Hunting

[DigDeep]

My Dad, SDF and I went out this last Sunday to to an area we frequent during the winter months and it finally cooled down enough for a good full day of swinging. This was the first time we met SDF in person. What a cool guy! and his cool setup on his 4000. He makes his own accessories for his detector, I was impressed to say the least.

We started the day at one of the little patches my Dad and I have pulled out nearly 20 little nuggets out of. We were there a little bit earlier than SDF and I was able to pick a little nugget out right away. When SDF arrived we told him the little wash and general area we were getting them from but no more were found.

Then SDF says well lets move on up to the area I have found a few and away we went. When we arrived he showed us the wash he pulled out some nuggets previously and away we went. First down was SDF then my Dad I followed behind. Within 15 minutes I got my first signal, A boot tack, then another, this time gold!! then another and another and so on totaling 5 Nuggets all within about an hour.

The third nugget I found was strange - It was an Inverted signal , I thought for sure it was a piece of steel, I have never found

gold with an inverted signal. Well I dug anyway and sure enough it was gold, Biggest nugget I have ever found, 6.9 Grams!

The last one I gave to my dad, he hadn't found anything in a while so when I heard the signal I called him over to see if he could hear it. He swung over and over but couldn't hear a thing, he dug down about four inches and finally got a little wiggle in the headphones. Down about 7 inches he pulled out a little nugget.

I was using a commander 11" , sensitive extra, very slow, DD on the switch. Freakin great combo/ well the best I have used. I tried theses setting last Thursday for the first time and picked up 4 small nuggets after the timings change. Up until than I was usually in Normal timings. What a difference!

This was the most gold I have ever found in one day by far and all thanks to SDF. Extremely generous with his pointy finger.

I owe you one SDF...

Here is a pic

[sdf527]

You all may remember my story about this spot from last year. I found 7 nuggets for a total of a little over 1/2 oz in a 50 yd stretch of a small wash. Went back at least 6 times with different coils and had no joy. I was sure I missed some, but couldn't find them.

So I took DigDeep over there thinking his 4500 might be a little more sensitive. As you can see, he had the hot hand with the 11inch Minelab commander coil. He located one nugget and had me and his dad run our coils over the spot. My 4000 with the 18" Goldstalker couldn't hear that nugget. It was small and down 4 to 5 inches, but I could not get a signal.

I was just as happy to see someone find some gold out of that spot. I don't mind sharing with fellow travelers.

I'm already contemplating my next outing, got to get this skunk out of my pocket.

[Paseclipse]

Another nice haul Digdeep! Wow, a down and up signal on a 6.9 gram nugget set in sensitive... hummm, can you tell me if you get the same signal with your detector set on normal? I've been trying to use sensitive hunting gold with my 4000 (perfect for meteorites!) but I just don't seem to get a lot of depth out of it. I've got to take out some of my nuggets and run a test.

Del

[DigDeep]

Hey Paseclipse, how's it going. No I didn't switch it to normal. I should have but I was so damned excited when I found it that I didn't even think about it.

Though on another nugget I was getting a really faint signal around some bushes and big rocks so I switched it to Sharp and that livened the signal up to pinpoint it. But Sharp is hard as heck to detect with...Too squirrely.

Also when I started finding nuggets and seemingly coming pretty easily I did not want to change anything on the detector, did not want to screw up a good run.

I have been getting great depth with it in Sensitive Extra. Seems deeper and a little more stable in hot ground than Normal. But I really need to do more testing with it.

DigDeep

[Paseclipse]

Hey Paseclipse, how's it going. No I didn't switch it to normal. I should have but I was so damned excited when I found it that I didn't even think about it.

Though on another nugget I was getting a really faint signal around some bushes and big rocks so I switched it to Sharp and that livened the signal up to pinpoint it. But Sharp is hard as heck to detect with...Too squirrely.

Also when I started finding nuggets and seemingly coming pretty easily I did not want to change anything on the detector, did not want to screw up a good run.

I have been getting great depth with it in Sensitive Extra. Seems deeper and a little more stable in hot ground than Normal. But I really need to do more testing with it.

DigDeep

Hey DD, man you 4500 guys are a world apart from us 4000 users. They are both similiar in a way but different. Seems to me the 4500 has a few more features I'm just not familiar with. A few months back I ran into a guy at an outing who had a brand new 4500 and I tried to show him a thing or two about his detector and I came to realise I didn't know my hand from my a@# on the 4500. I ended up telling the guy to read his manual a million times and practice with it to get it down. I really wish I could have helped the guy, but I just couldn't.

I totally understand about the stubborness when you get a combination of settings and/or equipment that seem to produce good results... thats whay I can't put my old 2100 down! I've figured out some excellent settings on my 4000 for meteorite hunting, but I have yet to spend the time and figure out the setting that work best for gold. I'll get around to it eventually.

PS- again thats some purdy gold! Keep it up because there's more out there for you to find.

Del