nugget hunting

[alain565]

Howdy, i know i could spend days reading post, but this past summer i spent a lot of time with the dd coil for nugget hunting and nothing, an old friend with a old white detector was getting nuggets every time out. he did spent some time teaching some very neat tricks, but i could not lock on a nuggy. and after a week and many hours i left the field no knowing. !@#$%^&*.
i have also 3 coils concentric low med, and high freq. i do much better in parks. but i bought the darn thing for nugget hunting. any advise would be nice has to have a better start next season.
One thing that was very frustrating was the hot rocks, if they where gold id be rich. thanks alain from alberta canada.

 

[Digger]

Here is a very good post of BT's that we copied to the FAQFAQ section, located at the top of the posts.
http://www.findmall.com/read.php?55,496336,496336#msg-496336

HH Randy

 

[Nohave]

Here is a 13.5 gram-mer picked up by X-Terra 30. I normally use SD2100V2 but the new ground full of aluminum caps and I hate dig very deep. So I bought myself XT30 in order to verify what SD2100V2 found.And this baby found by my buddy for the first time
There was a high tone and registered..... 8 on the screen. He asked what was ...8 ? I yelled ....gold dig up.

So what you need in nugget hunting are:

1. Luck
2. go to the place that known to have nuggets
3. Practice....by using the real nugget so you can hear the right sound . Buy one if you do not have any.
4. Use ear phone.....this is important by using earphone you can hear deeper than the speaker from the machine.
5. Use all metal mode.....this will detect deepest.
6. Listen to only the high tone
7. Once you hear a high tone look up at the number if number 4 , 8 0r 12 then........possible ...Gold
other higher number just ignore them.


Hope you enjoy the next season with lot of lucks.

BTW if you are not happy with XT-70 , I am glad to buy from you too.

 

[steve herschbach]

Hi,

The X-Terra 70 has been finding gold at Ganes Creek, Alaska and Moore Creek, Alaska, to name a couple. One tip I can offer from Moore Creek is that although I would recommend the Prospecting Mode for 95% of nugget hunting, for super bad hot rocks you can go to Coin Mode and notch them out. You will lose some performance doing this but have a much more pleasant detecting experience. It beats digging hot rocks all day!

Steve Herschbach
Moore Creek Mining LLC

 

[nugget71]

Steve is right about the prospect mode and this is where the 70 shines. Using the 18.75kHz DD coils be it the small 6" or round 10.5" or elliptical will give you the best chance for success. As far as hot rocks go I can tell the difference most times by the sound a hot rock gives off on the 70, its hard to explain in writing but the 70 will tell you if you listen carefully. If I think I'm being fooled by a hot rock it comes home with me. This is good in 2 ways you can check it when you get home and you can use it and get familiar with the sound at home in your spare time. Now when you lock onto a GOLD specie or target it REALLY locks on and is to me a sharp Wam Bam thank you Man kinda sound to me its unmistakable. Also play with the sensitivity a bit because this can help alot on very hot ground. Unfortunately it has to be done in some areas BUT if you test the sensitivity with some gold at home you will see you only loose a slight amount. Sometimes I have to roll my Sen to about 18 if the ground is very bad and I still get good depth on all targets so don't think your going to miss everything. At the end of the day if its meant to be found you will find it, alot of people think finding gold is easy hahahah but those people are delusional, finding the right spot is the most important aspect of nugget hunting so research and more research is the key. Getting familiar with your detector is very important and can take some quality time to really feel confident with the machine. Good luck!
Cheers!

P.S Recently I had trouble with my new 6" DD coil on some hot rocks and unlike the Elliptical coil I really couldn't tell if they were hot or not or not. I changed my coils over on the spot from the 6" to the elliptical coil and I immediately new they were hot rocks. I did take both rocks home and sure enough no gold. I'm still getting acquainted with the 6" DD coil and am doing very well in trashy areas with it in coin mode, but for now the Elliptical coil is still my main choice for nugget hunting.

B.T.W you are using the X-terra 70 right?

 

[alain565]

Yes the 70, i have the high med and low round coil, and the dd coil. i was using 3 tones on prospecting mode. frequently balancing, and since the other guy was near buy, id do the stabalized in the area, not too good with the right terms yet, working on it slowly. it isn't easy and from what i have heard the first one is the tough one. i am in a good spot, body got a 10 grammer and many other ones with his whites goldbug that has the needle meter, he won't change since it is good for him, i was really hoping to show him of with the new 70 but it wasn't meant to be i guess. i took it to calgary in a early event with the club and did pretty good with it with the round coil. so i think i need more time with it, but the best would be to pair up or have a bunch of owner use it in the south maybe, spring trip that i would consider, nothing beats experience and a good teacher. and steve i'm really really would love to head up to ganes for a week, it is a dream of mine, the wife says you go i go, go figure double the cost, i'm not a bank@#$%^&*(.
thank you for your support and keep em coming. it is a good thing that patience is in this boys vocabulary otherwise it would be gone.
thanks again alain & kathy in alberta the land of floor gold!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[B.T]

I find with a lot of hot rocks where I live that many will ID as Iron when checked in disc mode. You gotta be really careful though because sometimes they have gold in them. Sometimes too you just have to put up with them. Even PI machines at times get sucked in by them. A bloke showed me what he thought were 4 big species he found with gold in them with his GP4000, they turned out to be hot rocks. When he realised it was like watching the plug get pulled out of a blow up doll. (No I dont have one)
Sometimes you just plain luck out when nugget hunting. Everyone around you seems to be creaming it and yourself, giant L on the forehead.
For the last 2 weeks gold wise Ive been wearing the big L. Got some nice relics and coins but no yella.
I suppose thats why Its worth so much huh!

 

[willy]

There are areas on the Tulameen/Similkameen and Coquihalla that are PI hell. Took a GPX 4000 up on the Coq. and it was a nightmare with all the hotrocks reading as good (gold) at tremendous depths. This was a green type of rock that both PI's and VLF's bang off on. The advantage of a VLF is that (if it doesn't overload) the rocks will read as iron. Places like these are where I'd like to give the guys who blithely advise to 'dig it all, regardless' a good smack to the head. I'm talking literally millions of hotrocks in tough ground (both to detect and dig). The Coq. is bad, the Tulameen and tributaries are even worse. I did manage to pop a mercury coated nugget, up on one such tributary, last year with my XT70 while across the ways a guy was throwing fits with his Minelab PI. ..Willy.

 

[alain565]

ya you're right the dammmmmm greeeeen rock, i'm on the wildhorse near fort steel, have many claims up there, and just got my permit approved for dredging next many years, hoops modified snipping that's what they call it now. might not spend as much time when dredging season open, maybe may long weekend i'll try usually water to high to do anything else anyhow.