Recently I attended a presentation about metal detecting for gold nuggets. The presenter asked the audience how many of them owned a gold oriented metal detector. Nearly all the audience of over 300 people raised their hands. He then asked how many of them had been successful at finding a gold nugget. Far less of the audience raised their hands. While for most new prospectors it may seem that finding a gold nugget with a metal detector is very difficult, the reality of the situation is that once you have the knowledge and skills necessary to find gold it really isn't that difficult to do.
Many of the prospectors who have put in time detecting yet never found a nugget lack some very specific knowledge that they need to be successful. I am going to try to outline some of the basics of what is necessary to be successful in finding gold nuggets with a Minelab gold detector.
The two areas of knowledge needed to be a successful electronic gold prospector are:
1) The proper operation of your metal detector
2) The knowledge of how gold occurs, sufficient to put your coil over a nugget.
A gold nugget I found in Nevada with a Minelab Gold detector
It is absolutely true that if your detector is wildly out of adjustment, improperly ground balanced or somehow placed on settings that were never meant to be used together, you might well walk right over some nice gold and miss it altogether. Similarly, if you swing your coil in a broad “U” shaped arc lifting your coil well off the ground at the ends of each swing, there is a good chance you will miss gold. The same is true if you only listen for loud, booming targets. Learning the proper operations of your detector is really more of a mechanical type of training.
Read the manual and other materials that came with your detector, and practice using it out in the field with a test target, like a small nugget glued to a poker chip. Try out various adjustments and see which ones make the target standout the strongest. You are not always looking for the loudest response, but the response that stands out strongly against the threshold background. Have a chat with some other folks who also use your model of detector. If you spend some serious time practicing with your detector and pay attention to what the written materials tell you, you'll eventually become confident and understand what your detector is saying out in the goldfields.
The other part of the knowledge you need is the skill to find places where gold is still present near the surface. No metal detector, no matter how well designed and powerful, can find gold if it isn't there to begin with. Your job as the prospector is to put your metal detector’s coil over the top of nuggets. The metal detector can only tell you when you've succeeded in doing that. It can't produce a map with an “X” telling you where the gold is still in the ground waiting to be dug. That’s where your skills as a prospector are required.
Next time we'll take a closer look at the knowledge you need to put your coil over a nugget on a regular basis.
Chris Ralph
Comments
Getting some practice with your detector before you go on a big trip is a good idea. Glad to hear you enjoyed the book. Ganes Creek is certainly a great place to find some gold - hope you have a very successful trip. Be sure to put in the long hours detecting and listen for those faint target sounds!
Chris
What an excellent post to start out with, so often I talk to people that have the very best detectors, know how to use them but are swinging them over dead ground.
Thanks for a great post and a fantastic book. I am seeing “Fist Full of Gold” more and more on the dashes and front seats of detectorist I run into in the field!
The prospectors who know where to look and what good ground looks like are the ones who are most successful. What you know is so very important to your long term success, and lots of guys understand that so they are doing all they can to improve their skills in finding that precious yellow stuff.