12 Weeks To Find First Gold (Persistence Pays).

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hi mg if you give up detecting you could make a living as a photographer. the elite,s are great but i changed over to the evo as it is not so heat sensitive i will be very interested to see how you go through the middle of the day in the warmer weather we now have. merry xmas to all JIM
 
reynard said:
hi mg if you give up detecting you could make a living as a photographer. the elite,s are great but i changed over to the evo as it is not so heat sensitive i will be very interested to see how you go through the middle of the day in the warmer weather we now have. merry xmas to all JIM

Hi Jim,
Thanks. you know what its like using GP3000/GP3500 all the little analogue chatters and sounds we would hear with them, and constantly having to go back over that same little spot a few times just to be sure it was a false signal, heat change, ground noise, or sporadic emi noise that was coming through the machine. Scratch, Dig, Verify, Refill, Move on

I have found with the GPX and Elite on the warmest day so far I havent experienced it to be more noisy, only time of day. But compared to the analogue its only a very small percentage. I also experienced this with the GP3500 for many years, and I wouldnt put it down to heat but it was more so the time of the day in every month or season, I always assumed it was gravity, earth rotation, emi and changes in the atmosphere, crikey for all I know it could have even been the exact time of the day that the international space station was doing its thing :) causing this consistent instability rather than only on the hot days and heat, it always appeared mid to late arvo most days in my area and maybe a little more in the hottest days. I guess we only get 3 noises, Ground Noise, Emi Noise and Detector Noise. But what I do know is we still find gold Minelab Coiltek N/F Detech DD Mono

I guess if it was that bad and the heat was the issue - I would just go down to the local pressure relief valve shop and buy one or even 2 and get the trusty new 10mm drill bit and whack it in each side so then I have 2 reliefs :)

I dont think its loud enough to mask out any signals - in saying that I am use to the little noises and if a little chatter or change in threshold from weather soil or detector is heard I always scan back over that spot a couple of times just to be sure.

What I am finding though is the GPX with the Mono in Enhance I am digging a few more ground noise targets. Some are that solid and appear to be a confined solid response, that I am 100% sure it was a target, on the GP3500 with the DD Pro these same solid noises were indeed a target. As always though if in doubt scratch dig inspect balance refill and move on. Doesn't hurt to scratch to see :)

I always make a reason to find a target rather than making a reason not to find one - at least walking away I know that it was ground noise, its quite funny sometimes I will dig 6 inches, sound is still there, still responsively solid to be a target, dig another 4 or so inches and the sound is not getting much stronger damn gotta be ground noise, balance on the material removed from the hole - and boom response has gone.

But I say to myself well it could have been a target based on the response - thats why I like to find the targets rather than dismiss before at least a scratch, I never walk away until verified - most of these times I will balance around the area where I get these responses from each side of where the hole is going to be dug. And it is still there - so I need to inspect why. Only to find this concentration of mineral is contained within this small area. Also lately when inspecting sometimes a couple of inches was all it takes to break the concentration of ground noise, targets gone - refill move on.

Some ground noise targets are just beautiful and you dont want them to go away :)

I have also found that the GP3500 with the DD was pretty responsive to red clay ground noise a lot more, but the GPX with the Elite Mono appears to be more stable in these conditions. As for other hot spots well the Elite is just too sensitive as a lot of Mono's are when you put them on the rich high mineralized hot rock areas, these ironstone pebbles are just like throwing a heap of little rust ball everywhere thats how rich some of these hot rocks are.

Sometimes with a Mono in these super rich spots the key is to keep the coil above the ground by an inch, so the coil doesnt get too saturated with the high mineralized ground. Its quite difficult to do because when you walk the slightest change in height will send the detector crazy, much like sitting your coil over a target and going up down up down. Just takes practice and moving somewhat slower. You can also balance on these hot rocks with the usual pump of 100mm to 20mm until balanced which is usually pretty quick a few seconds, then the last balance stage you can use the little pump action 10mm to 30mm to try to achieve balancing out these richer little threshold changes from the mineral. If you test it enough on these spots you will hear that it does actually gain a better balance.

I also have found that in some of these area's not all area's are the same as we know - but the one in particular is the mullocks and grounds with those tiny little marble or little pebble size balls of ironstone, and they send the detector into a frenzy of sounds, you know the type of grounds and mullocks where it is reasonably solid and if you walk on them without too much care your feet will end up going out from under you. I have done this over many years, not fallen over but taken much care hah - I simply scrape the little pebbles from the surface and it quietens the ground considerably - its only enough to remove the top surface ones because they appear to be making the most noise. Rather than trying to persevere through medium to solid response - it can help to bring the level down to a low mineral response helping to listen for above what you need. Little pump action after a normal ground balance and its amazing how quiet you can get it.

