12 Weeks To Find First Gold (Persistence Pays).

[Pirate pete]

Hi mg another great post still adding to the file i think in a couple of months i should have enough to put into a book lol i might call it the gold orical lol what do you think i am really looking forward to meeting you next week and keep up the great work have to have enough for a hard back lol .

 

[Mickkat12]

Cheers for answering the questions , I'm hoping it didn't come across too encroaching just trying to gauge how you developed your skill set

keep up the good work !

 

[toecutta]

Hi Minelab Gold

Your kind hearted writings remind me of another individual that used to provide similar insights on another website a few years ago.. but they stopped due to... issues

Thank you very much for having the patience to publish your thoughts and experiences. While I am a little way north of the GT I am enjoying your observations, many of which hold true in many locations.

I am sure that many others also appreciate your time (and no man has a greater gift to give)

Cheers

toecutta (jason)

 

[xcvator]

Thanks for all this information MG
Just a dumb ? question from a newby, how would you go in the scrap yard area usin a VLF machine to discriminate past the rubbish ?

 

[Bjay]

I don't think ya an ever descriminate properly with a vlf machine when looking for gold . coin and relic shooting might be different but i dont know . I would never trust it ya could just walk away from the best nugget you'll ever find.

 

[Minelab Gold]

Thanks for all this information MG
Just a dumb ? question from a newby, how would you go in the scrap yard area usin a VLF machine to discriminate past the rubbish ?

Thanks for the question, just from experience I have had gold discriminate in the past well I should say overload in the past. I guess if you can get to that point of discrimination vs overload then you could persevere through area's like this. Minelab detectors measure two properties that being ferrous and conductive.

In my early days I would use discriminate until the day I had a target discriminate/overload and it was gold, thats what made me ask many questions to a lot of veteran prospectors regarding this. Hence this is where I learned about coil overload

Overload is usually a large target too close for the for the detector to interpret

In saying this I have only ever used Minelab and nothing else so not sure on other machines.

Oh and thats not a dumb question at all, thats how we all learn. As long as you are asking the right people - Some may say you ask a dumb question and you will get a dumb answer.

 

[Minelab Gold]

Hi All,

I thought to change the post up a little just to reflect on some images - makes us really look at when we hit the fields in our quest for the good stuff. When we look at how far we have come over the years. This is why I love prospecting with the best machines in the world - Minelab have produced and excelled in the metal detecting technology over the years by providing the best products for all types of prospectors.

They thrive on excellence and provide exactly what their customers require for all conditions. By delivering continuous improvements on their models and staying well ahead of the competition.

See below some images of past and present - when ever you are out in the fields looking for the good stuff - maybe it is 35+ Degrees flies annoying you like mad, sweat dripping off, the hole you are digging is maybe 8 inches in depth and you need a break to drink some fluids, take a drink keep the fluids up and reflect on these.

Lets take a look.

These guys hard at it - look at the rocks they have moved - all by hand, loading, washing and looking for color and 2 guys at the end moving away tailings. I will never ever complain about any hole I dig

We all like it out in the fields - peace and quiet, alone swinging our minelab machines maybe a few sounds from the wilderness.

When I looked at this image, I tried to work out which one is the safest miner, the guy at the bottom gets hit with big falling rocks, the guy at the top falls enough said. The extreme measures people go through for gold - this is modern day Ghana for you

So have we come a long way? Sure we have - I love this photo, reminds me of the padded shovel

The title to this is in the image - I was amazed reading this - I circled the worked area

When I look at all of these images above as previously mentioned this is why I choose detecting with minelab. Optimism goes a long way

Tell me your thoughts on any of the images

 

[Pirate pete]

I love detecting and am always astounded as to the lengths they went too to find the yellow stuff heath and safety would of had a heart attack in the old days,when we come across an old grave yard we always take the time to have a look and you can see the age of the guys and gals and kids that died on the fields shows you how hard and deadly it was in the past, and how many died for their dream of the big strike.I was surprised to find out that a lot of prospectors died in the Whipsticks in the early days they just got lost and died of dehydration or disease make you think we complain about a how long we drive to the field and they walked it lol and when you look at the amount of material they move blows my mind ,all I can say is they were better men then I .

Another thought provoking Post MG thanks .

