Another "dig everything" hunt...

[sgoss66]

...this time at a park where a music festival was recently held. I first hit the wood-chip tot lot there before the playground got overrun by kids, and then moved on to the part of the park where the stage and "viewing area" were set up. I decided to recover all shallow targets, from the 50s VDI on up. Results? I put so many pop-top tabs in my pouch, that were reading in the 57-66 range, that I couldn't believe it...and almost as many aluminum screw caps from beer bottles. I did get a bunch of clad, too, including a pocket spill which included a number of quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies. I did, again, find more nickels than usual, due to the fact that I was digging all targets. Every nickel I find is a solid, repeatable-from-all-directions 58. I have never found a nickel that, for the "average" VDI, has read even one number either side of 58 (maybe one sweep of the coil yields a 57 or a 59, but 95% of the passes over a nickel read right on 58, for me.) A solid 59, or higher, is a pull tab, as is a solid 57. An occasional pull tab will read 58, but I'd say half of the solid 58s I dig are nickels.

I also found some unusual things...including a metal bottle opener (surely it was used quite heavily during the concern, based on the number of bottle caps I found...it was an "eyeball find" -- laying on the surface). Also my most unique "eyeball" find to date that was in the form of money -- not a coin this time, but instead a $5 bill!

HOWEVER, STILL no gold. I don't know how you guys do it. I just don't have the patience. Digging dozens upon dozens of pop tops, one after another after another, just wears me out, mentally!

Steve

 

[JimGilmore]

Looking for gold can sure wear you out. Yes, people do find gold. Some seem to find a lot. And then some like me just seem to be cleaning the park for free. So I know how you feel.....But I have gotten $97 i change so far. So it is not all bad.

 

[sgoss66]

Yeah, you are cleaning up on the clad, Jim -- and finding a couple of oldies, too. Kudos to you. Your "cleaning the park for free" is exactly how I feel when I do these "gold hunts." Including the $5 bill, I probably took home about $7 in a 2 1/2 hour hunt -- so, the Parks Department essentially paid me about $3 per hour to clean up the mess that a bunch of drinking, dancing music fans made a couple nights before! They got off easy, I'd say. Me, I was hoping for a nice "tip," in the form of GOLD, but wasn't so fortunate!

Steve

 

[acasto]

Funny that you use the "cleaning the park" analogy.
Several months ago, my brother and I were hunting the beach in Galveston when I was stopped by two couples on holiday from England. After I showed them what I had found, which was mostly junk, one of the ladies said, "see, I told you he was working for the city, cleaning the beach".
I almost packed up and left.

HH
Tony

 

[sgoss66]

Great story, Tony. I can certainly relate! I bet those ladies said it in that "proper" English accent, too!

Steve

 

[JimGilmore]

Yes. I know that we do provide a service for free and the parks dept is not real thrilled . At least the people in charge I mean. I have made friends with the local employee's whom I stop to talk to every day. I even give all the keys I find to one guy there. I know he will save them till he as a bucket full and sell the brass. About $200 for a 5 gallon pail. I just do not need more junk in my mom's house. But "charlie" said thanks and I said all I need is for him to keep me outta trouble so to speak. In other words let his boss know what good I am doing.
Seems to work as I know that more official people have been around and I am left to do my detecting without any trouble.....

 

[amberjack]

hang in there Steve i know it can be frustrating !! but all is not lost, i detect every day 3 or 4 hrs a day and average 1 gold per month add up the swings per month its a lot of work, and another thing i found was if my head is always focused on gold it doesn't seem to come, whats the best way i can put this when i let go in my mind about finding gold it comes, like what i say expect it when you least expect it, i sure am no expert that's for sure!!

but this is my experience, whats that saying give in to win? seems to happen for me when my mind is totally clear of expectations of finding anything i don't know how it works for other people but when i seem to be just swinging and at peace with just swinging and the last thing on my mind is gold it appears, hope i am making sense?

i have even tried to trick the gold gods with i am not thinking about it but by default i am anyway, now i am getting weird i know well i am a bit weird, but harmless weird

i really don't know any other way of putting it

ask other people and they prob tell you something completely different but seems to be how it works for me.

try swinging and diggin junk till your that tired and surrender to every target being junk?