Anything you can do to gain an advantage is all well worth it I think
 
Wishfull said:
MG love those pictures, a big well done mate. What brand of usb microscope are you using ?

Hi Wishful,

Thanks glad you enjoyed them - looks good on the small USB unit

The small USB Microscope used is the cheap Ebay 50x 500x version - I modified the stand for stability. Its good for quick image capture but annoying on the focus, I only got this to check quality and surprisingly it does capture a clear image.
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/500X-8-D...676730?hash=item280f8e503a:g:yCgAAOSwa-dWlKpa

I also have a Celestron 40x 1500x Stereo Microscope - which doesnt have the USB or Image Capture built in - but looking to one day get the Digital Retina 16mp Microscope camera attachment for it. This unit is awesome for inspecting for any gold crystal formations or structures.

Cheers M.G
 
I just added a weight on the backside of the adjustable base. Due to such a small base and not much weight - the unit with the camera was top heavy and pretty falls over even with the slightest movement.

Maybe one day I will add an adjustable height mechanism - this unit you pretty much have 2 swivel points for adjusting the height and angle - but would prefer something that can easily wind up and down. I guess one bonusm it is versatile and can be maneuvered around or on large objects - where as other solid microscopes can only have a particular size object under them.

:)
 
Hey guys,

Thought I would get a couple of hours in before dark, I went out at around 6:30 just after we had that nice cool wind come through. Working on the east side of a hill area where I have previously found gold.

The worst part about this hill area is even when you tune out the EMI which we get when the coil is somewhat sideways - still appears to get some form of EMI - well working this side of the hill you can see the angle which the coil would constantly be at rather than a flat area with every now and then having to follow a contour which makes the coil on a bit of an angle.

1. Here you can see the angle of this hill - would be between 35 to 45 degree - makes the coil a bit more unstable with the electro interference received

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2. Well persevered for about 15 minutes and there we are the first target for the late arvo prospect. Decent depth to this hole - target wasnt screaming but a nice smooth mellow soft response
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3. First target - on the coil and poking out the side
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Today I also took out my brother who was swinging away on the GP35 with the 11" Elite - and his first few targets were just the general junk rust.

When I had this target in the ground I got him over to test the sensitivity with the 11 on GP35 - and he could distinguish the target as a response - the GP35 interpreted just fine. So I dug down to the target and he stayed along while we got closer and he inspected the signal while we took a few inches at a time until it was out.

Well the next few targets that I had got were just a few on top surface type rust but managed to clean them away so the ground was clean in and around the area to continue detecting - then I was onto another loud signal which again appeared to be the general rust on top.

And what do you know - I hear this voice in the bush only 20 meters away yell out- Eureka I got one - so I headed over to take photo's like I do and here he is with the big grin on his face.

4. He got this piece right beside the workings - maybe 4 to 5 inches deep
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So yeah was a good couple of hours out with the Bro

5. I also got this target which appeared a bit not natural - but had me wondering what the sound could be inside it - I cracked it out in the bush and it had a small piece of lead inside it.
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All up dug about 6 or so targets - just good to get out there.

Here is the gold all cleaned up - not sure on weight havent weighed it just straight in the gold collection. I would guesstimate 0.9g total - not big but still pretty cool looking little pieces.

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Anyway I'm out for a few days now guys, don't think I will be in the fields tomorrow bit hot

Looking forward to Monday onward to get back out to my favorite spot - the last day I was there was late almost dark when I hit those last 2 signals and one was the nice specimen and other small nugget.

Enjoy
 
Hey All,

Hope you had a great Christmas day, and ate plenty of food.

I was looking forward to today, heading back out to that area where I have found gold everyday except for one. Well today was no different and keeps adding to the consistent findings here. Hit the area at roughly 2:15pm today - nice cloud coverage, and cool enough to swing all afternoon. Managed to get the machine running stable at 11 RX and 9 Stab - Since having the GPX I have only been able to run 9 RX, 7-8 Stab, maximum before it gets too unstable. Today was purring nice

Although today the majority of the gold was smaller in size, for the pieces that I found, but nevertheless still gold. And extremely happy with the sensitivity and depth this Elite gets.

Today I was focusing on 2 mullock heaps, and a flat section which is roughly 15 meters wide and maybe 20 meters in length - not a very big section, and also the mullocks were roughly 12 meters long by 3 or so meters wide. And the second mullock maybe half this size.

