Really small gold

[Reno Chris]

Chris what is the smallest piece of gold you have ever found with any detector in your travels? - kyle edwards

Personally, I'm not too much interested in finding smaller targets - Rob Allison

This is an interesting topic. There are plenty of guys who will say they are not interested in small gold, and this may have made sense in the days of $400 an ounce gold. It also may or may not make sense depending on where you prospect, as some places may not have much in the way of shallow gold that high frequency VLFs need. On the other hand some places may not have much in the l way of larger pieces of gold needed for detection by a PI. When I was in Australia, we found places quite well cleaned out by PI detectors that still had quite a bit of small gold we could not see with a 5000, but could see with a Gold Bug 2.

Yep some people will say that detectors like the GPX 5000 can detect some pretty small gold - and I've detected little nuggets of a grain more or less with my GPX 5000, but in all honesty, so long as the mineralization is not excessive and the gold is fairly shallow, one of the high frequency VLFs is a better choice for those situations. Its like choosing the right tool for the right job - if I have a bunch of phillips head screws to work on, I want a phillip head screw driver. A flat head driver may have a zillion applications, but if you need a phillips head driver, then that's the right tool for the job.

The tiny nugget pictured here is I think the smallest I have ever gotten with a detector. I found it this summer with a Gold Bug 2. It weighs 0.09 grains - an eleventh of a grain. 166 of these would be required to make a single gram,and more than 5,100 to make an ounce. At $1300 gold, it is worth about a quarter dollar (hence the quarter next to it). The day I got this, I picked up 25 nuggets with my GB2. Most were a grain or so. I ended up with a little more than a gram, nothing spectacular, but it was genuinely fun gathering all these little nuggets and the bird shot that went with them. So if you are finding decent gold and having fun, whats wrong with that?

That's why the two detectors I use the most are my GPX 5000 and my GB2 - handy tools that are different enough that they are sort of like a phillips head and flat head screw drivers - you kind of need both.

[adam]

I have fun finding gold no matter what size... so much fun ! Recently there have been many sub grain pieces with the gold bug II

[AZNuggetBob]

I agree Guys

Ive seen many places the gold was never more than a gram in size and bunch of little ones. Minelabs gold machines are heavy compared to a Gold Bug, and if your a little older and going to be bending down digging a lot of targets in a small gold area a lighter machine is the way to go. I like the GB and the GB2, "right tool for the job" ya need to work on your digging/recovery skills too. Ive seen a lot of people (including myself) chase little ones deep. a small digging head on a pick will allow the nugget to fall back into the hole while your trying to get it up out of the hole. This is one of the reasons I dont always take nugget found depths seriously. Anyway this is were a wide curved head pick and a scoop works well. you can "hand pan" the large ones (just shake in down in your hand) but the little targets can drive ya nuts trying to sort them without a scoop.

Have fun, there is still lots of it out there. AzNuggetBob

[Roo]

Now that's small! But I agree, gold's gold! Ill take it any way it comes.

[Relichunter2]

My opinion only, but gold is gold and its very difficult to find ! So Like Rob I prefer those multi-gram or multi - ounce nuggets. But every day I go out, is a new challenge for me to find a piece regardless of size. When I find my first piece of the day, I won..I just added one more to my collection..a trophy per say . They all add up.....the other benefit is exercise . My smallest would have to be a 3 grain piece found with the 8" Mono R coil.

[Steve Herschbach]

I have an absolute ball with my Gold Bug 2. It gets me gold when my GPX cannot and is so light and handy by comparison it is a real joy to use. I never dig a piece of junk at two feet with my Bug, that is for sure! It has stood the test of time and deserves a spot in the metal detector hall of fame. The fact nobody has built anything better since the Gold Bug 2 was introduced in 1995 says a lot for how well designed it is.

[Jonathan Porter]

I had a ball chasing little bits with my GBII (I stole it off Steve when he left) when Chris and Steve visited with me in West Australia a couple of years back, I remember on one occasion where there was just not enough room for 3 PI's to work in a gully I took the guys to so I used the Bug and got 3 grams of littlies for my troubles, all gold that would still be laying there due to their tiny size.

In the pic of Steve below you can just see the little spec of gold under the letter R of the Fisher logo, I really learned some valuable tips and tricks from the two masters at this location, I honestly would have thought this patch would have been too hot for the VLF machine, we must have taken over 1/2 an ounce between us before moving onto better things, lots of fun with minimal fuss thanks to the light weight and ease of use.

