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Nuggetshooting in the Big Az!

I was surprised that the 800 worked as well as it did. Now I didn’t find any gold but I did find small bits of iron and even some bird shot, and if you can find bird shot you can find gold! I ran it in both of the gold programs and experimented with sensitivity. Now it does like hot rocks but the best way to eliminate those is just to learn that they sound a little different than a target would. I have used a test nugget with my SDC2300 since I first got it, and I just used that same one, every so often throwing it down on the ground to try to get my ear more trained. Since I’ve never really prospected with the 800 I’m sure there was a whole lot I could have missed! But for up there at the miners camp I knew that all the targets would be larger than nuggets and should sound off pretty well, which they did! One thing I will say for sure is that swinging the 800 with the small coil is much more comfortable than any of the Minelab PI machines. Even though I love my 2300, the ergonomics aren’t really great with it being front heavy, and I use a harness with it to help for those longer days of detecting.

As to soil removal, we’re talking feet, not inches! We’ve already worked that wash pretty heavily in the past using rock bars, hammer drills, and using a device pulled behind an ATV to spread out the dirt so that we could detect it. Back at that time it was crazy how many nuggets we were finding! But now we need something like the excavator to be able to go further into the banks and especially in the steeper sides where it just wouldn’t be safe to be digging with hand tools. We have had a couple geologists at that claim who both felt that the source of our gold was within the boundaries of our claim. The gold can be very rough, with quartz still stuck in it, and that supposedly means it has not traveled far.

As of this trip we have all come to the conclusion that the days of easily detecting nuggets are past on these five or six areas! Several of them we have been hitting really hard for five or six years or so. One of the areas that still holds gold is an extremely brutal hike in with hillsides so steep you might worry about an avalanche in some areas. The frustrating thing about that place is we know there should be some gold up on those hillsides but it’s extremely treacherous to access some of those places. The best we’ve been able to do in that particular area is to follow animal trails, But in reality those are essentially terraces that may only be a foot wide and you can’t go up or down without losing footing and sliding down the hill and hopefully getting caught by something that does not have thorns on it, lol! I will try to get some of my pictures sized correctly for posting to help show what I’m talking about. For some reason I cannot directly post pictures from my phone I guess because they’re too big.
Sounds Awesome.
Love to do that someday.
I'm an old Billy goat. Those hills sound good to me.
I haven't had trouble posting any size pics after restarting my phone. Interesting.
 
Well as of today all I have are pictures and memories! One more day but admittedly, we’re all whooped from the terrain! I’ve been taking video so I’ll load that to YouTube in a week or so. Pending tomorrow’s results!
Could you post a link please ?
 
I was surprised that the 800 worked as well as it did. Now I didn’t find any gold but I did find small bits of iron and even some bird shot, and if you can find bird shot you can find gold! I ran it in both of the gold programs and experimented with sensitivity. Now it does like hot rocks but the best way to eliminate those is just to learn that they sound a little different than a target would. I have used a test nugget with my SDC2300 since I first got it, and I just used that same one, every so often throwing it down on the ground to try to get my ear more trained. Since I’ve never really prospected with the 800 I’m sure there was a whole lot I could have missed! But for up there at the miners camp I knew that all the targets would be larger than nuggets and should sound off pretty well, which they did! One thing I will say for sure is that swinging the 800 with the small coil is much more comfortable than any of the Minelab PI machines. Even though I love my 2300, the ergonomics aren’t really great with it being front heavy, and I use a harness with it to help for those longer days of detecting.

As to soil removal, we’re talking feet, not inches! We’ve already worked that wash pretty heavily in the past using rock bars, hammer drills, and using a device pulled behind an ATV to spread out the dirt so that we could detect it. Back at that time it was crazy how many nuggets we were finding! But now we need something like the excavator to be able to go further into the banks and especially in the steeper sides where it just wouldn’t be safe to be digging with hand tools. We have had a couple geologists at that claim who both felt that the source of our gold was within the boundaries of our claim. The gold can be very rough, with quartz still stuck in it, and that supposedly means it has not traveled far.

As of this trip we have all come to the conclusion that the days of easily detecting nuggets are past on these five or six areas! Several of them we have been hitting really hard for five or six years or so. One of the areas that still holds gold is an extremely brutal hike in with hillsides so steep you might worry about an avalanche in some areas. The frustrating thing about that place is we know there should be some gold up on those hillsides but it’s extremely treacherous to access some of those places. The best we’ve been able to do in that particular area is to follow animal trails, But in reality those are essentially terraces that may only be a foot wide and you can’t go up or down without losing footing and sliding down the hill and hopefully getting caught by something that does not have thorns on it, lol! I will try to get some of my pictures sized correctly for posting to help show what I’m talking about. For some reason I cannot directly post pictures from my phone I guess because they’re too big.
When running the 800. What modes an settings did you use ? Ever try the Monster 1000 around there ?
 
I just used gold one. I wasn’t really using the 800 for most of my prospecting, more in the old camp areas hoping for relics. I do think I’ll take it back out next trip and spend a day using it only for nugget hunting just to see if I’ve missed any tiny gold with the SDC. I haven’t had any experience with the GM1000 but I’ve heard performance is similar from the 800, probably a bit better due to being special machine.
 
Saw you asked about my YouTube link-if you look up Randy’s Treasure Adventures you’ll find me! I haven’t done any videos in a while (jtoo busy with work), but hope to again next week and continuing after that..
 
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