As you can see from these dimensions - or ground that I covered is very small. And well contained so not much walking or excessive ground coverage. Just a nice even steady and slow swing taking it a few inches at a time.

Lets see the results from this meticulous speed and coverage.

1. First target for the day - after a couple of small ground noises that I inspected, was this small piece
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2. Second target only a couple of feet from the first.
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3. After a small piece of lead, and a rust nugget 1 foot deep in the base side of a mullock, out came this one for the 5th target
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4. This was the 3rd last piece of gold for today, my camera went flat earlier and I managed to get it running for these last images.
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All other targets in between - I couldnt get the images because Camera went flat.

Let me explain the findings anyway - most of todays gold was all very small in size, and only varied from 1 to 3 inches deep. One piece is gold encased in an ironstone ball, close to surface screamed like a 0.22 lead on top - appears to have a little weight, maybe 1.5g havent weight or done S/G - might just throw it in the gold collection.

As mentioned earlier, today I was taking it extremely slow listening for those slight little changes, any change in threshold back over slowly with the coil.

I did however get about 10 or so responses that needed a scrape just to be sure if it was a target. Also a few ground noise signals from red clay which were inspected verified and target dismissed as ground noise, after digging some depth and the target slowly gets softer as the mineral in the clay is broken up.

So after today see below images for the gold found, when I got home I took an image of the gold uncleaned.

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Gold after cleaning - the little ironball looks to have some specs on a few sides. Pretty cool

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14 pieces in total, with maybe 5 or so other targets, lead rust etc

Looking forward to testing on the other 50 or so mullocks left.

Hope you enjoy the images

Dont forget to head over and post your likes on the December Find of the Month :)

Regards M.G
 
HoudiniHarry said:
Hi MG love your finds, but I thought we had all agreed you were going to stay home for a few months to allow others to find some yellow stuff. :)

Cheers

Hah nice one - I heard that I should take up photography for a year or 2 years.

I might even take a year off here and prospect around Bendigo :)

Cheers
 
Hi MG if your heading out Bendigo way let me know and you can show me how you do this consistently I have found gold around Bendigo but very very small and very hit and miss thats why I go other places (with the same results lol) great post again and glad to see your brother is now swing .
 
Minelab Gold said:
HoudiniHarry said:
Hi MG love your finds, but I thought we had all agreed you were going to stay home for a few months to allow others to find some yellow stuff. :)

Cheers

Hah nice one - I heard that I should take up photography for a year or 2 years.

I might even take a year off here and prospect around Bendigo :)

Cheers

Photography or Gold tours. for two or maybe three years. But I really think Bendigo would be far to far for you to travel.
Think of the wear and tear on your vehicle and travel time.
Also I am sure you would miss your family and freinds :)

But really I dont mind you having a look around Bendigo. Just dont bring your detector .

Cheers
 
Yes I had not thought of that. Maybe the best would be he retires and moves into photography or Gold tourism.

I am sure MG would be happy take some well deserved time off with the family and start polishing his finds.
This will take him months I am sure.
 
Gold Tours = Take 10 or so people away on a great adventure, eat food and drink, share some stories, maybe a camp fire or 2, get paid bulk loads of money to do it, find potential gold area's to prospect for a day or 2, when they find gold, move to next location. Surveying at it's best.

Always made me wonder about some tours lol

Yeah Bendigo too far west from me :) - plus vehicle wear and tear for sure. I would need to public transport that one, which means dont take detector. So I would need to just use Houdini Harry's detector, while I am there. :)

How does this sound Harry, me find big target you dig out big gold. Next one you find big target, me dig out big gold. We can take in turns on digging out big pieces of gold if you like. hah need to be optimistic

Thanks Bigwave - how great would the welcome stranger be, I would need yours and Harry's help to lift it out though. Hah

Anyway I am heading out shortly for a swing - enjoy and talk with you later when I return.

Regards M.G
 
Hi fellow yellow hunters,

Just updating thread with some outstanding findings today, you will see what I mean by outstanding when you get to the end, enjoy. :)

Well the day was a bit muggy and a few drops of rain. Enough to put the plastic bag over the control box, Arrived at the location around 2:45pm today. After the long trek into the bush. Finally arrived at the spot and had the usual drink break, suited back up ready to see what the afternoon will bring.

After firing up the machine little EMI - quick tune and balance, final adjustment of the settings and away I was.

