Back to Old Nugget Patches Again ....


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Hello All,

A partner and I decided to beat up old patches once again, hoping for a few easy ones. We hunted for about 4 hours, dug plenty of iron rubbish around the old workings, but managed to scratch up a few nuggets among the garbage. Due to the amount of trash from the old-timers, I was using the Coiltek Joey DD Pro 10x5 for better seperation between targets. I managed to find the biggest nugget, 4.7 Dwt's, but my partner found 5 smaller ones.

Larger nugget on left of Joey searchcoil is mine. Smaller pieces on right belong to my partner.

NuggetPatch.jpg

It's still out there ...

Rob Allison

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Hey Uncle Ron,

If it wasn't for the amount of trash in this one section, the nugget would have been long gone. There was one area with some handstacking that also had a load of old rusted cans, bits of wire and other rubbish. I concentrated on this area for the better part of that trip. The nugget was tucked up near the stacking, laying right on top of exposed bedrock. The nugget was probably about an inch deep, sounded just like all the trash I was digging. I pushed this target around several times with the pick and super magnet, so my guess was another chunk of old lead. Low and behold when I seen the chunk of gold in my hand, I was amazed!

This piece was missed due to the amount of iron rubbish and the lack of someone willing to dig it all up. I know dozens of these spots and know there is gold to be found, but it's just overwhelming to sit and dig it all (especially trash at depth).

Hope this helps,

Rob Allison

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Hey AzNuggetBob,

It was a big surprise as this patch as it was known for Dwt sized gold. Biggest I got out of this patch was around 3 Dwt or so, but always knew there had to be bigger somewhere. Even though it's a pretty shallow patch in the heart of it, I figured maybe the easy big bangers got cherry picked with VLF using discrimination mode years prior.

Someone PMed me about my settings. I normally run my GPX 5000 metal detector in these modes/timings -

Fixed Ground Balance

Mono Mode

General Position

Special/Sensitive/Extra timing

Audio either Normal or Deep (depending on depth of ground)

Very Low Motion

RX Gain around 12

Hope this helps,

Rob Allison

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Rob, what would your 5000 settings translat closest to the GPX4500? I've quit hunting known patches and have had much success in finding virgin patches this year ... The NF 14 & 16 E coils have served me best, but I did do some damage with the Coiltek Joey Mono too ...Thanks, Ron

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