Ed in SoDak
Member
Since the forest road to the old mine was closed till spring, I chose this spot up the highway a few miles.
One source I trust, but now deceased, stated this is Pound Gulch, but I've never been able to verify that. Another, older description seems to place it elsewhere, though still nearby.
We've found items here, like an old stove door, that seem to date it to the approximately correct time period.
Pound Gulch got its name because one hole produced a pound of gold per day. And there's plenty of holes!
It also produces nails, cans and lots of larger iron junk in abundance. Some of the junk can be relics, like an old ax head, a buckle and that stove door, but mostly it's old cans, rusty iron parts, junk.
Ground was from 65 to 87 and FE was weak at .03 but went to .1 in one spot I checked. The machine chattered a lot, even held up in the air, so I reduced sensitivity and went to F3 frequency, which seemed to help. Still, a noisy machine to hunt with, assuming I have it set anywhere close to correct. Disc was at zero, tones 4. I was near powerlines, but later detected right beneath them and found a bushing or piece of hardware of some sort which read as zinc.
[attachment 18003 hole.jpg]
Right off the bat, I dug up a couple pieces of something. The smaller one's on the glove fingertip above. It was about 5" deep. A larger one was more shallow under some rocks. I hoped they were dirty nuggets, though they ID'd at 32-34. When I got home, I discovered they were iron scrap, magnetic. I wanted to bring a magnet with me but forgot. Still, the Alien found them, and also a small fragment of a bullet, so if I'd hit a nugget, it would have beeped.
[attachment 18004 plaidman.jpg]
Here I am, the Mighty Plaidman, comparing the T2 with the Time Ranger! I didn't actually try running both machines at once, mostly I just ran the T2 but checked a few targets with the TR. This is a pretty typical testhole for the place.
[attachment 18005 trench.jpg]
This is one of the long trenches that winds its way down the short draw. The place is peppered with test holes and ditches.
[attachment 18010 road.jpg]
This old road, with a few trees in its center, passes right by some old traces of foundations. Too frozen to do anything but locate targets here. An old shed is across the opening, visible just above the detectors.
[attachment 18009 quartz.jpg]
I picked this quartz and other samples up from around this stump along with a scrap of rusty can detected right there. Several other quartz outcrops are visible, some were test dug or prospected, but not all.
[attachment 18008 finds.jpg]
Here's the rewards for the day. It's the same pic, I just put a white line through it to separate the finds.
From Pound Gulch we have two pieces of iron whatzit, a bushing-thingy and an old bent nail. I forgot to include the bullet shard. At least the nail -is- quite old!
The lower half of the pic is what I dug in my yard earlier in the day. I found the cool car wash token, which read as a zinc or dime, close by an old woodstove that's sitting outside, and the two surface-dug bullet cases provide some scale for everything. The token says "RYK Car Wash", never heard of the place, and I've lived here for years.
There were plenty of other signals, but I couldn't dig most of them. In a few sunny spots, it was easy going, that's where these objects came from.
I'm getting more familiar with this sensitive machine. It probably won't be till I can dig everything and see what it is, that I'll learn the tones and ID. It definitely has more depth than the Time Ranger, but also seems to chatter a lot. I resisted the temptation to dial it down till it hunted quiet and kept disc at zero, wanting to hear everything and see how it works with sensitivity as high as I could manage to get it.
I protected the coil with a plastic shopping bag, but should have tried it without, just to see if that helped with the chatter. I didn't spend a lot of time troubleshooting, I just hunted with the noise.
I've also been noticing a little hand capacitance problem, waving my empty hand by the coil can make it sound off. Today, the coil was sensitive to bumps, but this may be partly due to the settings I was using. Since I was mainly searching for small nuggets, rather than dial it down till it didn't false on a bump, I was just careful not to jar it or strike the coil against rocks as I scanned. Mostly, I just ignored the beeps made as a result. I'll have to look further into this, is it a common effect with a DD coil?
Even with the paltry finds, it was a fun outing. My wife, Sandy, wanted to come along, but her back's been giving her grief, so she stayed at home this trip. Hopefully, next time she can tag along and maybe try the T2.
