tvr said:
Sometime I would like to hunt some of the areas known to have gold and learn to deal with the ground types you are normally working with.
Cheers,
tvr
Oh, it's hard to cope with the ground types where gold usually resides. So much so that many people often leave the hobby.
I have placed hundreds of hours on my machine, and I'm an optimist. I do think you can successfully use the tejon to find gold but the learning curve is very steep. When you're out on mountainsides you can not dig every strong signal. You have to put aside norms about metal detecting . Otherwise, if you do dig every signal, you will have realized the majority of your time digging rocks, which is very frustrating. The awesome thing is that the tejon is a very predictable machine. For instance, if you have a strong signal, common sense will guide you to dig. However, when you're out on the gold fields, you have to go over that same signal 3-4 times and get more information about the signal. If the signal is not pronounced at the same time and place (in other words, if the signal "moves"), then you have to hold back your reflex to dig and resume detecting elsewhere. You have to employ different strategies from coin detecting. I mean who would have ever thought a signal could move!
I have also found strong signals right on the ground surface. When I first started, I remember encountering strong signals only to have them disappear right after digging. I found this very annoying and made me question the tejon's reliability. I would ask myself how could a very strong signal disappear (even if strongly detectable in disk mode!) after digging only a few inches of ground? Then I realized that those grounds have been undisturbed for a long, long time (hundreds, thousands of years probably). Corrosion naturally deposits minerals at certain locations. Then I realized that scraping the ground surface with the side of my shoe would make those signals disappear. Wild! Specially considering that these signals were very loud, dig signals, the types that would blow your head away with their intensity. The tejon was detecting the minerals on coil.
I remember being out in the middle of nowhere one day. I had spend so much time digging lead (you will dig a lot of lead if you're hunting gold. So much so that you will end up regretting the 2nd amendment ), so I followed this one trail on google maps that led me near these mountains very far away. I was still new so I was practically digging everything to get myself familiar with the different signals. Having spend probably 9 hrs that day, it was getting dark. I was tired, running out of water, and my feet were sore. I was getting ready to leave when I got this beep.
As odd as it may sound, when you're out in the field, you're not going to get weak beeps. Bury a dime and detect it at 7 inches in disk mode and you'll have an idea: The beep, though weak has it's traits. Move your coil 90 degrees several times and if the signal does not move you know the object is circular in shape. Raise your coil further out and if the beep is still reproducible, though more faint, you have an idea of its depth. Like a coin signal with it's particular traits, my signal also had its distinct, reproducible traits: it was faint, but a very reproducible sound. Also,
what made the signal special was that I was able to reproduce it in disk mode. 9.999 out of 10 times, you're not going to reproduce a weak signal in disk mode and have it remain faint. If you're able to reproduce it, most likely, the signal is going to be very loud. Because the signal was very faint, and it remained faint in disk mode, I knew I had something special. Because it was weak, if the object was small (bb sized) I knew it was at most 3 inches deep. Otherwise, it could be a larger object (half dime sized) and be buried at around 5-7 inches (yes, even with the tejon, 3 inches may not sound deep, but you have to realize that naturally occurring metals are not usually found placer. Most precious metals are found at microscopic levels embedded in rock. The industry extracts several ounces of metals from tons of these lode deposits).
So after noting all of the peculiarities I dig.
I get down to 2.5 inches and find this rock...I was ready to break my tejon in half when I realize that there were no other rocks around, the ground was relatively clean, somewhat compact. So I pick up this fucking rock and look it closer.
To this day I have no idea what the small rock is (4-5mm at most), but it's clearly some kind of metal. It is perforated like the inside of bone, but very light for its size. I want to say it's a meteorite of some kind because it's magnetized (I can lift it with a magnet), but it's light weight confuses me. ...i dunno,all i know is that it's not yellow...
There are a few other techniques you can employ. However, doing so just makes the whole experience frustrating. Specially when you can get your self a decent PI unit and not have to worry about keeping track of what you are not doing or are doing wrong. I don't blame my tejon for the frustrations I have encountered in gold detecting. The best way to describe my experience is like trying to change a watch battery with a mallet and pincers. Though you can change a watch battery with a mallet and pincers, aren't you better off employing more appropriate tools? The tejon was designed to be a relic hunter. It's unmatched at doing what it does best, and relic hunting is what the tejon does best. The tejon wasn't designed for the peculiarities of hunting gold.
I'm not saying that you can't use the machine for hunting gold. All i'm saying is that you have a lot of learning to do in order to get around the limitations of VLF. Still, I love my tejon.
