Hey everyone,

Well, it only took four days to find my first El Paso Mountains nugget; it was the second target of the day after only ten minutes into it! I gridded until lunch and found LOTS of lead and casings shrapnel, then I went exploring. It's a huge area, and I'll definitely have a great time hunting it ..tomorrow I'm meeting up with Tailgate Straight and his prospecting sidekick Sandtrap Jerry for a little nuggetshooting; I'm really looking forward to it, since I haven't seen them in about seven years. The nugget weighs only zero point two of a gram and was found with my trusty GPX-4500 equipped with Nugget Finder's secret weapon, the 14-inch XP coil. Good luck out there!

Lunk,thats a nice nugget but why the switch to a DD. am i missing something.I have a NF E xp coil but I havent used it for quite awhile.
Harry

Hey thanks Harry,

The XP is great at eliminating basalt hot rocks, which are prolific in this area. I remeber you using your XP when we were nuggetshooting at Dome Rock in Quartzsite. Hope you find a bunch of gold at Gold Basin!

Not sure if you guys see it but in the first pic there is a shadow figuire of a cowboy or miner? I also see what looks to be a 3 horned jackalope peering over the shoulder of the miner shadow. Very crazy!

Nice gold lunk!

That WAS a shadow of a jackalope.. glad Lunk did not see it, for they get upset when seen..Worse yet, is if it is a female one. Mr. Jim and I will watch out for Lunk tomorrow. THey must have smelled the carrots he keeps in his pockets.

I certainly hope that you feel special guys, because not many get to glimpse even the shadow of the elusive Golden Desert Jackalope!

Yo Lunk...That NF 14" DD XP is an awesome coil...Hot washes just cool down and that sucker goes deep too...I don't use the XP feature though...I spent 10 years learning the language of my ol' Baboo sd2100 and having a switch reverse everything just doesn't make any sense...I have found a bunch of gold with it...Lately it is the only coil I've been using and have been finding good gold at depth, plus a couple meteorites....Cheers, Unc

Hey Unc,

Yep, the NF 14" XP is super when used as a straight DD coil, but you're right; the XP mode inverts the signal responses, which can be bothersome. With the GPX series detectors, the inverted response produced by the XP mode of the coil can be "re"-inverted so the final signal produced is the traditional high-low response on small nuggets and low-high on the larger ones. Good job on the gold and space rocks!

Lunk

Nice going on the gold. I also like the 14" XP coil...I haven't used it in awhile but am thinking about revisiting it for the El Paso's.
Give Sandtrap my best, he's a great hunting partner.

Flak

Thanks Flak,

I'll be dining with Sandtrap and Tailgate Straight at the Sizzler tonight (salad bar!), so I'll be sure and tell them you said, "howdy!"

Nice work Lunk! Your gonna have a pretty full poke by the time your adventure is over.

Hey everyone,

Yesterday morning I headed out to the Randsburg General Store in Randsburg, CA to meet with an icon of the nuggetshooting world, Jim "Tailgate" Straight and his prospecting sidekick "Sandtrap" Jerry. It had been far too many years since I've seen these two, so needless to say, lots of conversing was going on at the coffee counter. I was introduced to Pam, the current proprieter, and Karen, a most gracious server. Entering through the threshold of the General Store is like walking right back into the 1800's mining boom; it features a rustic inn, a restaurant including a genuine 1904 soda fountain, "Egg McMiner" Sandwich and other homemade goodies, groceries and dry goods including books, maps, gifts, jewelry, gold , rocks, and camping supplies, as well as just about anything else you can think of. If you ever pass through Randsburg, be sure to visit; it's well worth stopping for...Tailgate and Sandtrap both rave about the old fashioned hand-pattied hamburgers! Believe it or not, this storefront has been in continuous operation since 1896. After taking in the rustic sights of historic Randsburg, I was given a priceless geologic tour and history lesson of the surrounding areas by probably the most knowledgeable person of either subject, Mr. Straight, for which I am VERY grateful; THANKS Jim!!!

PHOTOS BELOW:
*Left to right: Lunk, Sandtrap and Tailgate
*Karen with beautiful half-page add of the Randsburg General Store
*My favorite kind of gravel: Tertiary, ancient gold-bearing river channel gravel (note the rounded riverworn rocks exposed in this road cut.)

