My first day out

[G-bone]

Greetings.

Well my plans for the very first recon with my new MD made a few turns (shock).
So I scooted out of work a little early and set off for my option #1 which was closer.
Never being there in person before, I was pleasantly surprised to see desertion.

It's about 4:30pm right now as I set into the tight, overgrown canyon.
Deep, overgrown Chaparral, having to climb over felled branches from earlier flooding.
Every turn, every bush, I was shaking and waiting to see that Snattle Rake.
I am purchasing Snake guards before I ever do that again.
Maybe even thigh high chaps/snake guards.

Anyway, as am walking thru this Beautiful canyon with a White schist layer on top of a 100 ft thick Red layer running parallel with the canyon.
All these little side Gulch looks SO promising.
The Gulches are on the North/West side of this canyon only.

Time is short and I know I won't make it to the first larger Gulch I had my sights on.
So I went for the first nice one I came to. And it's a heck of a lot bigger than it looked on Google earth. Steep accent up a dried up water fall maybe 10 ft. and a nice cut through the red band of dirt. Looking up into the gulch I see three or four good Cascading 10 to 12 foot water falls. Lots of exposed granite bedrock. Just beautiful but really over grown. Set up everything and got started. Ground balanced, threshold at about about 11 or 12 (just a barely audible hum) with the gain just barley pushing it.
Scanned all sides as far as I could reach and in the beds themselves. Around bushes and rolling rocks over (here Mr. Snakey). Checking every where and triple checking anything that might be anything as far as a sound murmur etc .

Did I find anything?
you better believe it!!

But I learned SO much in this first excursion.

1- Time FLIES when you're doing this and in almost 2 hours, only covered maybe 100 yards and up only 2 of the 4 steps up this little canyon.

2- I should have brought my Bug shirt.

3- Get those darn Snake guards.

I came away with a couple questions too.

My main one is this...
I want to fill in my holes - I want to leave NO trace as much as possible.
So I get a signal on a steep hillside, after I dug a good sized hole and retrieved my target, how do I fill that hole in?
The dirt is dry and the slope so steep, no way the dirt will stay in place.
Big ol hole. No way your gonna miss it. someone was digging here.

What do you do?

So after an Hour and a half I came away with this:


So lets just say...today I was listening to Led Zeppelin all the way home.
Get it? Get the Led out!!

This side gulch I went up was very secluded and totally off the beaten path.
So it amazes me how much lead was up this little canyon.
I had a few weird variances in signals on two places that were very faint.
And I was digging deep for these to the point that I stopped and moved on.
These were both on the slopes and in deep rock, so I feared I would make these big holes for not.

Sun was going down. I had to break it all up and still work my way out of this canyon.
Even more so now I was wishing I had those snake guards.

Gotta go.

Cheers

[DOC]

Something to think about. If you are digging holes on that steep of a hill chances are good it's not gold. Not always, there are exceptions.

But think of it this way. If you threw a marble down where you were standing what would the marble do? It would roll down the hill. That's what the gold does.

You have to look for spots where the marble would either STOP or at the very least, slow down. A bench, a place where the ground levels out. The inside and outside bends of washes, gullies, and rills.

Remember GRAVITY, it is going to pull gold down to the lowest point.

As for gaiters or chaps. I thought chaps would be the duck's nuts too. Then I tried wearing them. They are hot as hell and 95% of the time they ended up staying in the truck. So, I was totally unprotected. The snake gaiters, on the other hand, I wear all the time. They are comfortable and not hot at all, if you adjust them correctly. I think they say that 85% of snake bites happen below the knee, and 90% of those are on the top of the foot. Just remember, no reaching where you can't see. No going close to rocks ledges where a snake sunning itself could strike out and hit you in the shoulder.

You really need to invest in some training with someone who knows the ropes. I always have said that looking for gold is like finding a needle in a haystack. However, there are some haystacks that are more likely to have the needle than others, You want to spend the majority of your time looking in places that are more likely to have gold than less likely.

