Six Mile Canyon Dayton?

[homestea]

Hello Guys, I am just getting into the gold nugget detecting hobby. I live in Reno, NV. I got myself a used GPX-4000 with a 11"x 17" Nuggetfinder advantage mono coil. nvchris taught me the basics of how to use the detector out at Ryp Patch last week. Unfortunatly neither of us had any luck finding any gold. I do realize though it takes patience, a bit of luck, and a whole lot of time. This weekend I was thinking about trying to hunt in the Virginia city foothills near Dayton and the Six-Mile canyon. Has anybody had any luck finding any placer nuggets in this area? I am anxious to get out before it starts getting too cold. Any suggestions besides the basics of keeping of private property and active mining claims? Thanks again for any help!!

[nvradar]

Hello Guys, I am just getting into the gold nugget detecting hobby. I live in Reno, NV. I got myself a used GPX-4000 with a 11"x 17" Nuggetfinder advantage mono coil. nvchris taught me the basics of how to use the detector out at Ryp Patch last week. Unfortunatly neither of us had any luck finding any gold. I do realize though it takes patience, a bit of luck, and a whole lot of time. This weekend I was thinking about trying to hunt in the Virginia city foothills near Dayton and the Six-Mile canyon. Has anybody had any luck finding any placer nuggets in this area? I am anxious to get out before it starts getting too cold. Any suggestions besides the basics of keeping of private property and active mining claims? Thanks again for any help!!

Hello Homestea

I have done a little detecting in the Dayton placers , no luck though. I've read people find a nugget once in a while. Haven't heard of anything worth checking in six mile canyon. A whole bunch curious about your new detector. Is it easy to learn the basics. I've been seriously considering a sd, gp, maybe a gpx. I know they all go deep. NVRADAR

[homestea]

Hello Nvradar! The GPX seems fairly easy to use so far, you just have to learn what all the different settings do and how they effect the target response. I hear that the default settings that come on the unit work well. The only thing that takes a bit getting used to is remembering to ground balance fairly often, but this is easily accomplished by just pressing the button on the handle and pumping the coil for several seconds until the threshold stabilizes. I probably still have a lot of learning to do to set up the detector to find gold as deep as possible and learn to hear the subtle tones for the deeper targets. I hear that the minelab PI detectors are pretty much the only way to go for finding the deeper targets in mineralized ground.

[notoriouskelly]

Home,

Congrats on getting a powerful machine!

You might find treasure right away, but many of us dig up lots of trash first.

But every piece of trash has a story behind it. I just found what I believe is a jeans rivet.

Is it from 100+ years ago?

Did that miner work for someone else or was he doing it alone?

Did he hit it big, languish in poverty or somewhere in between?

So it's fun even finding non-gold and wondering the stories behind it- amateur archaeologists us all!

Have fun!

[Hawkeye]

Hello Guys, I am just getting into the gold nugget detecting hobby. I live in Reno, NV. I got myself a used GPX-4000 with a 11"x 17" Nuggetfinder advantage mono coil. nvchris taught me the basics of how to use the detector out at Ryp Patch last week. Unfortunatly neither of us had any luck finding any gold. I do realize though it takes patience, a bit of luck, and a whole lot of time. This weekend I was thinking about trying to hunt in the Virginia city foothills near Dayton and the Six-Mile canyon. Has anybody had any luck finding any placer nuggets in this area? I am anxious to get out before it starts getting too cold. Any suggestions besides the basics of keeping of private property and active mining claims? Thanks again for any help!!

Congrats on getting into the hobby. It will provide years of fun and you will run into the greatest folks. Just be patient and dig everything. If your looking for info about Six Mile Canyon scroll down to the post, "My Lucky Weekend" and read about their experience.

Good luck with your detector.

Wes.

[nvradar]

Hey Homestea

Good grief did you see what Road Dog found in six mile!! wow! I had no idea!

Thanks for the info on your machine. Makes a decision to fork the money over a little easier. I kinda hate to do it this close to winter but maybe a better deal at this time of year?? Maybe I'll see ya out somewhere one day.NVRADAR

[homestea]

WOW!!!!!!!! I thought that six mile canyon probably had some good spots! Now, if I only knew what area to detect in?!

[nvchris]

Here is a look at the claims in the area Jeff, this is from google earth and prospectors power pack.

[nvradar]

Here is a look at the claims in the area Jeff, this is from google earth and prospectors power pack.

Good grief is there any place left to detect!! Not with gold prices the way they are huh. Got to be some new places out there.Thanks nvchris. NVRADAR

[wes]

You never know, it could be mostly held by bigger mining corporations. Your just a phone call away from getting permission. Always worth a try.

