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Posted 05 March 2004 - 03:45 AM
Today was one of those magic days where you just couldn’t go wrong; a nice breeze was blowing from the south which cooled things down to a beautiful balmy 24 deg C. I had to renew my fossicker’s license and state forest traverse permit before I could go out to any of the general permission areas that abound around Clermont, once all the paper work was finalised I was on my way. I headed out to an area called Black Johnson’s which has been a prolific producer of large nuggets up to 20 ounces in weight, this spot is notorious for the amount of hot ground that abounds in the area. A lot of this hot ground is caused by the huge amounts of ironstone that is so clearly evident, this iron I feel is the main reason so many large nuggets have been found.
The spot I had in mind has produced close to 20 ounces for me and Frieda over the last eights years since we first found it in early ’96. Unfortunately somebody illegally pushed it sometime in 2001, but fortunately for me they left me nearly 10 ounces of beautiful solid slugs of gold just waiting for my big mono coil. The last four or five times I visited this spot turned into duffers and I honestly thought it was completely exhausted, from a gold standpoint anyway.
As I was driving into the area this morning, I noticed a friend’s vehicle parked off the side of the track so decided to drop by for a little visit. One thing led to another and next thing I knew it was 11.30am and I had to be home no later than 1.00pm so I could make some phone calls. I love these sorts of days, good friends, fond memories, I had no regrets about whiling the day away with them talking about gold and times gone by. Re-checking my watch I decided that I had time for a quick detect if I hurried, as long as I allowed enough time for the 40 k trip back home.
Switching on my 3000 I quickly checked all the controls to make sure they hadn’t been bumped since I last used the machine. I was using my favourite coil the NF 20” mono along with my speaker system and a Coiltek 12volt/6.8volt battery system (because Frieda has claimed my Lithium Ion battery pack since I was away). Walking quickly over to the sweet spot I went through a quick ground balance check and threshold levels adjustments to get the 3000 purring away just the way I like it. First signal was a faint noise which ultimately turned into a ground noise, I wasn’t disappointed because this spot is notorious for its misleading signals (which when you think about it is why the gold is still there I suppose).
Working my way down the main run, I remembered a tree stump that had been snapped off at ground level when the place had been pushed, either side of this tree I had dug a heap of deep solid nuggets up to 15 grams; in fact I know the spot so intimately I can recall every single nugget and ground noise in the place. As I cruised past the tree stump I gave a cursory swipe of the coil around its base and was surprised by a mellow but definite signal right in the apex of where the trunk and ground meet. “Can’t be” I whispered out loud “I’ve checked that spot heaps of times before”, looking about I could still make out the remains of the old refilled holes of my past exertions.
Scraping back a few inches of loose quartz and ironstone filled soil I noticed an old tree root extending out at right angles from the stump and I instantly thought that this must be the cause of the signal as I have had tree roots give off signals in the past. We all live in hope that every ground noise is a nugget, this signal was one of those, “it could be but I don’t want to get my hopes up” type of signals. Checking for the signal again I noticed it had improved, sounding a down response and then an uplifting as the coil passed out of its range. Breaking through the old dead tree root I was once again confronted with another tree root about 8 inches below the first running in a similar direction, once again I expected the signal to dissipate once it was removed. By this time I felt like I had been rooting around forever as the day had warmed up considerably and I was just about stuffed (or is that rooted
).Chopping through the second root I once again checked the hole and was instantly rewarded by a whoooo-weeee right smack bang in the centre of the hole. Up till this point I was not over enthusiastic but I think we all like to feel once a signal comes good that in our hearts we always knew it was good except for the times when we are wrong! (I think I just uttered an oxymoron!
) Digging into the gravely wash I finally hit a cemented layer underneath, rechecking the hole revealed it was still there but only just, a few more deft swings of the pick and it was out in the pile all eight lovely solid grams of it. After spending time with Chris Gholson on the Arizona gold fields I found myself running around doing high fives, even if it was to phantom prospecting mates, albeit mates who fully understand what an incredible detector operator I really am!
Check out that juicy ground, tree stump and hole in foreground.
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MultiQuote
. Just goes to show you how much of a mind game metal detecting for gold really is! 
I love it, especially when I’m hot to trot! 
Or is it just the GP 3000? 