 

[ProspectorPete]

Hi there Minelab Gold, your posts have got me back to being excited about detecting again after giving it away last year out of frustration and lack of time, I've just purchased a Makro Gold Racer a couple of weeks ago to start/learn on the small stuff again and hopefully will add a GPX next year if all goes well, the info you have shared about reading the ground and such goes a long way to help the curiosity and confidence factors when standing at some workings in the middle of the bush scratching your head wondering what went on 100+ years ago and where do I start now.
I headed out to a spot on Tuesday the wife and I have started camping at recently, we had not prospected there as yet but with the new detector in hand I did some research on the location the night before and I already knew about the deep reef workings on top of the surrounding hills and shallow workings in the gully's, even a dammed off gully where we camp with a 20-25 meter high mullock/tailings pile and some bits of old brick at the top end of the dam, turns out there was shafts to 300ft (some are still open), a 8 head stamper, a battery site where the big mullock pile is (the red bricks) and a puddler near by, I never knew about the puddler even though I've walked the area before, after arriving on Tuesday I walked across the dam wall which was breached in the middle and sure enough on the other side was the old puddler.
We only stayed for a few hours as we were smashed by mozzies, even Bushmans 80% Deet didn't stop them so will return for a more thorough search in a few weeks time.

Myself, like others here, just want to say thanks to sharing your knowledge and experience in a way that we can all understand, I wouldn't have researched my location to find out the history otherwise and I'm looking forward to getting back to spend more time reading the ground to hopefully have a better chance of finding my first detected piece of gold.

Here's a couple of pic's of the old puddler, complete with iron junk all around and within, next time I hope to clean out all the iron/junk and have a good slow detect around and in it.

and here is the dam wall in the gully next to the puddler, there's shallow alluvial workings either side of the wall right along this gully and you can also see workings up on the opposite hill on both sides, there's also costeans(?) right opposite where we camp where they were looking for the reef, there's quarts reef running pretty much from the other side of the wall right up past the puddler to the top of the hill behind me in the photo where the deep shafts are.
Most has been bulldozed but there's still enough there to make out where things were.

Again, thank you MG for kicking my interest off again and it's one of the main reasons I got back on the forum today after 'Gone Walkabout' for the last 10 months.

 

[Minelab Gold]

Hi Prospector Pete,

Great photo's - the puddler is in exceptional condition. And your write up explanation is great and glad you are back in the game. Keep positive all the time, being out in the field is the way you will hit that ground where your gold is waiting.

All the best - good luck on your journey - look forward to hearing from you in future

Regards

 

[Minelab Gold]

Hi All,

Back out in the field today had some pretty amazing targets - digging away 1 foot 2 foot 3 foot holes, the grounds are excellent and soft slightly moist from our wet season. Makes digging a whole lot quicker

3 foot holes some rusty stakes - and other rusty looking objects - seem to find a lot of pieces of round steel 30mm, 50mm to 100mm in length and mostly 8mm to 10mm diameter solid round bar. Still gets me what these were used for, not sharp on either end just a piece of solid rod

When I arrived at this location - I walked down along the side of a very shallow gully and noticed a section of test holes going off the main gully - I looked at this section with a slight undulation just off to the side and fired up the detector.

1. This was the section which I noticed - see how flat no workings and slightly goes uphill - directly behind me in this photo is the main shallow gully - maybe 600mm to 1mtr of depth where the old miners hit the wash dirt.

2. This is directly to the left of the flat section with no workings - pretty much just on the edge of the line of test holes/workings - maybe 1mtr from the base of the tree in these photo's you can see the target hole that I started to dig.

3. The grounds were covered with clay and only inches below this clay was some gravels

4. The piece was in this clump - you can see this is the top part of the hole - the soils and plant matter etc - so this target was only 2 inches below - this was the first target unearthed today. Always a good start

5. Just some of the things we have to battle with in the fields - I usually detect in front or beside then simply take a few minutes to move the branches to where I have just thoroughly detected

6. Beautiful sound here - I like to hear the nice smooth even sounds that dont scream too much - I dig everything but hearing certain tones increases the excitement level a little more. Scraped the top, I hit some red clays then the stuff we all love to hear on our pick rocks, and then we see- wash material sands, quartz, ironstone

And there we are a beautiful rust nugget

7. After digging a few more targets along the way some rust, lead, old split pin - I came across a screamer but near a tree - in between 4 test holes - the target was roughly 1 foot down

I couldnt believe it when I pulled it out of the ground just like Ric Savage would say BOOM BABY - this would be at the top of my list for best relic finds - the level of excitement was more than finding the piece of gold earlier - relics in great condition are so rewarding because we try to think who must have owned it, especially if we can distinguish the object. The person walking the gold fields with this pimped out walking stick. Green tarnish would indicate it is brass and being very heavy it must be solid brass head.