-Ed
One source I trust, but now deceased, stated this is Pound Gulch, but I've never been able to verify that. Another, older description seems to place it elsewhere, though still nearby.
We've found items here, like an old stove door, that seem to date it to the approximately correct time period.
Pound Gulch got its name because one hole produced a pound of gold per day. And there's plenty of holes!
It also produces nails, cans and lots of larger iron junk in abundance. Some of the junk can be relics, like an old ax head, a buckle and that stove door, but mostly it's old cans, rusty iron parts, junk.
Ground was from 65 to 87 and FE was weak at .03 but went to .1 in one spot I checked. The machine chattered a lot, even held up in the air, so I reduced sensitivity and went to F3 frequency, which seemed to help. Still, a noisy machine to hunt with, assuming I have it set anywhere close to correct. Disc was at zero, tones 4. I was near powerlines, but later detected right beneath them and found a bushing or piece of hardware of some sort which read as zinc.
[attachment 18003 hole.jpg]
Right off the bat, I dug up a couple pieces of something. The smaller one's on the glove fingertip above. It was about 5" deep. A larger one was more shallow under some rocks. I hoped they were dirty nuggets, though they ID'd at 32-34. When I got home, I discovered they were iron scrap, magnetic. I wanted to bring a magnet with me but forgot. Still, the Alien found them, and also a small fragment of a bullet, so if I'd hit a nugget, it would have beeped.
[attachment 18004 plaidman.jpg]
Here I am, the Mighty Plaidman, comparing the T2 with the Time Ranger! I didn't actually try running both machines at once, mostly I just ran the T2 but checked a few targets with the TR. This is a pretty typical testhole for the place.
[attachment 18005 trench.jpg]
This is one of the long trenches that winds its way down the short draw. The place is peppered with test holes and ditches.
[attachment 18010 road.jpg]
This old road, with a few trees in its center, passes right by some old traces of foundations. Too frozen to do anything but locate targets here. An old shed is across the opening, visible just above the detectors.
[attachment 18009 quartz.jpg]
I picked this quartz and other samples up from around this stump along with a scrap of rusty can detected right there. Several other quartz outcrops are visible, some were test dug or prospected, but not all.
[attachment 18008 finds.jpg]
Here's the rewards for the day. It's the same pic, I just put a white line through it to separate the finds.
From Pound Gulch we have two pieces of iron whatzit, a bushing-thingy and an old bent nail. I forgot to include the bullet shard. At least the nail -is- quite old!
The lower half of the pic is what I dug in my yard earlier in the day. I found the cool car wash token, which read as a zinc or dime, close by an old woodstove that's sitting outside, and the two surface-dug bullet cases provide some scale for everything. The token says "RYK Car Wash", never heard of the place, and I've lived here for years.
There were plenty of other signals, but I couldn't dig most of them. In a few sunny spots, it was easy going, that's where these objects came from.
I'm getting more familiar with this sensitive machine. It probably won't be till I can dig everything and see what it is, that I'll learn the tones and ID. It definitely has more depth than the Time Ranger, but also seems to chatter a lot. I resisted the temptation to dial it down till it hunted quiet and kept disc at zero, wanting to hear everything and see how it works with sensitivity as high as I could manage to get it.
I protected the coil with a plastic shopping bag, but should have tried it without, just to see if that helped with the chatter. I didn't spend a lot of time troubleshooting, I just hunted with the noise.
I've also been noticing a little hand capacitance problem, waving my empty hand by the coil can make it sound off. Today, the coil was sensitive to bumps, but this may be partly due to the settings I was using. Since I was mainly searching for small nuggets, rather than dial it down till it didn't false on a bump, I was just careful not to jar it or strike the coil against rocks as I scanned. Mostly, I just ignored the beeps made as a result. I'll have to look further into this, is it a common effect with a DD coil?
Even with the paltry finds, it was a fun outing. My wife, Sandy, wanted to come along, but her back's been giving her grief, so she stayed at home this trip. Hopefully, next time she can tag along and maybe try the T2.
-Ed
