Latest outing

[Ironman]

I've owned a GP 3500 for a few years, but over the past 12 months, I haven't used it. Mainly because my last outing produced an epic hole digging saga that eventually revealed a large piece of rio bar.
I joined this forum a few days ago, and after reading through quite a few posts, I decided to get back on the horse. I got all my gear together and then set off early this morning to a spot I hadn't been to before. I figured I'd spend an hour or so just to suss it out. In less than 5 mins, the detector had picked something up and after a short scraping and digging with the pick, I unearthed a 'hot rock'. A little further on, and that scream came back again. After a little more digging, I unearthed an old toy car. This had my stumped as the place i was at is in the middle of nowhere. There are no roads for more than 20klm and then, the roads are just dirt tracks, yet here, in about 20cm of soil, was a bloody old toy car.........The stories it could have told me.......
I kept going for about another half hour and found a few more 'hot rocks' then I called it quits as the heat was starting to get the better of me. I am in the NT and the weather during the build-up can be a little uncomfy.
The area seemed to be highly mineralised and it didn't seem to matter if I was using fixed or tracking mode. I also tried playing with the discrimination, but it didn't seem to make much of a difference.
Even though I didn't find any colour, I was glad I went for a walk with the ol' 35 and it was good to be back swinging again. I'm not about to give up and I'll keep searching.
There were some positives to the trip. I enjoyed munching on some bush tucker, had a dip in a clean flowing creek, and I also shot a nice buffalo, which I cut up and took back home for dog food as the poor buggers are starting to get sick of dry food.

Heres a pic of all my findings from this morning. Oh, and that bullet is not mine. I also found that with the detector.

 

[Guest]

Howdy Ironman. Perhaps you need to do a little more research on where to hunt. I see your pic is taken on a granite, so you could be close to gold, but I am unsure what part of the Territory you're in.
If you haven't already, go to Australianminesatlas.gov.au/mapping/launch interactive mapping. Mineral occurences-gold. Probability-gold. Transport infrastructure-roads (so you can estimate position), and perhaps (population centres)towns, water bodies, parks as well.
The occurences will give you a starting point, but probability will widen your area.

That green claystone is what the old timers around Broken Hill used to look for searching for gold. Good luck and happy hunting.

 

[Ironman]

Hi Tim,
Thanks for the info - very much appreciated. Your mention of the green claystone has caught my interest. Possibly, if this was used to search for gold around Broken Hill, then maybe, the same principles could apply for my region? :Let's hope so.

I tried to look up the website you referenced, but I wasn't able to load any maps. It just kepis giving me a blank blue screen. I reckon I'm not holding my tongue right. Any pointers?

PS: the background for the pic I took was an old BBQ plate in my backyard, not granite.

 

[Guest]

I google Australianminesatlas. Click on mapping(in Google). Top of list will be interactive mapping. The resultant window will be the (slow loading) map of Oz on the left and the layers/legend/etc on right. Place your pointer on the map and drag to make the square of the area you want to explore before loading gold occurence/probability/roads etc, or it will try to load these for the whole of Australia map and take ages. Good luck!

 

[Ironman]

Thanks Tim. I've tried a few times now. The site doesn't want to load for me, even if I just try and narrow it down to a state/territory. I'm doubtful that there will be any data on my location anyway.

 

[Anolphart]

Have you thought about changing 'Ironman' to 'Goldman'?
I'm not familiar with the 3500 but I have the 5000 and discrimination only works with double D coils, and the few times I have played with it didn't impress me much.

 

[Ironman]

Thanks Anolphart, I'll change my username once I start digging the right stuff. I'm hoping this will change when I head back to places like Cape York and Pine Creek next year.
Regarding Disc mode, yeah, I was actually using a mono coil at the time so that would explain why it wasn't making a difference. I learnt that when I got back home and read through the user manual again. From what I understand, using a DD coil is a better option, particularly when working highly mineralised ground. That's all I have up here, so I'll toss the mono aside and just use the DD's from now on.
At the end of the day, I just need to keep going out and using my machine so that I become more familiar with it and gain a little more confidence.