8. Another nice target here - see the marking on the ground - this was a tree branch - the target was maybe 1 foot down - musket ball - thats why it pays to move anything in your way.

9. A friendly only 10 mtrs away

10. After digging a few more targets - I came across a pile of dirt which looked to be conglomerate broken up and classified - you could see it was one big pile and one side smaller rock pieces and this side where the target was - the pieces were larger. When I found this target and scraped the top - then dug maybe 100mm down the target was out. You can see the arrows here there were actually 3 targets - When I pinpointed 2 targets I wasnt convinced that this is what came out of the pile - the issue that I had here was when I first located the target on the top of the pile I moved the dirt to one side with my foot. The problem was I didnt check the ground before I done this

When I removed the 2 black targets - I had trouble finding the third target because it must have went to the bottom of the loose stuff - I simply kicked dirt back into where I previously scraped and worked through it again. I wasnt convinced that the 2 previous targets were the one from the hole - I guess some people may just walk away after filling their hole and think the 2 targets were it - after an extensive search I heard the faint sound again and located it.

Found it after a few minutes - a piece of Gold in broken up Conglomerate - almost the last target for the day.

After cleaning

Today was one of those days - first target Gold - many deep holes and targets in between but pushed through digging all - an excellent condition relic and almost the last target for the day Gold.

The last target was closer to power lines and getting EMI interference, you just work between the interference to distinguish the solid - simply tuning it out when I was nearing and not using cancel to ensure maximum depth, you can tune them very well and get reasonably close without too much interference - I tune walk some then tune again and it keeps it to a minimal and surprisingly close to the power lines. I like these area's only because some people just cant stand the noise, some also dont know how to tune out, and also many detector brands that cant cope with EMI. This adds to our probability

All the best and thanks to all for your support on the thread - good luck, happy prospecting, as always be safe and well and talk soon.

 

[Dignit]

Great finds and a great day out. The dog walking stick head is a ripper. Will polish up a treat I'd expect. Thanks again for sharing. Cheers

 

[Mickkat12]

Thanks for the read a+
That dogs head is a cracker

 

[Pirate pete]

another great post MG ,More for the folder lol I am going out tomorrow to an area i have found a couple of nice nuggets both over 2grms but the place is full of trash we have deiced to go and swing there and dig everything we hear ,as a lot of the target come through as coil overload and we always put it down to rusty rubbish but I am not sure ,so we intend to clean the place for a few hours I have a feeling we have left some yellow targets there lol we will see tomorrow lol.
keep up the good work if it wasn't for these posts I wouldn't be going back to this spot I would have said its a junk pile, I maybe right but I maybe wrong lol .will Let you know how we go .

 

[Dignit]

Good luck Pirate Pete. Let us know how frustrated you get digging all the rubbish, and of course if you find any yella to make it all worthwhile.
Cheers

 

[Minelab Gold]

Arrived to a location today, beautiful weather that we had today. When I walked down towards a spot that I have been studying I found a nice spot to sit down, after walking a short distance. The area that I have been looking at there was previous gold found and 2 shallow gullies surrounding a small hillside

Rather than getting the detector fired up straight away as many do - I wanted to walk around to look at the way it had been worked, the majority of the workings are down the north side - the north east was a cutout into the hill with 3 levels.

The very top of this hill is a large surface area and the workings continue further towards the north from the top

I also noticed that the line of this continues east to west with various shallow gullies in between.

If you are standing on a hill looking north and the top is completely surfaced around the tree's, while you are looking down at the rocks noticing all the signs of gravels consolidated and unconsolidated. In front of you the workings continue to run down the north side of the hill after the surface area stops. And to the right in the side of the hill is 3 levels cut into the hillside, with larger water worn rocks mostly at the higher level. And to your left appears to be workings that run further up but mainly patches down the south side and appears to be only the undulated shallows. Majority of the workings are north down the hills into the gullies. Excellent we have verified the majority of the findings were east west running down the north slopes into the lower gully.