I also took my brother out again swinging away on the GP3500 with the 11" Elite. Before I post up the finds let me share with you something funny about today, my brother is aware of the settings on the GP3500 as he use to come out with me when I only had the GP3500 - I would let him have a swing when I wanted a break, or to at least not feel like I was not involving him. He use to have a ball just following along, checking out the grounds, and also using the pin pointer when I would find targets, we would share on digging and getting the targets out etc etc.

So he has a pretty good understanding of the machine, but never touched the dials or buttons, I guess because he always seen how many pieces of gold I would find that he always knew the detector is setup pretty much perfect.

So today after about 1 1/2 hours he was walking over towards me around this lower section, so I switched off my detector and headed over to see how he was going, well he looked very frustrated to say the least, you know how you can just tell something is up. So I asked whats up everything ok, he said "Im over this thing its noisy as hell and it is doing my head in" My brother was so use to the DD Pro coil and now it is Mono, I explained that it will be more sensitive on the higher mineral area's like reds and irons etc.

He said "I need to balance this thing every single step I take, its crap" He said there is a spot up the hill and just over there thats noisy as hell everywhere, and the noises are moving all over the place" later he showed me this area.

Really you shouldnt need to do that. Let me check to see what it is doing. So I grabbed the detector and put the headphones on, whoa. Instantly I knew what the problem was.

Haha - normally I have the Threshold around 1 o'clock on the GP3500 - well somehow this thing must have been bumped or he hit a stick or maybe it happened in the car before we got there. This thing was BUZZING not humming - It was roughly at 4 oclock haha almost on full threshold. I adjusted it back and checked all other settings, everything else was ok, when he put the headphones back on - he was like "Well thats heaps better and I was going to give up for the day because it was driving me insane"

I said "I bet you it was any wonder, and also everywhere you have walked you will need to do it again". He laughed, I said you can change the settings if you like, adjust volume, or change the signal or tone, if the threshold goes a bit soft or slightly raises you can change it to keep that nice mozzie hum. He said "no I will leave it the way you have it".

I asked him to show me one of the area's where it was just noisy everywhere so I could advise on the outcome, whether it was high concentration of hotrock, ironstones etc - well we get to this spot and I fired up the GPX - you know why it is noisy everywhere? Not because of this new mono, its because there is actually crap everywhere you swing. There would have been a section 5 mtrs by 5 mtrs and this was full of extremely loud signals maybe 15 or so within this contained area.

Anyway back to the gold finds.

Well for me, today the fourth target was Gold, and what a good start for the day.

1. Nice little piece of yellow - and thats the start for the day - good to hit one early and the depth was great - couldnt hear this at first but because it was a dip in the ground full of sticks and composty stuff - I cleaned it out roughly 100mm thick and then hit this faint sound. You can see the amount of stuff removed out, all of that black compost type material
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2. Im not going to explain all of the next finds, they are all exactly the same, very medium to faint signals roughly 1 to 3 inches down.
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3. A kinder surprise and another nice little piece of Gold - some of these small pieces were a challenge, I think one took about 15 minutes and it was only an inch down, everytime I broke the ground around it, the gold would fall deeper. And when I eventually had it in the scoop it fell out. And another 5 or so minutes just to find it. This piece was easy because it was contained within.
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4. Another small piece - check how big the scrape area is - these mono's can be a battle to pinpoint with sometimes, compared to the dd.
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5. Check how small this piece is
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6. Sitting on red clays - this piece was in the upper section on the red clay, appeared to be white clay material - this ground that I was searching here was pretty much clay surface where it had been surfaced into mullocks.
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7. And thats the clean up for today - 9 pieces of gold in total, and roughly the same in other little junky pieces along the way.
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After a few drinks and food breaks today, my brother and I chatted about the day so far, he mentioned he was digging a couple of pieces of the usual junk but nothing else. So we finished for the day and headed back home. On arrival home I usually have a coffee, clean the gold take the images, reduce the size for the forum, then start my post.

Well I done all of that, and when I went back into the kitchen area my brother says check out my finds for today, he had the biggest pile of junk I have seen in one day detecting.

Check this out - tell me thats not persistent - all of those screw heads or nail heads, all in the same hole.
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And after all of that he pulls out this as well.
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I said to my brother, "you know the best thing about getting all those targets," he replied "whats that" - My comment was "Now I dont have to dig them"

All in all was another great day spending time with my brother - he is back at work for a few days. But hopefully get some detecting in again with him next year.

Hope you enjoyed the post

Another great day and 9 + 1 total for the day 10 pieces.

Dont forget to check out my December finds of the month in the competition section

Regards M.G
 
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