Prospecting Tales

[Lanny in AB]

Prospecting stories, tips, a few poems on gold hunting, and all are about chasing the gold. Just fly past the poems if you'd rather read stories.

The Tale of Sourdough Sue

It’s time for the tale of Sourdough Sue,
A right salty gal she was, through and through.
She’d followed the strikes all over the west,
And chasin’ the gold was what Sue liked best.

As summer was fadin’ there came word to her
A rush was a hapnin’, for certain, for sure
Yes, gold had been found, big nuggets, coarse flakes
“I’m goin’”, said Sue, “Whatever it takes.”



It seems in Montanny they had them a strike
And word of a rush, them gold diggers like.
So Sue grabbed her gear and loaded her mules
With beans, bacon, flour and stout minin’ tools

At last she was ready to head on up north
Sue knew t’would be tough, but still she set forth.
Why, week after week it was lonely and cold,
But Sue couldn’t shake the lure of that gold.

The weather degraded the farther she went
The storms she encountered seemed not heaven sent
The trek was slow, the wind howled in the trees
The snow was so deep Sue wished she’d brung skis.



Them passes was chokin’ with oodles of snow
The air in them mountains was forty below
Now Sue weren’t no Pilgrim, but this here was tough
The sun had skedaddled, and things were plumb rough.



Sue needed a spot to ride out that storm
A shelter and fire to get herself warm
Well, off in the spindrift she spied her a light
To Sue there weren't never a more welcome sight.

A cabin it was, for certain, for sure
The warmth that it offered was likely a cure
For cold toes and fingers with needle-like pains
(Escape from that storm didn’t take many brains.)

The cabin was home to one Hook-Nosed Bob Brown
His spirits was up, for they never was down.
As looks weren’t his strong suit, Bob’d loaded his mind
With right clever sayin’s from book quotes he’d find.



Now Sue came a stumblin’ from out of that storm
And Hook-Nosed old Bobby just turned on the charm
He sat Suzie down, right close to the heat
Then went to his stable—those mules got a treat,

Bob stripped off their harness, their cold heavy packs
He rubbed them right down with dry gunnysacks
He broke out some oats, some sweet meadow hay
Then forked them some bedding where both mules could lay.

Then back to the cabin he flew off to check
How Sue was a doin’, but she’d hit the deck
A buffalo hide, she’d found near the bed
And close to the fire, she lay like the dead

Well Bob had read somewheres to let such things lie
(T’was somethin’ on canines, to wake them you’d die?)
So Bob settled in for the last of that night
While the storm shook the cabin with all of its might.

The mornin’ it came with a hushed quiet chill
The wind had died out, but the cold was there still.
Bob built up the fire, then snuck off outside
To check on those mules, who thanked him bright-eyed.

Then back to his cabin he sped to his guest
For Sue was a stirrin’, so Bob did his best.
He threw on some bacon, them beans got a stir
Whatever Bob did, he did it for her.

For up on the wall, on a peg near the fire,
A stockin' was hung! For what you enquire?
T’was Christmas of course, and Bob had desired
A gift from old Santa, just like he’d enquired.

Right here lay a woman, fresh in from the storm
And on Christmas eve, he’d made his place warm.
He’d trusted in Santa to grant him his wish
This Sourdough Sue was a right purty dish.

Well Sue and Bob bonded. His nose wasn’t right,
But Bob was so witty, it fled from Sue’s sight;
She saw there, instead of what others had seen,
The solid-gold-Bob that'd always there been.


So, this is the tale of Sourdough Sue
Who went in a rush to find gold, it’s true.
But Sue wasn't savvy to Nick’s crafty plan
To scoot her off northward to find there a man.

And just so you’re certain, so there's not a doubt
(I’m sure in your mind you’ve figured it out)
In Bob’s Christmas stocking, hung there on his wall
Was a note from old Santa explaining it all.


All the best,

Lanny

 

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[Lanny in AB]

Here's a panoramic shot of the South Platte river where I dug yesterday. That whole expansive cobble bar is gold bearing! This guy was prospecting for crayfish More sign of the season

Kevin,

Many thanks for the pictures of your area. And by the way, that is one huge bar! That fact that the whole thing is gold bearing sure does fire the imagination.