After reviewing this I can now add notes to my files and my google earth for any future outings in this area.

1. Its hard to see in these images but this is looking east - there are 3 levels cut into the hillside and at the very bottom is a gully running north south. Directly behind me is the hill running upwards maybe a 15 to 20 degree incline back to the surfaced hill top.

2. These are some images from the surfaced area, sometimes we see signs of machinery which have pushed these area's and we can see that it wasnt from the old miners - if it is close proximity to township sometimes they would push these area's to clean up old mine holes, also in high gravel area's they would also use the material for road base.

Today we have gravel quarry pits which is usually the more fine type for road base, in the early days they would use gravel from certain area's and often you would see in area's of the bush and around old workings that the area had been subjected to machinery removing the gravel, more modern gravel is a fine road base material. Instantly you think that someone has been here years ago and cleaned the area out of the gold. We can tell it is machinery and not old timers because the way the unconsolidated material is still banked around the tree's. These area's are great for anything around the tree's and the complete surface area which has a hard consolidation of gravel. Gold will sit on this and be extremely close to the top and be prepared for loud signals.

3. After swinging away on the surfaced area's I hit a target and was a reasonable sound, when I dug maybe 2 inches of unconsolidated gravel I hit the hard stuff. When I checked the hole the target was out - so it was very shallow but good sign it was on the hard base.

Very waterworn piece of gold - 3/4 up the north side of the hill on a hard based surfaced area

After Cleaning

4. After walking around and performing an analysis based on findings - I picked some area's of interest just to see what I could find in these area's. Dug some excellent targets 1 and 2 foot down - going through clays and hitting some wash material - to find some nice size pieces of lead. If they were gold it would have been some nice size 4 to 6 gram pieces. The piece of Gold found was after a long 4 hours, nothing yet in the cutout sections - that piece of gold was found on the north side slope surface area. Worked for this piece after the amount of targets taken today -

What does it tell us if we find 4 shallow pieces of lead in close proximity just through some clay and stopped at the hard rock level, means the guy was a bad shot and it would have been after the gold area was worked, lead will only travel so far. What does it tell us if we go through 6 inches of clay then we hit some large rocks and gravels and we dig another 6 to 8 inches of large rocks and gravels - there is no way a bullet would make it through that amount of material - so how did the lead get there - it was shot before the workings or possibly moved with the material during period of the ground being worked for gold.

Its amazing some of the finds and the depths we dig, thinking to ourselves on many targets - this has to be gold. I have learned over the years that it can be anything at that depth - we start to realize how much dirt the old timers moved in their days - but still to this day I am amazed when I find a target and think this is untouched virgin ground and fair enough a horse shoe 3 feet deep.

Workings closer to main roads and houses are usually good for less bullets and shells.

Some places that I have found bullet shells - I say who come's shooting here must be keen, the angle of the hillside is almost too steep for me to stand on - it would easily be 60+ degree angle - and I think the person who is standing here shooting is the person who is as keen as me looking for gold.

If only the gold fields were gold only fields

Hope you all had a great day today - enjoy

 

[Pirate pete]

Well again a very interesting post I have an area i want to have a swing on that has been stepped but will leave it till after the training day as I may have a bit more knowledge as to what i am looking for .By the way went to my junk area yesterday and yep I was wrong, dug about thirty holes and found lots of rusty bit of cans a couple of buckshot and the ends of threaded nails so it not old junk and have decided that I am done with this area lol as I have got enough junk . looking forward to next Saturday out the the field with MG should be a very interesting day .

 

[Minelab Gold]

dug about thirty holes and found lots of rusty bit of cans a couple of buckshot and the ends of threaded nails so it not old junk and have decided that I am done with this area lol as I have got enough junk.

Hi Pirate Pete,

Thanks for sharing, Its good that you were persistent in that area to dig 30 targets knowing from past experience that it has majority of trash items. A lot of times in the gold fields as you would know we come across these area's that are just full of trash objects, and sometimes we can have area's where we battle even finding a target. Its good sometimes to get into the camp grounds just on the side of workings or near worked area's - by distinguishing objects from the ground we can pinpoint an area as camp ground. One issue is if its rust then most times its hard to verify what the exact object is due to deteriorating. We keep these area's on our radar for future outings - just to mix it up a bit we can always dig a few potential relics then go to the other higher probable gold area's and continue to work a few targets out of the camp area's.

