Steve Herschbach
Hero Member
Well, as my article in the latest ICMJ Prospecting & Mining Journal relates my dredging plans are off for the summer. One door closes, others open, and I am hot the path of some excellent metal detecting opportunities in Alaska this summer. I am going to have three main targets. First, sniping bedrock with a detector which is going to get gold no matter what, but the average size will be very small. That will basically to make sure the bills get paid. Then I will put in significant amounts of time hunting tailing piles. This is not Ganes Creek or Moore Creek type stuff, which is exceptional in nature, but run of the mill tailings. That means lots of hours, very low odds of hitting gold on any given day. But the hope is a larger nugget will make the time pay off. Then finally something I have never done in Alaska - hunting virgin ground in hopes of finding a patch of gold. Extreme long odds stuff with low probability of a find, which is why I have not done it in Alaska before. I literally did not have the time! Despite the low odds however it is the type of hunting where results could be newsworthy if a find is made.
The bedrock detecting will be with high frequency VLFs like the Fisher Gold Bug 2 and White's GMT. I will be doing lots of "scrape and detect" and hitting every tiny bit if gold is more important than depth when doing that. The tailing pile detecting will be with either the Fisher F75 SE or Gold Bug Pro which are good at sorting out ferrous from non-ferrous. Tailings are full of junk. I detect about 12 hours a day so these models have ended up being what I prefer hunting tailings simply due to their light weight. Many other units would do as well but add another pound on my arm, and that is a critical factor for me, having experienced arm strain in the past. If the VLFs prove an area of tailings relatively free of trash, I will switch to my Minelab GPX 5000. The blue-sky prospecting in deep ground will be with the GPX 5000 almost exclusively.
Going to be my first real go at it in Alaska for an entire summer with a detector. I will be staying very mobile and may end up all over the state by the end of summer, or parked in one spot if I am doing well. That is one very nice thing about detecting - I can stay very light and very flexible. The entire time, I will be scouting for dredging possibilities for 2014 and beyond.
I am looking forward to it very much. Best of luck to everyone else in their summer plans!
The bedrock detecting will be with high frequency VLFs like the Fisher Gold Bug 2 and White's GMT. I will be doing lots of "scrape and detect" and hitting every tiny bit if gold is more important than depth when doing that. The tailing pile detecting will be with either the Fisher F75 SE or Gold Bug Pro which are good at sorting out ferrous from non-ferrous. Tailings are full of junk. I detect about 12 hours a day so these models have ended up being what I prefer hunting tailings simply due to their light weight. Many other units would do as well but add another pound on my arm, and that is a critical factor for me, having experienced arm strain in the past. If the VLFs prove an area of tailings relatively free of trash, I will switch to my Minelab GPX 5000. The blue-sky prospecting in deep ground will be with the GPX 5000 almost exclusively.
Going to be my first real go at it in Alaska for an entire summer with a detector. I will be staying very mobile and may end up all over the state by the end of summer, or parked in one spot if I am doing well. That is one very nice thing about detecting - I can stay very light and very flexible. The entire time, I will be scouting for dredging possibilities for 2014 and beyond.
I am looking forward to it very much. Best of luck to everyone else in their summer plans!
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