I see it's green in your stomping grounds at this time of year, and that's a great shot of the flowers.

I love your little joke about the guy prospecting for Crayfish! I hope he got a bill-full of those little devils.

Once again, thanks for your post, and all the best as you chase the gold this season,

Lanny

 

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[Lanny in AB]

Thanks for the kind words Lanny , things are good at Dundee , the dry season has arrived and as soon as the burn off finishes I will be heading out to the Goldfields .
Would love to post some pics of Gold , but gotta find some first . Good luck to you ..cheers Mick

Mick,

You're like me when it comes to the gold. I too have to find it before I can post any pictures, it's just that this season so far I seem to be getting my coil over some good ground for a change, and that makes all of the difference.

I see you have the 4000 as one of your machines. I remember using that Minelab, and it's an impressive gold finder. I remember how quiet it was compared to earlier Minelabs, and it too will punch deep.

Australia is still on my bucket list for a couple of reasons. I'm a hardcore scuba diver, so the Great Barrier Reef is a must on my list, and as I chase the gold, I've got to swing a coil over some of that outback Aussie dirt after I've gone bush with someone that knows their way around! There's far too many venomous creatures out in your goldfields for me to head out on my own, and I've had several invitations from nugget hunters over the years. So, one day, I've got to make it happen.

My buddy (mate) that lives in Darwin loves to fish too, and that's something else I should do if I make it down-under.

All the best, and post some pictures of your surroundings if and when you get a chance,

Lanny

 

[goldog]

View attachment 1009128 This guy was prospecting for crayfish

What a LOON!

 

[Lanny in AB]

Here's some pictures of the country I'm prospecting in this season:













All the best,

Lanny

http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/metal-detecting-gold/69-bedrock-gold-mysteries.html

 

[KevinInColorado]

Sweet...that is some crazy, angry water...stay safe Lanny!

 

[Army of 1]

Awesome country Lanny , where else would you want to be ! . We do our share of fishing as well and always do good , but too many Sharks and Crocs and 8 metre tides to even think about SCUBA , good luck finding Gold Lanny ..cheers Mick

 

[Lanny in AB]

Awesome country Lanny , where else would you want to be ! . We do our share of fishing as well and always do good , but too many Sharks and Crocs and 8 metre tides to even think about SCUBA , good luck finding Gold Lanny ..cheers Mick

Yes, I forgot about the saltwater crocs that can swim far out to sea.

Do you go after placer gold, or are you more focused on reef gold?

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Army of 1]

Hi Lanny , I have an old timer friend who has a Mineral lease on his Exploration lease , it was a very rich Alluvial Goldfield in the 1880's , for 25 years he has searched for the source (reef ) and now thinks he has it located . In the next few weeks it will be " Jackhammer " time , the specimens found have been incredibly rich so we expect the reef "if" we can locate it should be a good one .
I have detected some of the old diggings , but with little success , but will keep trying for virgin ground . Any finds you will read it first here ..cheers Mick

 

[Lanny in AB]

To all of my fine forum friends:

I won't be too long before I'm off chasing the gold again, so my posting time will be quite restricted.

So, I hope you'll all stay in touch and keep posting pictures of your finds, as well as pictures of your gold outings in your neck of the woods.

I'll be doing more detecting this season with the GPX 5000, and for sure with the little X-Terra 705, as it has certainly earned its stripes!

Moreover, who knows, maybe I'll even get to do some surface suction sluicing!

There's always hope anyway. . . .


Lanny

 

[KevinInColorado]

Safe travels Lanny. Share what you can along the way and I for one will do the same!

 

[Hoser John]

TONS A AU 2 U 2 and safe travels,respect-John

 

[goldenmojo]

Lanny many giant nuggets to you. Safety before Feverish hunting.

GM

 

[63bkpkr]

True Lanny-ism's, the words and the pictures! Beautiful!! Thank you for the fine repast for the mind and eyes!.................63bkpkr

 

[Jeff95531]

Good luck to you Lanny. Hope you find it and a whole lot more.

