Whites V/sat performance in NorCal rivers?

[Sean.C]

I'm interested in picking up one of the cheaper gold machines like a v/sat or gm3 but I read somewhere that they don't do well with the mineralization around the river banks. Does anyone have experience with these machines? I do alot of sluicing and was hoping to use it to find some black sand deposits and also to try my luck at some nugget shooting. Is it better to nugget shoot down near the water or up above the flood line on the mountain side? Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Digger Bob]

Either of those machines will do well in finding the black sand deposits as well as nugget shooting the bedrock cracks along a creek.
The main problem with any stream bed and these machines are the hot rocks. A stream bed is a conglomeration of all the different kinds of rocks that have washed down over the millenium. So, finding and maintaining a consistent ground balance setting can be impossible since you are passing the loop over so many different concentrations of minerals.
These machines are not for those of little patience. No auto or ground tracking here, it's all manual. Then throw in all the trash that has washed down and collected in the same pockets as the gold and you have a frustrating combination. You must dig everything although some iron can be identified.
My suggestion would be to concentrate your efforts on only the exposed bedrock along the waters edge. And don't try to detect under the water. Recovering a target you can't see under water is impossible. Forget the sand bars or areas of amassed cobble, rock, or dirt. Work the high areas, especially any dry washes that feed into the main stream. That's where the gold is coming from and your best bet. Check any old tailings you come across. If a piece of quartz gives you a signal, save that one and break it open. Any others are liable to be "leverite".

Digger Bob

 

[Sean.C]

Thanks for the info Digger Bob. I ended up buying a goldmaster V/sat for 175.00 and I am eagerly awaiting its arrival.

When looking for the higher concentrations of black sands would i be looking for an overload signal? I built a hand dredge that feeds into a bucket and was hoping to use my new detector in combination with that. The area i frequent is pretty remote so i doubt there is much modern trash but i guess you never know what the old timers left behind.

There's a lot of questions i wanna ask regarding mineralization and performance but I'm guessing they are best answered by going out and learning my new machine. If anyone has any other advice other than patience and persistence please feel free to offer it up. I'm trying to absorb as much as i can before i get out there.

 

[succ33d]

I never used my Gm3 for black sand location.You could ground balance the detector on a known black sand concentration and record the setting then use that as a baseline, probably not worth the effort with out digital mineralization id ability. My goal was to have a slight positive ground balance setting to the ground matrix and to find and then exploit and snipe the better gold traps, i.e natural riffles, cracks in bedrock. The gain setting is critical on the GM 2, if it is set too high in difficult ground or around hot rocks it will drive you nuts. Most gold nuggets are small, they tend sound off smoother and softer among iron trash or modern trash. Sometimes you just know it's gold and it's small lead bullet or rusty boot tack. If there's gold and not much trash pm me. lol, btw make sure to bring a super magnet and attach it to you pick / digger, they are a must have tool. HH

 

[Aussie MXT]

I use my MXT to find the black sand. Works well. When I hit a crack with lots of hot rocks I turn the vsat right up and go slow over them. It will usuall identify each separate signal and tell you if there's a good one there. Yep wave the super magnet pic in there and take out half your junk targets and check it again. Good stuff.

On you tube there's a video called "Finding gold V" by 'flagold' check it out he shows you how to use your detector to locate the black sands and work them.

Dicko..

 

[Sean.C]

Thanks a ton for that video Aussie, it was a great watch. It looks like it is gonna be difficult for me to use my V/sat to locate the black sand as it doesnt have the ID screen to track the minerals like the GMT and MXT.

 

[bearkat4160]

With concentrations of black sand...and your detector on manual grd bal and manual threshold, your detectors threshold will go silent when coming accross good concentrations of black sand. Old school way. PI's will ignore black sand. Do this with VLF's.

Alan