by a washout?
That group photo is quite beguiling. Those nuggets sure look great against a black background.
Cheers, RickO
(yeti sighting on the MD board
100% Positive BST transactions
Looking forward to your next ventures.
How sensitive is the detector...like how deep can it detect an average size nugget? Not sure if there is an "average" size though...
Wow! Rick comes out of hiding!!
Man, we need some posts from you again! It's been way too long since we had our gold competition going!
I see you still have that yeti picture
There were some questions:
Minivan> Why do you suppose that is? Because they're less likely to have been affected by a washout? Or deposited there by a washout?
That's definitely part of it (both points). Another reason is that others have missed them. It happened to me several times that I didn't pick up a nugget on a first quick pass, but got the beep when really jamming that coil as close to the object and ground as I could.
PS. Have you received your LM2E finds yet? I seem to remember they were awaiting export formalities, but surely you've got them by now?
pcgs69>How sensitive is the detector...like how deep can it detect an average size nugget?
It's very sensitive indeed. I've frequently been picking up matchhead-sized 0.2-grammers at 6-7 inches deep, and dug a 5-cent coin (US dime-sized) at about 15 inches. This being in highly mineralized soil where I couldn't crank up the detector anywhere close to maximum sensitivity.
It definitely goes way deeper than any other machine I have. Looking forward to going over some of my old spots with it... I expect them to come back to life and cough up a silver or two
-Z
BTW: Cubby=Cub Fan
bob
<< <i>PS. Have you received your LM2E finds yet? I seem to remember they were awaiting export formalities, but surely you've got them by now? >>
Still no LM2E finds on this side of the pond.
I need to go light a fire under that club coordinator guy who submitted the export application. There may be nothing he can do about the delay, but he could at least answer my emails. The last went unanswered.
But I'm not panicking, since it apparently does take a long time. Most of these guys go every year, and pick up their previous year's finds when they arrive for the next season's hunting. I of course do not have that option, but hopefully I will be seeing that stuff before the 1-year anniversary of the trip rolls around in November!
Wow... a Riccar sighting. Man, I had to do a double-check on the datestamp of his post. I was momentarily confused and thought I'd wandered into a golden-oldie thread.
Good to see you alive and posting, Riccar!
Now, if I could only get to detecting again, I'd perhaps be less of a yeti myself. But my machine is still inoperable after its demise in the UK.