 

[DvsYJ]

Lost Drift-Mine Cache

A few summers back the miners of a large placer operation, one located deep in the darkly wooded hills of the far northern goldfields, shared a fascinating story with me. The area of the story is heavily wooded with pines, firs, balsams, birches, and aspens. It’s far enough north that blood-sucking bugs are your constant companions. It’s far enough north that in the mornings, even in summer, there can be ice on the fire bucket. The roads in are logging roads that are always dangerous and often frightening. The place abounds with wildlife: deer, moose, elk, wolverine, fisher or martin, cougar, grizzly and black bear, eagles, hawks, grouse, raven, humming birds, and a vast and changing variety of song birds. There are lakes aplenty, rushing torrents that sweep over bedrock, larger, lazy rivers, and slower moving streams choked with alders. Mountains loom in every direction. Huge deposits of boulder clay (solid, stubborn masses of clay and rock dumped by glaciers up to and sometimes over a hundred feet thick) overlay ancient streambeds that are rich in coarse placer.



These are the deposits that create the domain of the solitary drift miner and the setting for the story. This is the realm of the tough soul that finds a bedrock outcrop then tunnels in by hand drifting along (following the contours of) the bedrock, shoring up the mine constantly (with hand-cut timbers and lagging) to prevent cave-ins. It is brutal, backbreaking work, as the tunnel height is kept as low as possible for economy of labor. Boulders are often encountered, and if they’re too large, the drift-miner has to detour over, around, or under the blockage. If a deposit is encountered that is filthy rich, the miner “rooms out” a large area, backfilling tunnels as he goes along. It is lonely work consisting of long days, but as the work is contained underground, a constant temperature results allowing the work to continue all winter long, and the winters are indeed long in the northlands. In the spring when the freshets (spring runoff) start, the pile accumulated throughout the long winter’s labor is sluiced and the profits are placed in a poke, or a tobacco can, or in coffee cans if the take was rich.



The previous introduction provides the setting for the tale that follows.

Late one chilly northern evening, as we sat around a bright, warm campfire, the local placer miners we were working with told me how several years previous one of the more reclusive members of their tiny community hadn't reported in to the neighborhood log-built store for his weekly visit.

Moreover, the settlement is such a small community that every resident is in the habit of showing up on the same day (mail day) to collect his or her letters. The miners, loggers, and trappers take time to socialize somewhat and to catch up on the news. Furthermore, because the area is quite remote, anytime someone breaks a routine (like coming in for their mail), the locals head out to see what’s wrong.

Well, sure enough as the old boy was overdue, the searchers found the salty digger cold and dead in his cabin. On his table was a nice tub of rich concentrates he'd been panning, busily working them down from the night before. Coarse gold filled the bottom of the pan. Everything in the cabin was peaceful and in order. No foul play whatsoever, he’d just slipped off quietly in his sleep to the big nugget mine in the sky.

The mystery of this unfortunate gold-seeker is that as a dedicated drift-miner, he had been mining full-time for decades in a great spot. Yes, decades. His diggin's were located on good, coarse gold-producing ground and all the locals knew it as he paid for his supplies at the log store in gold (they still take gold as payment even today, and there’s a set of scales on the main counter of the store). However, as is the case with many of the permanent residents for that tiny community, many live alone, just as the dead miner did. The local recluses spend the years without the companionship of spouse or family. They seem to love the solitude.



On a side note, some of the more colorful, mysterious characters won't allow you to take their photograph (under any circumstances!), which hints that they are probably on the run. Which indeed as I was to discover, certain ones are. Some have even been hiding out since the Vietnam war, unaware that a pardon has been granted.

By the way, there’s no local bank to stash your prospecting gold in. Moreover, the nearest approved safe place is four to six hours away, depending on road conditions, for the route out is a temper-mental mistress indeed. Furthermore, heading to the city only suits those that WANT to get out; some never take the opportunity, as they prefer the solitude of isolation over any other preference.

But, I'm wandering again, so back to my story.