JP

[JIM MCCULLOCH]

Personally, I don't distain small gold. It all adds up. I refer to small gold as "bread and butter" gold; i.e. I make far more money recovering small gold than large. In fact, with my GMT I figure I recover four pounds of small nuggets for every half ouncer I find. But then again, I'm in the "big-nugget-deprived" Mojave Desert. HH Jim

[deathray]

If it wasn't for small gold, I would never detect for gold, lol. My biggest ever, found couple months ago is3dwt. My second biggest is only .83 grams! The spot near my house that I go most often, just doesn't have much big stuff. I've found probably couple hundred pieces there now, and most are subgrain to about 8 grains. Got 8pieces yesterday, for total weight of 6.4 grains, lol. So I live vicariously through you guys!

[nuggethunting]

Hey Guys,

Don't get me wrong, I will take all the small nuggets I can detect with the GPX 5000. That being said, I have no trouble hitting stuff in the 1-2 grain range at or near the surface while prospecting.

I have found for my style, prospecting new ground and working old patches, that the GPX 5000 is much more productive. I know there are smaller nuggets, under a grain I'm missing, but the time it takes me to find those, I could have 2-3 Dwt's of larger gold for an old patch or new spot.

Trust me, I have tried it many times and it always worked out better running the PI's. Like I said, this is for my style of hunting nuggets.

P.S. Years ago, I had this friend of mine, which I consider a "true expert" with the Fisher Bug's work some old patches of mine. We spent days detecting them. By the end of several days, he had like 7 small nuggets, all under like 5 grains in weight. I only found two I missed, gridding and working very slow. Both of those nuggets were over 3 Dwt's. I will take my 6 Dwt's vs. the 1 to 1.5 Dwt's he found.

[hotrock mike]

Like most here I agree with you Chris. No reason to leave the small gold behind. In that same area you found your dinkster I hit a patch where I found 44 nugglets one morning with the GB2 and they weighed a scale tipping .39 grams. It was fun.

Having said that though, I have found that sticking with the GPX and searching for the bigger stuff averages out much better than sticking with finding the small stuff. Even with skunk days the average is there in the end. People often ask me how much gold I usually find in a day but it just doesn't work that way. I can say that with the GB2 in that location I come out with an incredibly consistent 1 gram to 1 dwt. With the Minelab any given day I'm likely to find less than a gram but over a 10 day period I'm consistently at an average of double that. Usually due to one nugget or one patch.

It's nice to change the pace up. And where there's big stuff there's often small stuff so why leave it. It all pays.

[AZNuggetBob]

But when you get down to it for those that are not as skilled and knowledgeable, would you rather keep hunting for that bigger one or get skunked? AzNuggetBob

[AZNuggetBob]

We could take this down to micron gold but at some point you could say when do I get out the dry washer? AzNuggetBob

[Reno Chris]

Hi Rob -

Hey I meant nothing negative on you. The spots you are working make all the difference. If you can get more gold with a GPX, it makes sense and I would be using that too. There are plenty of places where the PI makes more sense to use. There are also places where a high frequency VLF makes more sense - the gold in VLF locations has to be small and shallow. That's why I am saying that for real serious prospectors it makes sense to have a good ML PI like the 5000 and a high frequency VLF too.

[nuggethunting]

Hey Chris,

Yes, agree with you 100%. I have a handful of detectors, mostly for demo and field instructions, but the two detectors I have in my truck are the GPX 5000 and the Fisher Goldbug Pro. I used to carry the Bug2, but like the easy of operation of the Goldbug Pro.

Hoping to do some nuggetshooting this weekend.

Rob Allison

[JIM MCCULLOCH]

I think we can all agree that the "best" detector is the correct one for the particular application. In some cases that would be a good PI, and in other cases that would be a good high frequency VLF. My buddy and I have one spot (about 1/4 acre) that has produced 2,000+ nuggets, all but 5 weighing in under 7 grains each. The largest weighed in at a "whopping" 51 grains. Total weight of those 2,000 Mojave Midgets is only about 10 ounces. Mere "bread and butter" gold. But lots of fun, nonetheless. HH Jim

[Roo]

I have to admit that at times I kick really small bits away! Not because I don't want them but because I have a bad back. Its when I know they are super small and just registering, even when dug out and amongst the dirt. Bits smaller than 1/20th of a g. Ill take them if I can find them within a few of minutes. But kneeling down for too long bent over does my back in. When I get a god signal from something deep I don't dig the hole all in one go, but take breaks, leave off the digging and wander a bit to recover looking for another target then go back to it when its all good. But at times when those tiny tiny bits get really pesky I just kick em off and keep going. I reckon its time better spent searching for something easier to recover and possibly much bigger.

Its all about being able to stay out there and keep doing what I love. I reckon though over the years all the bits I have kicked off would be lucky to add up to 5 to 7 gs all up. Small sacrifice to save the back.