Gus in idaho
New member
Dad and I have just been given permission to hunt some exclusive private claims. The ground in this area is awesome! It has been worked over by the old timers, but we did not see 1 dig hole, or any evidence of detecting the whole 2 days we were there.
It rained until noon the first day we were there, and then the mosquitoes were out for blood. There are several square miles of claims that we have the privilege of choosing from. We started out in a small good looking draw that has sluice-tailing piles all the way down it, as many of the draws in this area do.
We hunted here for about an hour, digging several trash targets. I was ready to move to another area, and walked over to my Dad to see if he was too.
That's when spit a nice 2-gram nugget into his hand. That got me excited, and was incentive I needed to really focus on my detecting. Now that I knew nuggets were present. I decided to work the side hill just above the area where he had found the nugget. About 20 minutes into it, I had a huge pop can signal coming from under a small sagebrush. This signal was huge, and my coil screamed whenever I got even close to the target area. I could hear the signal a foot and a half off the ground. I dug down about a foot and a half, and I finally had the target out of the ground. I kept kicking this big rock out of the way to find this target, and every time I did the target seemed to move. Well that's because the rock was the target. I was jumping up and down and yelling when I finally realized what I had just found. I was swinging a 5x9 DD coil and I could hear this specimen with my coil 3 feet above it. Not sure the exact weight yet. I will have to do a specific gravity test, and I have heard about X-raying species? This specimen weighs 4.2 pounds on my scale at home. And with all the noise it makes I will be surprised if there is not more than 5 ounces of gold in it.
I hunted for a while longer and then went back to the truck for a break. I was sitting in the truck and noticed Dad was heading back as well. On his was back he came across a target and started digging. He kept digging and digging, so I got out and walked over to him. He had just gotten the target out of the hole when I got there. He looked like he was going to fall down and said he was exhausted. I knelt down and started grabbing handfuls of dirt and swinging it over his coil until I had it in my hand. There was a big rock in the mix and as I pulled it out I noticed gold gleaming through the dirt and jumped up and started yelling Gold! It's Gold... He looked at me like I was talking another language, then I excitedly handed it to him, and he looked at it and then he lit up like a Christmas tree. I have not seen him that excited in a long time. That moment will last with me forever...
This is one of the prettiest specimens I have ever seen, and it weighs in at 117 grams. I am guessing it has 2 ounces of gold.
A short while later I found another nugget at almost 9 grams, I smiled and put it in my pocket and kept swinging. It's funny how the big ones spoil a guy.
A 9 grammer on a normal day would have me yelling.
We only ended up with 4 nuggets but several ounces of gold. I will let you know the net weights after I get the specific gravity tests done.
What a blast we had! I am already looking forward to getting back, as there is lots of vast ground to cover.
Gus-
[attachment 130439 specimens1.jpg][attachment 130440 specimens2.jpg]
It rained until noon the first day we were there, and then the mosquitoes were out for blood. There are several square miles of claims that we have the privilege of choosing from. We started out in a small good looking draw that has sluice-tailing piles all the way down it, as many of the draws in this area do.
We hunted here for about an hour, digging several trash targets. I was ready to move to another area, and walked over to my Dad to see if he was too.
That's when spit a nice 2-gram nugget into his hand. That got me excited, and was incentive I needed to really focus on my detecting. Now that I knew nuggets were present. I decided to work the side hill just above the area where he had found the nugget. About 20 minutes into it, I had a huge pop can signal coming from under a small sagebrush. This signal was huge, and my coil screamed whenever I got even close to the target area. I could hear the signal a foot and a half off the ground. I dug down about a foot and a half, and I finally had the target out of the ground. I kept kicking this big rock out of the way to find this target, and every time I did the target seemed to move. Well that's because the rock was the target. I was jumping up and down and yelling when I finally realized what I had just found. I was swinging a 5x9 DD coil and I could hear this specimen with my coil 3 feet above it. Not sure the exact weight yet. I will have to do a specific gravity test, and I have heard about X-raying species? This specimen weighs 4.2 pounds on my scale at home. And with all the noise it makes I will be surprised if there is not more than 5 ounces of gold in it.
I hunted for a while longer and then went back to the truck for a break. I was sitting in the truck and noticed Dad was heading back as well. On his was back he came across a target and started digging. He kept digging and digging, so I got out and walked over to him. He had just gotten the target out of the hole when I got there. He looked like he was going to fall down and said he was exhausted. I knelt down and started grabbing handfuls of dirt and swinging it over his coil until I had it in my hand. There was a big rock in the mix and as I pulled it out I noticed gold gleaming through the dirt and jumped up and started yelling Gold! It's Gold... He looked at me like I was talking another language, then I excitedly handed it to him, and he looked at it and then he lit up like a Christmas tree. I have not seen him that excited in a long time. That moment will last with me forever...
This is one of the prettiest specimens I have ever seen, and it weighs in at 117 grams. I am guessing it has 2 ounces of gold.
A short while later I found another nugget at almost 9 grams, I smiled and put it in my pocket and kept swinging. It's funny how the big ones spoil a guy.
A 9 grammer on a normal day would have me yelling.
We only ended up with 4 nuggets but several ounces of gold. I will let you know the net weights after I get the specific gravity tests done.
What a blast we had! I am already looking forward to getting back, as there is lots of vast ground to cover.
Gus-
[attachment 130439 specimens1.jpg][attachment 130440 specimens2.jpg]
Very nice !