Going Nugget Detecting All Summer Long!

[steve herschbach]

Well, as my article in the latest ICMJ Prospecting & Mining Journal relates my dredging plans are off for the summer. One door closes, others open, and I am hot the path of some excellent metal detecting opportunities in Alaska this summer. I am going to have three main targets. First, sniping bedrock with a detector which is going to get gold no matter what, but the average size will be very small. That will basically to make sure the bills get paid. Then I will put in significant amounts of time hunting tailing piles. This is not Ganes Creek or Moore Creek type stuff, which is exceptional in nature, but run of the mill tailings. That means lots of hours, very low odds of hitting gold on any given day. But the hope is a larger nugget will make the time pay off. Then finally something I have never done in Alaska - hunting virgin ground in hopes of finding a patch of gold. Extreme long odds stuff with low probability of a find, which is why I have not done it in Alaska before. I literally did not have the time! Despite the low odds however it is the type of hunting where results could be newsworthy if a find is made.

The bedrock detecting will be with high frequency VLFs like the Fisher Gold Bug 2 and White's GMT. I will be doing lots of "scrape and detect" and hitting every tiny bit if gold is more important than depth when doing that. The tailing pile detecting will be with either the Fisher F75 SE or Gold Bug Pro which are good at sorting out ferrous from non-ferrous. Tailings are full of junk. I detect about 12 hours a day so these models have ended up being what I prefer hunting tailings simply due to their light weight. Many other units would do as well but add another pound on my arm, and that is a critical factor for me, having experienced arm strain in the past. If the VLFs prove an area of tailings relatively free of trash, I will switch to my Minelab GPX 5000. The blue-sky prospecting in deep ground will be with the GPX 5000 almost exclusively.

Going to be my first real go at it in Alaska for an entire summer with a detector. I will be staying very mobile and may end up all over the state by the end of summer, or parked in one spot if I am doing well. That is one very nice thing about detecting - I can stay very light and very flexible. The entire time, I will be scouting for dredging possibilities for 2014 and beyond.

The adventure begins in mid-June. When fall hits I will head for Reno and start my new gig as a Lower 48 prospector. The whole time I will be shooting photos and video and writing articles for the Mining Journal. I will check in here as often as I can throughout the summer.

I wish everyone esle the best of luck in their summer plans. What are yours?

 

[starvin]

Best of luck. We had the same thing on our claim in Oregon. Filed it wrong! We had to sympathies with what you wrote in ICMJ as we are on the same road.

 

[Bucket 247]

That was a good read Steve, most of us will be spending our summer doing what we've done every summer for decades and that's sitting behind our desks while our arteries harden, wishing we could you what you are doing, so if by chance August rolls around and you are sitting in the cab of your truck in a rainstorm waiting for the clouds to break while dreaming of soaking your toes poolside in Hawaii, please drop us a line and let us know...It'll make us feel just a bit better about that alarm clock ringing at 6am. In the meantime good luck and happy trails.

 

[MadJack]

Steve, I wish you luck and congratulate you on retiring!

I met you at AMDS in 2003.

I will be working several claims in Quebec end of April til end of June, dredging, highbanking with the G1 and detecting with an antique Gold Bug.
Then I [may be] heading back to Greenland with Sixty Degree Resources and tinpanchad until September(ish).
If I don't get a Maine moose permit, I'll head back up to Quebec until the weather drives us out.

My goal is to find a minable deposit and cover costs inccured. Oh, and have a great time dispite the amount of work involved!

MadJack from Maine

 

[jimmy]

Hey MJ, Jimmy Pearce here, Hows it going, remember the petersville fiasco lol, Holler at me

 

[steve herschbach]

Hi Jack, nice to hear from you.

You can dredge in Quebec? I guess that kind of surprises me.

Greenland, now that sound like adventure!

 

[Roscue2]

Didn't know you wrote for them Steve. Will have to look for an article by you the next time I buy a copy. HH and GL this summer

 

[MadJack]

Hey MJ, Jimmy Pearce here, Hows it going, remember the petersville fiasco lol, Holler at me

Well how are ya Jim? Tried to PM you so's not to hijack Steve's thread, but no go.
Email me at mainegold at yahoo....

 

[Smigo]

Hi Steve. Sounds like your going to have a good time over there. Iv heard about the tailing's detecting there and hear its been going on for a long time. Curious, just how big and how much tailing's with nuggets in them do you guys have over there? The hunting where I am in Victoria OZ is mainly virgin ground or small mullock, throw out heaps from diggers holes, that would only take a few minutes to go over. Surfacing areas and gutted gully's as well. Sounds like a different world all together where your going. I detected a surface area today for just 2.5g, but had fun doing it till I kicked a rock that didn't move and felt my knee go "click". Went home after that. Sounds like an amazing place Alaska. Makes me think of that Johny Orton song "north to Alaska" every time I hear about the place. Good luck when you get there.

 

[fredm]

Steve; excellent article in the Mining Journal...you are quite right-the penalties imposed are completely out of scale for the error committed...but, that is the god-like power of "Crats" that our Government and courts have perpetuated....

Alaskan detecting, all summer long...may every signal be golden!
fred

 

[steve herschbach]

Been here my whole life. I was born in Alaska.

It is a totally different thing in Alaska. when i was in Oz it was all wide open spaces, swing a coil anywhere. Everything here is covered with muck and tundra so no outback to detect. It is all old mine workings. They are remote and privately owned so difficult to get to and to get permission to Hun. Check out my stories and photos at the link below especially the ones for Ganes Creek and Moore Creek. The photos will give you a good idea of what it is like. I have found lots of 1-3 oz nuggets and specimens. The big finds (which I have yet to make) run from 10 - 30 ounces. A hunting buddy has found two one pound nuggets and another a 32 oz nugget. My biggest so far is 6.85 oz.

Steve's Mining Journal

 

[Hobo lobo]

I gold hunt all all summer every year and a lot in the winter also in AZ. My biggest nugget find with a detector was 9 Oz in Nev.

 

[steve herschbach]

Excellent find for sure! I am really looking forward to the desert detecting this fall as I have really enjoyed the little I have done. The gold is more a bonus as I really like walking around in that open country. In Alaska it will be rain in a headset digging in mud so more of a work scenario at times.

 

[Smigo]

Checked it out, yeah big heaps allright. Nice looking place. Any bears sneak up on you now and then?

 

[steve herschbach]

I usually see a couple bears every year. They try to avoid people normally so it is less about them sneaking up on you than you sneaking up on them accidentally. Makes wandering around in thick brush a bit spooky at times.

 

[Hobo lobo]

Was dredging in Calif about 20 yrs ago and every time i left camp togo to town for supplies a bear raided me ,destroyed lots of stuff, bit holes in gas cans and any thing else it ccould find, thought about buying a can of spray paint or wasp spray and cover it with honey, but never did it. Don't have to worry about bears here in the Az. desert , just buzztails.