OK i will shut up now prob just got myself a few weeks of not much at all.

 

[godigit1]

I hear you Steve, Its hard to keep motivated with all the pull tabs but it seems just when I have had enough and am ready to concentrate on prospecting versus coin hunting it happens. However I'm really getting the gold fever again after meeting a guy yesterday and holding a quarts specimen with 9 ounces in it. Its was worth over 13,000. I really wanna get my coil over something like that.
HH

 

[amberjack]

 

[ExpIInut]

Great story, Tony. I can certainly relate! I bet those ladies said it in that "proper" English accent, too!

Steve

That was no lady - that was my wife!!

 

[sgoss66]

ExpIInut -- that's great -- I love listening to that accent, it's great!

Thanks for the encouragement, guys. Hey godigit -- just booked my plane ticket for Colorado in late August, going prospecting with a friend on his gold claim! WOO-HOO!

Steve

 

[amberjack]

are see its all waiting there for you Steve

 

[godigit1]

Cool Steve, Hope you find some good nugs either way it will be fun trying and CO is a nice change for a while.
What Kind of claim does your buddy have ?
I took the sluice out to a new spot and gave it a whirl yesterday but nothing where was at or it was allot deeper than I went. First time I have not got any color around here Im going to have to stick to the old spots for now until the water goes down!
HH

 

[sgoss66]

godigit --

He has a claim on the San Miguel river; he primarily dredges -- so most of my time will be in the water with him. It will be terrific, and he always comes home with good gold, plenty of flour/flake type gold and some nice pickers/small nuggets are almost a given in his spot. I plan, in our dredging "down-time," to detect the riverbanks and shallow-water crevices. Never detected for placer gold before, but I'm hoping I have dug enough tiny little aluminum pieces, small blue-jean rivets, 22-cal. bullets, etc. with this machine to have some idea what I'll be dealing with. Dealing with the mineralization/black sand deposits and how they affect the machine is the big wild card, in my mind, at this point. Keeping proper ground balance in rapidly-changing soil/mineral conditions is important, I'm assuming...as well as reading the ground phase and the clues it gives as to when you are passing over black sand streaks (and possibly, thus, gold deposits...)

Steve

 

[godigit1]

Sounds like your going to have fun dredging is a blast and worth the work. Wish Ca would allow it but it has been banned for the next five years now. Makes me want to sell my dredge (buy another detector) but I would have to ship it out of state and that cost too much for a unit that size and weight. When detecting at his claim one thing that has worked along the banks here is as you say to concentrate on the crevices. I ignore everything except those and the first few feet of a sand bar that has bedrock exposure at the head and tail and also places where the gravels look shallow on bedrock. If you find bore holes in the bedrock these are great places as well. I'm sure your buddy has some crevicing tools to help with recovery and a good six foot bar as well to pry apart cracks and move boulders. If you take one of your ladies small gold stud earrings 14K or better you can practice with that. I don't know if you have the 5" dd but now would be the time to invest in one for the prospecting aspects. Gets into the cracks and is more sensitive to small gold.
HH

 

[sgoss66]

godigit --

I hear you on the CA dredging. Don't even get me started on that... :veryangry:

Thanks for the tips on the sand bards and gravel on bedrock, and on bore holes.

Yes, my friend has some crevicing tools, but from what he tells me, he hit a crevice last year with good stuff in it that he couldn't break apart with what he had. Where do you get the appropriate 6' pry bar, that you mention?

By the way, I just bought a 5" DD coil, from a Findmall user, last night -- for the exact reason you stated. Hope to have it soon, to start practicing...

Steve