Anyone want to get into metal detecting / nugget shooting?

[1000-oaks]

A couple years ago I put together a nice Fisher F19 kit to hunt nuggets in the high desert and local mountains, but never have time to do it. Also, creation of the San Gabriel National Monument put an end to hobby gold prospecting locally.

If anyone is interested, I can make a list of all the gear and figure out a fair price.

Edit: Putting a hold on selling it, just remembered a spot I've been wanting to sweep that has some potential.

[splat]

Is it as good as a White detector? I been looking cause I know places in NNV where you can walk along and get nuggets in the sand.

I got skis and binding to trade, too, dood.

[1000-oaks]

The F19 isn't as specialized as a Fisher Gold Bug, but it's an excellent all-around detector that also does well with gold. It's a legit detector, not the shit you find at sporting goods stores.
https://youtu.be/BvMgyk2SAL8

I bought several small nuggets to use as test targets (vacuum packed in 2" squares of shrink wrap so they're easy to recover after you bury them) after you ground balance for a new area, so you know what you're looking for on the LCD and tone. You can filter out iron objects with the discrimination settings, though lead birdshot and bullets read the same as nuggets would. That goes for any detector though. I pulled about 200 bullets out of a popular panning spot in Santa Clarita when the water was low, apparently people liked to shoot at the rock wall above the stream during the last 100 years.

[splat]

Not much iron. They're just laying in/under in the sand. It doesn't differentiate between gold and iron in small amounts,ie, black sand?

I worked in prospecting, exploration, and assaying for a few years. Staked claims, ran drill rigs, assayed in labs, dredged, did my own blasting, etc. Used to pour 100,000 ounces in the ladder with the guys in the refineries at newmont and barrick because I sold them the giant silicon carbide crucible it was melted in.

Gimme a call tomorrow, dude.

[1000-oaks]

Not much iron. They're just laying in/under in the sand. it doesn't differentiate between goold and iron?

Oh it absolutely differentiates. If they number on the LCD is less than 40 or so, it's iron. If it's around 48-53 it's gold (or an aluminum pull tab), if it's in the 80's it's a dime or quarter. High 80's, a silver coin (if memory serves). Forget what pennies and nickels read. Trash sometimes (foil, mylar wrappers, etc) makes you think it's something it's not though, so you're never 100% sure until you dig it up. Or you can have two metals next to each other to confuse things. Could be trash next to a nugget, lol.

[Core Shot]

Not much iron. They're just laying in/under in the sand. it doesn't differentiate between gold and iron in small amounts,ie, black sand?

I worked in prospecting, exploration, and assaying for a few years. Staked claims, ran drill rigs, assayed in labs, dredged, did my own blasting, etc. Used to pour 100,000 ounces in the ladder with the guys in the refineries at newmont and barrick because I sold them the giant silicon carbide crucible it was melted in.

Jeebus pat, what haven’t you done?

I’m waiting for the autobiography

[splat]

I've always pivoted to do whatever interested me the most. Some old mining buds of mine appropriated a mine with 750K ounces of free gold just 40 miles out of Reno when the mining company holding the claims bk'd and didn't file to keep the cliams. it's the oldest operating mine in Nevada and just keeps putting out. Mining company broke their pick after paying for all the exploration and made a bonehead move on the extraction side that was their financial death. My buds found all the drill and assay reports in the office and started digging. Free gold is rare these days. Most mining in NV is microscopic and extracted through the heap leach cyanide process and runs around .04 ounces a ton. Buds get as much as 100 ounces a ton on this property. I had a 20 acre claim there I sold to the mining company for $50K right before they bk'd because my claim was dead in the middle of all the claims. Most money I ever made mining. heh. Now my buds own my old claim.

[margotron]

So fill me in a little. I've been wanting to get into gold as a hobby, sounds like so much fun. How does this play with water ie streams? Do you strictly go scout old mine sites?

[margotron]

what a rabbit hole. im like 5 hours deep into youtube videos

[1000-oaks]

^ Lol, for sure. I'm putting a hold on selling it, just remembered a spot I need to sweep first that I've been eyeballing for a couple years.

Good hobby for a retired guy, went to a local detector club meeting a couple years ago and at 46 was the youngest guy in the room. The old-timer beach guys go out every day.

[1000-oaks]

what a rabbit hole. im like 5 hours deep into youtube videos

For the hobbyist, and depending where you are, stream banks are probably your best bet. Anyplace you can find bedrock benches, you can detect the cracks. Also learn some geology so you can try to identify ancient rivers that carried gold, rivers so old they were there before the current mountains formed. It's pretty mind blowing trying to think that far back in time. Don't bother trying areas that haven't produced in the past; there probably isn't a square foot of soil in the US that some professional prospector hasn't already looked at at some point during the last 200 years.

Like Pat said, the big operations are churning through acres of rock for tiny grains that are too small for a detector to find. There's actually a lot of gold out there, but the work to get it is more than it's worth. For example, there's a canyon not far from me that has quite a bit sitting on the bedrock, but it's under 80 feet of rocks and gravel. Also, at least in SoCal, anywhere that gold has been found is almost always deemed a "critical Wilderness area". No gold, no Wilderness designation. It's almost as if the wilderness folks just pulled up a map of gold bearing areas and went to work with the legislators. Anyhow, the history of gold mining in California is really fascinating once you start looking into it.

[splat]

But, still, based on what I've seen, there are some legit places where you could find a lb of gold nugget or gold-laden rock in the nv desert. I used to sell assaying and refining supplies to every gold mine west of the rockies. Some times those heap leach mines woud hit a pocket of 1,500 ounce per ton gold right below the surface. The place I know where the nuggets are in the sand is due south of two of the richest mines that were around (they're gone now, but the free gold they produced was bigtime in their days). And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the nugget fields are along a line straight south and between those old producers and some other currently operating mines. I have shittons of old books on gold in nv. And I love the desert. Let me know if you want to talk later, 1000 oaks.

[MakersTeleMark]

There are a couple things that never leave my car. A panning setup is one of them.