hotrock mike

Gus Peppley (Gus in Idaho) has a new website up and running www.naturalgoldtrader.com . He's started a business selling gold and his website has some great specimens and nuggets for sale. I could spend hours perusing the pictures. Gus is a good friend of mine so perhaps I'm biased, but I'm sure anyone who knows him or has done business with him would back me up on saying he's a great guy who I'd trust any day with buying gold from. Gus knows gold too. He's one of the best detectorists I've ever met. Having people like Gus in the business helps us all out. Mike Greyshock

Like most here I agree with you Chris. No reason to leave the small gold behind. In that same area you found your dinkster I hit a patch where I found 44 nugglets one morning with the GB2 and they weighed a scale tipping .39 grams. It was fun. Having said that though, I have found that sticking with the GPX and searching for the bigger stuff averages out much better than sticking with finding the small stuff. Even with skunk days the average is there in the end. People often ask me how much gold I usually find in a day but it just doesn't work that way. I can say that with the GB2 in that location I come out with an incredibly consistent 1 gram to 1 dwt. With the Minelab any given day I'm likely to find less than a gram but over a 10 day period I'm consistently at an average of double that. Usually due to one nugget or one patch. It's nice to change the pace up. And where there's big stuff there's often small stuff so why leave it. It all pays.

Hard not to get excited about a possible new technology. Could be a big jump in price and that's why they would offer a mid priced PI too. If it is as big a leap as the SD 2000 was though I would have a tough time not being on board, no matter the price. Hopefully I don't have to wait 2 years to find out.

Thanks for the answers. I only have a GB2 and GPX 5000 so I probably won't be using it but at least I know what it works on now. It had me confused. Rob - It's about time a small coil was available for the eureka. I don't have that much time on eureka's but it always seems a shame to have the 60 kHz setting without a small coil. The bigger coil doesn't utilize it's full potential I imagine.

I was given this coil by a friend. It's a 6" round coil that I understand to be a rare coil meant foir the XT series and possibly works on the Eureka. I was told that the coil won't work at the 60 khz on eureka though. Is that correct? Is there anything you can share about it's performance etc.? Thanks Mike Greyshock

I had a chance to detect with Steve H a few days ago and spent the afternoon with the ATX. Good machine. Rob should sell plenty of them and for good reason. They're going to find a lot of gold. I wrote a review on my site www.goldsearchandrescue.com for anyone who's interested. It definitely has a place in the field and I don't think anyone who orders one from Rob will be dissapointed. It's not a GPX but I was really impressed with it's ability on small gold and it's smooth threshold. Mike Greyshock

Northern California detectings biggest challenge is all the private property, but there's some good gold on public lands. I'm not a member myself but the Motherlode Goldhounds could be a good place to learn some local knowledge. Don Robinson is very knowledgeable and from my few meetings with him happy to share. They meet in Auburn so it's a close drive from Sacramento. Mike Greyshock

I Thank You all for the kind words and support of the new site. As all of us here know most prospectors are far from the villains we are made out to be from the propaganda of those with influence. If I can in a small way help some to see the reality of Us and our hobby I would consider it a success. I also hope to provide many topics and stories of interest to prospectors of all sorts. I can use all the help I can get so if you have suggestions or comments I'd love to hear em. Tell me what you'd like to see. You can contact me at mike@goldsearchandrescue.com Thanks again, Mike Greyshock

Great work sferjo. Thats a great first nugget it cerainly outweighs mine by plenty. They may come bigger but that first one is never forgotten.

The omega diggins were sold last summer. They did purchase most all of the diggins too. The new owners posted a bunch of new no trespassing and no mining or prospecting signs. They seem to want to keep people off.

Good story sdf. I always enjoy hearing the stories others have about their gold adventures. I was wondering what size goldstalker you had that didn't pick up what the joey did?

Thanks grubstake. Appreciate the response. I'm glad to see you're finding a way to keep in touch with the forums. It would be quite a loss to miss out on you're wit and wisdom.

Jonathan Porter had a good article in january's mining journal titled Growing pains of the learning curve. He hits it on the head about the difficulty involved in the process at finding your first gold. Gold only comes to those who are patient and persistent and willing to put in the work for it and even when you get good at it it's hard work. Be sure you're willing to do the work before you find that first one though because then you'll be hooked.

My current stock koss headphones have given out on me and I'm thinking of trying the wireless variety. Does anyone have any experince good or bad with certain ones? Is the sensitivity and sound as clear? Thanks.