Lessons with an acutally opertunity to find gold?

[afreakofnature]

Lessons with an acutal opertunity to find gold?

My friend and I both own a White's GMT Goldmaster and in 4 years we have not found any nuggets. We have found lots of nails, 2 shovels, countless tin and garbage, bottle tops, etc. We both live in South Dakota but have tried to reach out to others here to give us some lessons but there is not a club and members in our local prospecting club seem to keep to themselves. We would like to take a trip this summer to have a day lesson (or so) on using our detectors to nuggett shoot and then be able to go out on some proven grounds for a few days and try to find some ourselves. We are just getting really discouraged. Either we are not using our equipment correctly (which is probably half of it) and we are just not on proven ground. We do placer mine quit a bit and have found some nice pickers in this manner but not with our detectors. We have taken those pickers and used them in conjunction to learn the sounds we should hear, but we really would like some lessons and really would like to find something.
Does anyone know who we could contact for something like this. Keep in mind this is going to be a little vacation trip for us this summer so we do not mind where we have to go. We were hopeing there might be something like "Chicken Gold Camp" type deal where you could get some good quality lessons on our equipment and then head out to swing it. Pay to play type.

 

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[IMPDLN]

All good viable suggestions so far, but maybe I can offer a little insight. First of all what coil are you using? I recommend the small elliptical for the best sensitivity to smaller targets. From your initial post it seems you are finding sizeable, mostly obvious signals. You need to listen for the quiet barely noticeable targets in most circumstances. Unless you get over a larger piece of gold, the signal is usually very subtle. Good quality head phones made specifically for metal detectors make a real difference on hearing subtle targets.

Another tidbit concerning signal strength and screens or displays. Many times a nugget signal won't show on most displays until the coil is fairly close to the target or the target is large enough to give a more positive response. You really need to concentrate and focus on any disturbance in the threshold and at least scrape an inch or so of material off the surface and see if any disturbance becomes a more positive response. Those types of subtle signals are what often turn into valid nugget rewards.

Location can make all the difference. I recommend you concentrate on exposed or very shallow bedrock in washes that are known to carry course gold. Bedrock in washes give the best opportunity to find a gold concentration and that includes nuggets. Not that gold can't be found on hillsides or out of a wash, but these types of deposits are hard to locate and require a lot more patience.

How you detect is another important technique. You must go with coil low or scraping the ground and very slowly. Too many people just take their detector out for a walk and swing way too fast. You need to cover all the ground with over lapping swings. Work small areas and not only swing facing upstream and downstream but also detect the wash side to side. You aren't really walking or hiking when detecting gold thoroughly. You tend to stand in 1 spot and cover the area within reach carefully, slowly and completely. Then take a step or maybe two and cover the ground again.

Try some of these suggestions and when you are finding tiny pieces of metal, like the smallest bird shot, boot tacks, or slivers. you will know you are in the zone. Then it is just a matter of getting your coil over a detectable piece of gold. The GMT is a fine machine and is capable of finding very tiny pieces of gold when used properly with the smallest elliptical coil. I hope some of these suggestions help you. Dennis

 

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[Jim Hemmingway]

All good viable suggestions so far, but maybe I can offer a little insight. First of all what coil are you using? I recommend the small elliptical for the best sensitivity to smaller targets. From your initial post it seems you are finding sizeable, mostly obvious signals. You need to listen for the quiet barely noticeable targets in most circumstances. Unless you get over a larger piece of gold, the signal is usually very subtle. Good quality head phones made specifically for metal detectors make a real difference on hearing subtle targets.

Another tidbit concerning signal strength and screens or displays. Many times a nugget signal won't show on most displays until the coil is fairly close to the target or the target is large enough to give a more positive response. You really need to concentrate and focus on any disturbance in the threshold and at least scrape an inch or so of material off the surface and see if any disturbance becomes a more positive response. Those types of subtle signals are what often turn into valid nugget rewards.

Location can make all the difference. I recommend you concentrate on exposed or very shallow bedrock in washes that are known to carry course gold. Bedrock in washes give the best opportunity to find a gold concentration and that includes nuggets. Not that gold can't be found on hillsides or out of a wash, but these types of deposits are hard to locate and require a lot more patience.

How you detect is another important technique. You must go with coil low or scraping the ground and very slowly. Too many people just take their detector out for a walk and swing way too fast. You need to cover all the ground with over lapping swings. Work small areas and not only swing facing upstream and downstream but also detect the wash side to side. You aren't really walking or hiking when detecting gold thoroughly. You tend to stand in 1 spot and cover the area within reach carefully, slowly and completely. Then take a step or maybe two and cover the ground again.

Try some of these suggestions and when you are finding tiny pieces of metal, like the smallest bird shot, boot tacks, or slivers. you will know you are in the zone. Then it is just a matter of getting your coil over a detectable piece of gold. The GMT is a fine machine and is capable of finding very tiny pieces of gold when used properly with the smallest elliptical coil. I hope some of these suggestions help you. Dennis

Just an excellent post Dennis!!!

Afreakofnature... perhaps you've seen the video below, but we're gonna post it again here because it will compliment the post above by Dennis very nicely. We all hope that you enjoy some success with your gold detecting soon... good luck and good hunting!!!

Jim.

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[afreakofnature]

Thanks for even more advice and more people to get in contact with. The video i saw before too. I am not going to give up and i will keep trying on my own with the new things i have learned. I still will probably get a lesson at some point too though.

Thanks everyone, keep it coming if you got more suggestions too, all helps