Anonymous Entrants to Contest

[DOC]

I have a number of posters to this board that have contacted me via email. They have some truly amazing finds, I mean AMAZING! However they are reluctant to post under their own name because many people know where their favorite stomping grounds are, and they don't want any NEW FRIENDS.

The Goldstalker coils and 4500 have opened up old patches and turned them to gold again.

For any of you that wish to remain Anonymous you can do the following. Email your story and pictures to me, of course I will have to know who you are, in case you win so I can send you your coil. I will in turn post your pictures and stories for you and name the entry Anonymous 1, Anonymous 2, etc.

Hope that encourages more people to enter the contest.

Take care!

Doc

[russfordAZ]

My contest story:

February, 2006

It was a cold and cloudy morning and about 20 degrees on the front porch when we woke up. Not exactly the type of day you’d choose for a detecting trip. We knew Chris had another appointment at 3:00pm and daylight is short this time of year. That meant we needed to hit the trail early if we wanted to get in any detecting time. I knew the place we were going was only accessible by Jeep if we wanted to get in there with all of our gear, so I hooked up the towbar of the CJ5 behind “Old Blue†(my ‘77 F250 p.u.). Now to check the gas, oil, air, spare, jack etc….you know the routine, all the usual stuff in all the vehicles. You run over all the details in your mind right down to the power cord to connect your battery on the detector. Chris was going to follow me part way so he could head over to the outing later in the day.

Ol’ Blue has a 3speed standard transmission which wouldn’t be bad if it had a second gear! Shifting from low to high while towing a jeep behind is a bit of a trick on some of these mountain hills and curves.

When we got to the jump off spot it was still cloudy and cold. To make things worse, when I got out of the truck there was a stiff breeze and I immediately became aware that in my muddled state of mind that morning I had forgotten several important items including a coat, and even my drinking water. Oh well! It was cloudy …I should be all right. We got in the Jeep and I turned the heater on (which dindn’t do a hell of a lot of good in an open Jeep), and we headed into the hills. I won’t post any pictures of the area for two reasons. First, incase anyone is trying to find the location, and second …because I forgot my camera too!

This area is in central Arizona, and is an old mining hot spot mentioned in many reference books. I was friends with the claim owner and had permission to work the area. It is a heavily mineralized area with steep canyons. You will hit iron-stone hot rocks on every swing. Not to mention trash from many years of mining in the area. So detecting is tedious and slow going. When we got to the spot, we walked over and looked at the creek. It looked like the bank had been undercut by recent floods and there was some newly exposed bedrock in several places. I said, “you pick where you want to work because it all looks good to meâ€. Originally I was just going to take some samples for panning, but after thinking about it for a minute I decided to go back to the Jeep and get my detector (good thinking Russ)! I hit that first signal on the first swing, and Chris said, it sounded like a "pennyweight’er". We were searching right on a Yavapai Shist and granite bedrock, but there were pockets and areas with some overburden. After I dug up that first 1.5 gm nugget I went over the area again and it became obvious that we had a pocket where multiple smaller nuggets had been traped as well. I was swinging a ML3000 with the Coiltek DD Joey. As I recall, Chris had a ML2200D with stock coils. I really like the small double “D†Joey for getting into tight spots, but it also works real well for working an area where you hit a lot of trash targets. Many people say they don’t like the descrimination on the Minelab SD/GP machines, but I’ve found it to be a real asset once you learn it’s capabilities and limitations. And of course you have to use a DD coil for it to work – hense the Joey DD. We worked the spot together and spent a most enjoyable hour or so pulling out little pieces from the decaying shist bedrock. I think that’s about the most fun I’ve had with my pants on in a long, long time. As we worked the pocket I looked over at Chris and he had the most serious look on his face…..he would stop every now and then and I would wonder what he was thinking, then he would say, “is that gold?†as he picked up one out of the dirt with his fingers (and a big grin on his face). After we had all the detectable gold I practically had to pry him from the spot. He didn’t want to believe that they were all gone. I always carry several canvas sample bags in my pack and they came in real handy for the dirt we scooped out of the hole when we were done detecting. In fact I even emptied my backpack to carry out more of the dirt. We didn’t have any screens with us and I think there was about 5 or 6 gallons of dirt and rock that we brought out. After we were all done and having a bite of lunch at the Jeep I said, “it’s too bad that the day is so cloudy and coolâ€, and Chris replied, “I’ll take a day with gold any time over a day with sunâ€. To which I replied, “Yeah, sunny days are a dime a dozenâ€â€¦.and we laughed. After returning home and running the dirt through a mini re-cycleing sluice, the total gold came out to about ¼ oz….all out of that one little pocket! Later that evening we sat at the kitchen table and flipped a coin for first pick. Then we took turns “ picking the pickersâ€!! Sure wish we’d had more time….anonymous (grin)

Photos to follow

[russfordAZ]

Since I didn't have a camera on that trip, these photos were taken afterwords and on other trips.

But this is the actual gold found.

It's been awhile since I tried to post any pics....let's see if this works.

[Bandana Don]

Morning to ya Russ: Great story and pics. Glad you and Chris had such a productive trip. Maybe one of these days I'll get over your way and be able to visit for a while before I go out and swing my old 3000. I only have a Mono Joey but it has sure paid for itself.

Don

[Reno Chris]

Hey Russ, that really was a great day - good memories. Hope we can do something like that again one of these days.

This summer I found a little pocket like that up in Sierra County in California. A couple friends and I took out 12 nuggets from a 3 ft x 5 foot area - a little bigger than the one we worked, but it made me think of the day you recounted in your story. I drywashed the material after detecting it and got a couple more penneyweight of fines and small pickers.

Hope you are doing well.

Best wishes,

Chris