[nvchris]

Wes is right a simple phone call or letter works in some cases.

If you look carefully at the image I posted there is a open area or two.

For those of you new to the game research is key to finding areas to hunt.

Here are the free tools,

Google Earth

Prospectors Power Pack a free google earth plug in from Arizona Gold Prospectors website. (you must register as a member to download it)

GeoCommunicator

Mindat.org is the largest mineral database and mineralogy reference website on the internet.

Commercial software,

Footprints is handy but limited to just a few well known, popular locations in Arizona.

Hystware Mines and Minerals. IMHO a must have.

Nothing beats a visit to the county assessors office for the most up to date information (including contact info)

Good luck and happy hunting!

Chris

[notoriouskelly]

Chris,

Thanks for that wealth of useful research tools!

[homestea]

Well I have returned home with no luck. I tried a couple places along the canyon area including a long wash that looked promising in google earth. All I found was trash, hot rocks, and bullets. I tried the unclaimed area you mentioned nvchris, but it turned out to be an old dump with way too much trash targets to filter through. Further up the hill in that area we ran across a hidden shanty town of sorts with old vehicles and makeshift structures. It looked occupied, so we didnt get any closer. That sorta creeped us out, so we left. I have to do a bit more research I suppose to find the areas with gold or make some calls to get permission to detect on the nearby claims.

[nvradar]

Thanks nvchris that is some kick butt info there!!! NVRADAR

Nice website you have as well!!

[Gjones]

Hello all, I have been trying to get the Prospectors Power Pack but it does not seem to download. Is anyone willing to send it to me? Looks like a really good tool now that the LR2000 is gone. Thank you.

gregory.jones16@yahoo.com

[El Dorado]

That nugget Lucky posted up in My Lucky weekend was not found in Six Mile Canyon. It was found on a private claim in the area of Sawtooth NV. I am sorry to have been part of that ruse to confuse folks as to where the nugget was found. Lucky likes to do things like that. Once again I am sorry for any confusion and hype over Six Mile Canyon it has generated.

I have been through that canyon numerous times and It certainly has the feel and looks like a good place to nugget hunt, but I have not heard of any detected nuggets there.

[GlennM]

The power pack doesn't work now that the database on which it relied is shut down (govt at work).

And El D is a good man, not only for keeping his word about where the story would lead folks, but also for not letting it continue past its sell by date

[nvradar]

No problem fellas. info gets twisted all the time.

[Terry B]

Hi everyone, I'm a newbie here now. I have some info about Six Mile Canyon. It's a documented treasure story. It's somewhat fuzzy in my mind right now, but I'm sure it can be researched fairly easily. I lived in Carson City in the early '80s and worked for a glass shop (Beaudette's Glass). The eldest Beaudette brother was very much into the recent history of the area, and told me about a robbery that had taken place some years prior. Two men had committed a robbery either in Carson City or Reno, and fled into Six Mile Canyon by auto with the loot. The robbers were caught, but they had stashed the loot in the canyon somewhere. I don't remember why, but the robbers would never be able to retrieve the loot. Either they were killed in a shootout, or died in prison. The loot was never found. Trouble is, if it was folding money it wouldn't be worth retrieving by now unless it was very sealed up and stashed out of the weather.

[Majuba Tom]

Just a small story from around 10 years ago.

A friend and I used to dry wash at the mouth of 6 mile canyon. We never found a lot only some colors but we were having fun. So we started to sample up the canyon with gold pans. One day in a narrow area we started to find silvery nuggets. After a while we found the ravine they were washing out of. With a little bit of testing we found out that they were silver amalgam. Disolving in Nitric acid showed there was no gold in it just silver. Since we were looking for gold we went exploring other places.

That fall I bought my first gold detector. A Whites Gold Master Vsat. Well on Thanksgiving day I had a few hours to kill so I thought I would climb that steep ravine and see if I could find any more pices with my detector. It was not long that I started to find more amalgam nuggets. As I climbed higher the pices were getting bigger. Then I hit a screemer. It was a 6 ounce chunk and you could still see the marks made by the cloth they used to squeeze off the excess mercury. I was so excited so I ran home and called my friend to tell him the good news. Since he had recently picked up a Lobo he wanted to go back the next day.

The folowing Day we hiked up and started detecting where I left off. We were trying to find where it all was coming from. We were still digging up good size pices when Pat Hit a screemer wedged in to a rock out crop that was on the high side of the ravine. It was a 2 pound Ball the size of a base ball. We had just found where some old timer had stached some highgrade. At least that is what we think. It was a lot of fun that is for sure.

Majuba Tom

Here is a photo of most of what we found.