Fisher Gold Bug 2 information and questions

Hi guy's,

Just wondering if anyone's got one?. Do you rate it? are they any good for Aussie conditions? Thinking of getting one would be using mostly around Tuena and possibly down in Tassie in the future.


Cheers

Colin

i have one have the 3 coils 6 inch is the best for fine gold
Easy to use light never had soil to hot for it but it does pick up some hot rocks and is not a minelab
good in dry creek beds and shallow ground

Hi Col...had a gold bug 1 for a lot of years and used it mainly on the beach. The 2 is slightly more refined and quite a capable machine on the shallow small stuff where the mineralization is quite low....Around the Tuena area and certainly in the Vic Golden triangle the mineralization will limit the machine drastically...great as a back up machine but not as a primary machine for gold..Cheers Wal.

No worries guy's I'll keep looking.
I've also been looking an the lower end PI detectors but not sure wifey will let me spend upwards of a grand

Cheers

Col

Hi Colin&Lee, Check out Jack langes we site, he has 2 gold snoops and I'm not sure what the other one is. He imports them in then modifies them to suit Australian conditions. Mick

As above, the 6" is the master... 10" has its uses, 14" i found useful on a push site in WA a few years ago.. Picked up a nice 1.1Oz nuggy with it.. at about 7"..

U could bump up the price to the Garrett Infinium with the 8" mono coil. Set u back a grand n a half. But that'd get u a ground tracking PI thats reasonable on small gold n good just about anywhere to use. Havent tested it on the tiny gold under 1/2 g but. Good for 1g and up.

The C-scope 4pi is great for beachwork but not for gold hunting. Doesnt get the small stuff. Maybe if the coil is changed to a smaller coil, have to test that.
But it doesnt have ground tracking so no good inland anyway.

not sure about that one but I have a gold snoop pro from jack lang. haven't found any nuggets but coins and ring pulls I have one ring pull was a foot down in clay

I have a Gold Bug 2 and am trying to get the hang of it.

Do you guys dig every target or switch it over to iron discriminate to see if you should first?

What settings do your recommend?

I am looking at getting a fisher gold aswell hoping to find some gold I am new to the game aswell

This goldbug along with the gmt are the only vlf machines
I suggest for the goldfields if you want a vlf. The goldbug
2 is a legendary Unit has been around for a long time.

For gold hunting the 6" coil is the one to use.

Why I suggest only these 2 vlfs is because they find small
Gold others won't find or will struggle to find due to the
high Frequency these machines run at.

The added bonus is the goldbug can be used for micro
Jewellery hunting down on a sandy beach volleyball court
Where you may find thin gold chains or bits of earings etc.

as a GMT user id consider whites option as they build a remarkable machine with auto trac.
or hold off a few weeks whites might have something better to offer around the same price.

Manual ground balancing is not difficult once you master
it though but it depends on what you need.

I searched the net for quite a while and decided to buy a Gold Bug 2 based on what I had read on various forums only to be a little disapointed with the performance of the machine in mineralised ground and would say to anybody now to save a little longer and purchase a mid range pulse induction machine for a first buy and you will be using a much more capable machine.

Dave.m said:

I searched the net for quite a while and decided to buy a Gold Bug 2 based on what I had read on various forums only to be a little disapointed with the performance of the machine in mineralised ground and would say to anybody now to save a little longer and purchase a mid range pulse induction machine for a first buy and you will be using a much more capable machine.

Click to expand...

The Goldbug2 and the GMT have there place.

These are extremely sensitive detectors that need to be used only at certain gold fields. If you are going to go wondering around Amherst or Talbot for
example or behind the reservoir in Maryborough here in Victoria think again.

The areas you need to target is extremely shallow ground that was rich in Gold and around rich areas with mullock heaps.

You now can imagine the issues we all faced back in the 90's where we had limited choices.

One of the issues is ironestone and with my 3500 I am still detecting these.

You can go Micro Jewelry hunting by hitting the volleyball courts on a sandy beach looking for tiny gold jewelery.

The most common issue of running these high frequency dectectors in highly minerlised areas, is the temptation to run the sensitivity up way too high, with the mistaken intention of trying to achieve more depth. Sensitivity should be set to suite the mineralisation in that particular area, and to achieve quiet, stable background threshold, sometimes with sensitivity set from a third to halfway setting. Most instructions, in particular the Whites ones written by Jimmy Sierra Normandi, go to great pains to explain this, and as a result, finds should increase, albeit at the expense of some detection depth.

Have always loved how the Whites machine were built like tanks, hence why a lot of the older models are still in operation today, and are still picking up gold. On the same token, I am still amazed at how smaller gold can be picked up by the GB2, nothing else on the market has that capability, other than the Falcon MD20, which is not really usable as a stand alone detector. Some of the pieces of gold from pipe clay in the local SA fields found with the GB2, almost require magnifying glass to see them.

There is plenty of whites GMT's up for grabs second hand and hardly used for $600-$800.
Iv found as small as .01 gram and heaps of them in auto track who's interest waisting time digging that? It's a waist of time, fun for the first 10 bits. Those that love finding fly $hit the whites GMT in the rite hands is superior over any other detector on tiny gold under 0.1 gram
Handles mineralization better and has the choice of manual or auto track, imagine the better depth and size if you used manual. Here's a pick to show you I'm not full of it.

Salt on left and dress pin on right
You can set the ground balance to 0 and use it on the beach easy.
Can also turn down the gain and use it in the kids playground .

Hi I have the Bug cant fault it, hubby has mine lab 5000 and I was sick of digging, Looked around and picked the bug to work with the 5000 great set up I find as much rubbish with the bug as the 5 but the glory is the 5 has 14inch coil detects the gold easy but once you start digging the big coil becomes a pain trying to target in, hence the bug picks it up pin point bang got it so quick.
Its a great machine for this sort of set up.

I am currently waiting on delivery of my new Fisher Gold Bug 2 DP with 11" and 5"" coils. I spent 20 years detecting for gold up to 2000, and have been fishing for the last 14-15 years. Just got the bug again, and any info anybody can give me regarding my new detector would be a big help. Inkow they must have changed since my original Gold Bug and Minelab SD2000.

Hi Simmo, did you buy it from a dealer?