I went out last weekend and did some exploring over in the California mother lode country. A friend took me out to a place he had discovered while exploring on an ATV. It’s about 15 acres of hand stacked rocks mined by ground sluicing and covers the flat area at the top of a divide. It’s not on any map or mentioned in any old reports. The old 49ers obviously put in a lot of work here, and while the geology is right for gold, there was almost no quartz anywhere to be seen. Thats unusual because vein quartz is very common all over the mother lode. The soil was brick red, and as soon as I turned the detector on and put the coil to the ground I knew I was in some trouble. I could not get my GP extreme to stay properly ground balanced and there was a lot of problems with hot rocks. I was able to hunt and find a few pieces of trash, but I knew I was loosing a lot of sensitivity. I needed a DD coil. Unfortunately, I had only a mono coil with me. I’ll be back there with a DD coil, but probably not until next year. None of us found any gold with the metal detector, although I saw some good indications.

I also did a little Dry washing at another location just to do a little test for 2 hours. It was a spot I'd seen this spring and I wanted to see what it held (I’d found gold with my detector there before). I was kind of surprised by the gold - a little over half a gram, or around 1/3 of a pennyweight. It included a nice little 8 grain nugget. Nice gold for a half-hearted couple hours work. I will definitely return next year to that spot.

Chris

Chris
See, you should of had me ship you that DD coil. Good gold for only a couple of hours.
Wes

Alright Reno! Both of those spots sound very promising; hope you score some nice nuggets.

- Lunk -

Reno Chris. Maybe time to upgrade to a GPX? I haven't found any ground yet that the 4500 won't handle easily with a mono including ground that just swamped the GPs with a DD on. That's the real advantage of the GPX4500. I've been reading the literature you sent me . What a great piece of work.----Bob

Hi Bob -

One of the guys with me had a 4500, and he had problems with the ground as well. I am sure he had an easier time of it than I did, and perhaps you might have been able to adjust the settings to coax even a little more out of his 4500, but this was pretty wild stuff. It’s a heavily mineralized body of greenstone that was overlaid by andesite at one time so in addition to the iron in the soil, there are chunks of andesite scattered around. The greenstone has a high iron - low silica content which explains why there is no vein quartz. Almost like a little patch of Australia sitting in Northern California.

I agree with you though about upgrading, and I do plan on that sometime in the not too distant future. I just have a lot of high dollar stuff on my plate. I need to publish the book (that costs almost as much as two 4500s); I need to get an ATV/ quad; the wife wants me to get a new travel trailer; I need to upgrade my detector; all this while I am trying to save every penny I can so I can retire in the next couple years. I just need to find myself a 17 kilo nugget – that would do the trick!


Chris

Hi Reno,

The mineralized spot you mentioned sounds interesting. Places like that can be a pain to work, but some of my best gold has come from hot rock infested areas just like that. It seems that the noisier the soil and more hot rocks, the better the shot for coming across a nice lump. I hope it pans out when you head back with a DD. Good luck and congrats on the drywashed gold.

Hey Reno,
I can totally relate with you. The area you describe sounds similar to where I have been. I have a 4500 and running a mono there is a real challange.
I can get the mono to run just fine with the ground conditions there, but its the damn hot-rocks, and hot boulders! The 4500 screams at some of them to the point you would swear it was metal you were digging. Dig about 5-6 of them in a row at a foot plus and you will say the hell with that. I could probably get the machine dumbed down enough to work around this problem, but there goes your sensitivity. Might as well just be able to hear them, and just discriminate them out with a DD coil. The hot-rocks where I have been hunting will blank out, and none of them will overload your signal like a true piece of metal will, while running a DD. This area was worked by the old-timers and there is plenty of trash. Just another benefit of the DD.
I have been nugget-shooting for a few years now, and I have never encountered an area like this. I just dont think people understand, or can relate to these types of areas. I thought I knew what a hot-rock was in Nevada.... shoot, those are not even warm-rocks in comparison
Nice gold, talk with you soon,
Gus-

Gosh... Great gold... and a nice looking 1938 Buffalo...