It started out as a usual nugget hunting morning for my mining partner and me in northwest Arizona. Load up the quads with gear at dark-thirty in the morning and head over the ridge to one of our favourite detecting sites. Stop on top before descending down the other side and take in the sunrise coming up on the mountains, “breathtaking”. Then off we go to get some detecting done before it gets too unbearably hot. All the way I keep thinking about being in our one once club status. I have gotten some very nice gold over time, but the one ounce has eluded completely. My partner has been successful at this milestone and of course the banter between friends goes on. So, is this my day? Hopefully. So, as we arrive at our site for the day my anticipation is running high. I chose a spot where I had gotten some very nice gold before and started in. As the morning continued on it wasn’t looking good for me. I pounded and pounded with no success. At one point my partner, who had been successful so far came over and offered to come to his spot and get the “skunk” off. I turned him down, but thanked him and continued on. An hour later and still no gold, not even a sub gram. Then again he showed back up again with 4 nice nuggets in his poke and said “get over here” and get your “skunk” off. I finally gave in and headed over to where he left off and started in. He suggested to hug the left hand side of the wash because he liked the looks of it and had a good feeling about it. On I went swinging away for about 15 minutes on some sluff at the toe of the embankment. About that time my coil came across a target that you wouldn’t pass up. Not a screamer, but a definite target. On the knees we go, pick and spoon in hand. As I went, it was getting louder. But still not convinced it was good target because it was in loose material. The old time dry washers were in this gulch and as usual left a lot of trash. Down now about 12 to 14 inches it was screaming. I finally got the target out of the hole at about 15 to 16 inches. Now in recovery mode with the target in my spoon, I was sorting out the bigger rocks with my fingers and running to spoon across the top of the coil. No target in the spoon. I then looked at the rook in my hand and ran it across the coil. You’ve got to be kidding me! I rubbed on the rock enough to see a little gold show through. With a whoop and a holler I went on to find my partner. After a clean-up was done it came in at 3.5 ounces. Our one ounce club just got its newest member. Thanks to perseverance and a great mining partner, “to make sure we don’t go home skunked”, I finally achieved a major personal goal. And of course a machine that makes average people look really good, a GPZ 7000
James – North America