As you can see, time flies by quickly in this endeavor so you must use it judiciously.

Good luck,

Doc

[G-bone]

Thanks Doc.

Good points indeed and they will be used.

Most of the bedrock was quite smooth and really hard to find cracks and creveas' that gold could hide.

My thought on the hill side search was that since this is all deposit area from ancient river beds, there could be nuggets that have yet to be exposed. But you are completely right about gravity and the frame of mind I need to go in there with.

I forgot to mention that I also grabbed a sample bag to pan out..

Cheers

G

[Tortuga]

Good posts G-Bone and DOC.

You're doing something right G-Bone if you're digging up those slugs. I'd say the area has some promise because some of those slugs look pretty old and weren't already dug up by guys before you. Lead slugs will sound off almost exactly like gold nuggets so you're getting the hang of it. If you just blasted through that area and only found a few old cans right on the surface I'd tell you to take it easy and slow down.

Based on what you said about covering 100 yards in 2 hours I'd say your speed is pretty good too. Particularly with your GBP you need to go SLOW and decipher all the sounds its making.

Like DOC said about the steep inclines, those might not be areas where gold settled. If you're in an area with huge, steep granite waterfalls this might be too "severe" and "fast" terrain for gold to settle. I'm no expert but most of the bedrock areas I've found nuggets in have been long, 25-50 yard flat and smooth stretches of old granite bedrock where the gold settled down. After those discoveries that I tended to avoid detecting waterfalls that were "newer" areas in bedrock that hadn't been eroded flat by water yet.

As far as filling holes, if the slope is too extreme and you can't backfill the holes very well sometimes tossing a little of the lighter colored topsoil on top of them along with some vegetation might help to cover them up. A few handfuls of lighter colored topsoil should help mask the hole a little bit better.

[Tortuga]

Also, what type of digging pick are you using? If you're having difficulty with the holes your pick might be too small. Most of the "common" metal detecting picks they sell are way too short, like the Garrett Retriever II and such with 18" handles. In the beginning I started with a short little pick because I wanted something small and light I could carry on my belt however when it comes to gold hunting these picks will wear you out fast.

I'd recommend any Apex Pick like Rob sells that has a 24-36" handle. The head should be pretty big and heavy too which will give you good swinging power so your arms and shoulders do less of the work. Naturally they should have a strong neodymium magnet on the pick head too. DOC sells his own Bulldog Pick that meet these specifications too.

[oldies1955]

You can duct tape cardboard around your lower legs...seen a guy do that this weekend. Good old Yankee ingenuity!

Everything is bigger/steeper and more rugged than it looks on Google. been there done that!

After those waterfalls there is usually a wide slower area....hit those. If you find a place that is narrow but then fans out....hit it.

Anywhere you think the water might slow down...hit it. Unless its a flash flood area...then you just hit everything.

Filling holes on the side...just cave it in some/ throw some brush over it and call it good The next rain will take care of it.

Congrats on your finds.....why congrats? it was just lead??? But, some of that is OLD lead. You got into a area no one else has been.

Or they sucked as a detectorist
Keep at it and you will find something yellow soon. There's a wash/trib out there with your name on it

Good luck to ya!
Tom H.

[newriverblake]

Tom your funny, taping cardboard around your legs that hilarious what sort of wack job would do that? I guess if I we're going to do It would use 30 pack Budweiser boxs and a roll of gorilla tape and try not to let anyone see me.

O and not almost stepping on a rattle snake getting out on the truck Friday night. ?

[oldies1955]

There seems to be a lot of wack jobs out there in the desert ................if the situation calls for it. Like the guy that burned my wood loading ramp for my bike that I stupidly dropped on the way out...hope he was warm.

After a 30 rack, I don't think I would know what a snake was or even where my legs were!

OMG...there ARE snakes out there??? I thought it was just BS....
Good to meet ya!
Tom