Having these area's which we know by experience carries mainly rusty or even artifact's from the old mining days can be rewarding not only for gold if a miner has dropped some in his travels - but also unearthing items from the past mining days of historical significance, which can be good to drop into local collectors, museums, universities within the area for the students studying mining history, if anyone is unsure many local council's can point you in the direction for any artifacts found to get them to a good home of preservation for many future generations to see.

I will have the time and GPS Co-Ords PM'd to all Nov 5th group by this coming Wednesday.

Enjoy

 

[Pirate pete]

Thanks for the update looking forward to this weekend putting a face to the handle lol so to speak .

 

[Minelab Gold]

Hi All,

Just updating thread with some interesting findings yesterday - I have been looking at a particular hill - with no signs of workings and after exploring the area I narrowed down a search along the north east side of this hill.

When I walked around the hillside reading the grounds I noticed some interesting findings - something that I have never seen anywhere in this area. There was some signs of outcrops only just poking out of the surface - these werent there 5 years ago which goes to show how much water erosion has occurred in a short time - schist, sandstone and calcrete hard white clay outcrop.

As I continued further around the hillside I noticed the gravels, some red clay area's about 3/4 up the hillside. The quartz, schist, iron oxide was appearing to be more abundant on this particular area, when I noticed the quartz scattering I found signs of some quartz outcrop in the host rock schist - the easiest way to track down outcrop is to follow the eroding rocks and falling downwards on the slope until they are no more.

I fired up the detector and started prospecting

1. This image is the hillside - you can see its not a very steep incline but enough to work the legs - when I look at these area's for prospecting I pick lines not running upwards but across the hill face - this is the best way rather than upwards/downwards until you have that potential target - then it pays to work the area from outcrop to bottom - trying to draw a picture of potential gold distribution maybe by water or simply from erosion.

2. Also keep your eyes open for area's with minimal growth - these are usually signs of very low top soil and being a shallow clay area etc

3. Before finding this target I had unearthed 3 small rusty objects, as I continued a few meters this target was below the top soil - then into the gravel wash and just as I hit the red clay the target was in the pile.

4. When you look at this image of the target - you can see even traces of top soil sands - very light wash material - this was a very shallow target on top of the red clay - it would have been only 6 inches down. What makes it even better is there are no workings at all here so we are in virgin territory - what would make this area even better is if we can find the rough reefy gold - this piece appears slight water worn but still has the signs of not traveling too far from its origin.

5. As I continued further around - I thought to take this photo for you and scrape some material away - these are also things to keep your eye open for to distinguish ground depth and makeup - here is a clear sign of red clay level and the top soil and what is above the red clay. Blue Arrow is the top soils compost type matter - Yellow is the gold bearing wash material - quartz, sands, iron associated rock and host rock from potential reef. Red arrow is the clay level - this would have only been 10 inches below surface which is excellent for detecting these shallow area's

6. As I continued further along this hill side - maybe 20 mtrs further from the last gold target still working the same line height sideways around this slope - the rocks werent noticeable - but further along they appeared again on the surface - see in these images back around the edges of the tree's I would presume the outcrops are deeper through the section where it went a bit lighter. I will need to inspect the lower parts of this slope - I had another nice target same line height as previous and near a tree which has the signs of quartz pushing outwards as the tree grows. This target was maybe 3 inches below but not all the way on the clay level it was closer to the top, it would have been 4 inches above the clay level.

7. This piece of Gold again for its size has the water worn markings but also reef markings from its host rock. If I choose a line above this and work it thoroughly then it may well point towards an area between this where this gold has poked itself out from the hillside. Hopefully I can update this thread with findings of higher and lower to show you all.

8. Gold after cleaning

9. This is what I was talking about earlier - I have never found this rock type anywhere here in all these years - igneous diorite

10. I thought to also post these up - a couple of days prior - I found these in one hole - I have found many of these over the years in the GT, for anyone who needs to know they are brass Chinese buttons - they used mainly for their Robes or even Material Belts - these were even used for jewelry and because Chinese used certain objects not just entirely for one purpose - they can also be defined as tiger bells - used for chimes or even pet necklace.

I hope you all enjoy the images and some details within the post.