Gosh... I guess it has been a few years since Sandtrap and I hunted with LUNK.
I was late getting to the General Store... Cajon Pass has a lot of truck traffic. A truck
"lost it" below the truck stop and overturned blocking the three left lanes. Such a mess.
Pieces of truck everywhere. It took me an hour and a half to pass through the bottle
neck... I was late for coffee. That night we had saladbar at the Sizzler in Ridgecrest.
All in all, we had a great day that I will treasure always. Thank you LUNK and Sandtrap
for being my friend...

Lunk, Sandtrap and Jim. Now that's a meeting that I'm sorry I missed. A lot of knowledge in one spot.----Bob

So much knowledge, Bob, that I wish I would have taken notes!

They used to make a pretty mean chocolate milk shake at that soda fountain.

I'll admit to having a few of them there.....

My brother in law went into the Randsburg store a while back and was all suprised to see the ICMJ Prospecting and Mining Journal for sale there.

A great place....


Chris

Hi Lunk,

Sounds like you're having a great trip. Congrats on your recent finds. How long are you going to be around Randsburg?? A couple of friends and myself will be coming up there next week. Probably on Tues. We'll stay at least one night. If you'restill in the area, Maybe we'll see you at the store.....

Where are you heading after you leave Randsburg?

Hope you have a good and prosperous adventure....Bob D

Hey thanks Bob,

Yah, having a great time; we'll be here probably until the end of the month, then it's off to Quartzsite. Send me a PM when you get to town and we'll do some nuggetshooting. Have a good one!

Well everybody, I finally got over another nugget right at quitting-time today, and this time it was a little more reasonable: a seven point seven gram beauty at nine inches! Hopefully, I'll have a new patch going - we'll see what turns up tomorrow... In the meantime, enjoy the pics!

Extreeeeme closeup!

That's a dandy Lunk. Get those grids going and clean that place up.

[/color]Lunk,nice lookingyelller metal
[color="#006400"]Harry

Hey thanks guys,

Well I had a little luck today despite the date; found a teeny zero point two of a gram nugget this morning while carefully gridding the spot that the quarter-ouncer came from the other day. Hopefully I'm on the fringes of a patch; the ground appears to be virgin to detectors - plenty of obvious trash targets and no old dig-holes. Good luck out there!

Hey everyone,

It was another beautiful day in the El Paso Mountains today. I decided to scope out some new ground and settled on a nice narrow little gully with plenty of exposed bedrock, which called for the trusty Nugget Finder 14-inch solid elliptical mono Advantage coil. What a GREAT little sharp-shooter; first target - BAM! - a lovely little nugget at about 6 inches, down in a bedrock crevice! Allright, next target: lead; can't all be gold... Working the wash uphill for around 30 feet or so produced nothing to upset the ultra-smooth threshold of my GPX-4500 when suddenly, WHAMO! another golden little beauty; NOW we're talking! And the last nugget of the day was such a strong signal from the get-go that I thought it was going to be a shallow bullet, but as soon as I got into a crevice in the bedrock at the 8-inch mark, I knew she was gold; after removing another 2 inches of material, it was out: a nice 2 and half grammer! Needless to say, I'm confident that this area is going to be a pretty good producer; can't wait to see what turns up tomorrow...

3.8 GRAMS OF THE GOOD STUFF!

Thats really great. I hope you do even better tomorrow. I wish I could be out there myself.

Chris

Thanks Reno,

Yeah, I like it out here; unfortunately though, the folks aren't finding any gold, so we're shoving off for Quartzsite, AZ tomorrow to spend the rest of the winter. We always do pretty good down there, and the weather is warmer, too. All in all during the last couple of weeks, I've netted six nuggets for a total of 11.9 grams - not too shabby!

Lunk.
Great nuggets!
I hope that you keep it going in Arizona.

Rich

Hope you enjoyed your California trip. We got our first snow a couple of days ago. its gone now.

Thanks guys,

CDA Shane: I'm glad that I missed the frozen white stuff; enjoy the freshies and have fun boarding! Just keep away from the face-plants and yardsales, mmmkay?

Lunk. I'll try to catch up with you in Az.----Bob

Sounds good Bob; we'll see you there!