Minelab Explorer question, how to find gold?

[Armydude757]

Greetings everyone,

I have the first minelab explorer, and I am some what of a expierenced relic hunter. Recently I moved out to my sisters and behind her house is a old gold mine that was shutdown around ~1890. I have never hunted gold specifically before and was wondering some good settings to set for it and what to look for as far as sound and display. I appreciate any feedback!

Happy Hunting!




David

 

[NealNoIN]

The size of it determines where it will ID. The real small stuff will put the cursor on the bottom of the screen if your machine even picks it up at all. The larger the piece the higher the cursor will climb up the screen. I'd recommend using very little iron mask, lots of sensitivity(manual) and a small coil(5" if you have one).

Man, that sounds like a good place to try to find some gold! Good luck!
Neal

 

[stoneshirt]

Hello.
If you work the old Dumps/Tailings piles
for the Quartz,you would'nt be concerned about the Signal,ANY signal would be Gold!!...
Ken(in Panama.)

 

[dewcon4414]

The Explorer just isnt an EFFECTIVE raw gold machine. I say effective just because the smaller nuggets will give a signal that for the most part you tend to ignore in normal hunting. I hunt with IM 31 just to eliminate the ground minerals because most sites with gold have a lot of hemitite and magnatite. A small coil is ok just because its very sensitive to those smaller targets, but you have to change your normal habbit and move slow. If you get mineral sounds they are pretty easy to distinguish and a lot of those hot rocks will hit at 31. As most things you hunt you need to get a small sample pad to do some air testing.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Dewcon4414 is right. The Explorer is not designed to be a nugget hunter. It excells at coin sized targets, but not pinhead sized targets. They make specialty machines just for nuggets. The intrinsic goal of each pursuit is opposed to each other. Ie.: coin/relic guys DON'T want to hear every speck of birdshot, staple, nail, etc... But nugget guys WANT to hear those tiny low conductors. The design of the machine, from the ground up, dictates what it will be able to do. There is a few cross-over attempts to make a machine that can switch back & forth between the 2 pursuits (like the MXT for instance), but they excell in neither arena. Ie.: there are better coin machines and there are better nugget machines.

 

[BudP]

Hey Army,

I'm going to try to pm you. Let me know if it works.

Bud