The deceased miner had found a nice ancient tertiary channel that plunged with stubborn determination under a steep cliff of heavy, stable, boulder-clay overburden. Many torturous summers and winters of unfathomable effort were spent tunneling along the bedrock, doggedly excavating back and forth to stay with the pay, all the while chasing the ever-fickle path of gold. The miner's eternal quest is an ever-challenging riddle that teases to be solved. The golden enigma beckons a solution, a mystery left eons ago by a smug, confident Mother Nature. However, every once in a while, someone does solve it, and this drift miner was one of the masters.

For those of you that have seen one-man drift-mine operations, you are familiar how the tunnel's low height forces the toiling prospector to work in a perpetual, stooped condition. That's why so many of the Old-timer's walk permanently hunched over--the human form was not designed for such work in such cramped spaces. The drift miner's work was backbreaking, formidable, and the rewards continually uncertain. Months of unimaginable toil might yield absolutely nothing, or they might yield a hidden bonanza!

On a different note, I've gazed into those still dripping, cold and musty tunnels, vainly trying to fathom how mind-numbing it would be to use only a pick and shovel to chip away at unyielding ancient river material, filled throughout with everything from obstinate cobbles and stubborn cemented material, to mammoth, defiant boulders. Furthermore, my weak attempt to decipher the constant, nagging fear of cave-ins can never do justice to the true horror of such events whatsoever.



As well, add to the aforementioned fears (and demands of heavy labor), the years of breathing the stale, bad air that permeates confining world of the tunnel. I really can't comprehend how people remain motivated to suffer such hardship. And, as I was too dumb to realize that people still mined using this old, manual method, I assumed it was abandoned decades ago. Nonetheless, other determined gold-seekers still chase the gold using this method, the same method used by the deceased protagonist.

As, you've probably guessed where this story’s headed I'll continue my tale.

The old Sourdough of that lonely mine used to pay for all of his grub and supplies at the local outfitter's with lustrous, heavy gold. Never once did he use cash. Nor did he use banks; he refused to make the trip out from the goldfield. Furthermore, he trusted no one, and he always kept the cards of his golden intake close to his vest.

In addition, he had no family that anyone had ever been aware of, so the eager locals declared a treasure hunt and decided to see if they could find his cache. They thoroughly searched every possible hiding place they could imagine of his then silent claim.

However, wherever he cached his numerous sacks or containers of heavy nuggets and coarse gold, his talent for hiding them was masterful, and its effect enduring. The locals were not able to locate a single gram of it.

As I pass through this long winter, the vision of those manifold years of constant mining, the clear knowledge of that lucrative bounty garnered from endless tunneling in rich placer ground haunts and entices me yet.


(Picture provided by Larry from B.C. Thanks Larry!)

For somewhere deep in that primeval forest, cached in the earth, there resides a wonderful treasure, one wrestled from Mother Nature, yet one now reclaimed by her, resting in her timeless care once again.

All the best,

Lanny

Hmm cool story...I met Bob a few years back here in so.cal...he came down here for a few winters to escape the cold he said... My father had spoke and talked to him much more than I had.. he had himself a little bed out in some bushes and kept his outdoor area very nice( there's a lot of vagrants in the area w/ not so nice of living quarters)... But reading your story was cool..sorry to hear he had passed, I was hoping I'd get to talk to him again.. In fact he gave me his old blue sleep roll and I still use it periodically..:-).. one thing I did find out from him tho was I have a good idea where he hid some of his gold... He was a crafty bugger.. RIP Flat nose

 

[BurntBear]

Excellent thread Lanny!

 

[goldenIrishman]

Hey Lanny!

Just came up for air from my research project and decided to finally read this entire thread form start to finish. Sure glad I did because not only did it get my mind unwound from pouring over maps, assay reports and everything else I've been studying but it also helped lift my spirits up from a low place.

Thank you for sharing so much of your travels and adventures in the northern fields! Best of luck to you this coming season and y your pans always be heavy with gold!

 

[Lanny in AB]

If you haven't visited my main thread, here's some eye candy that shows what I've been finding in the last little while.

What's interesting about these finds is that they're patch findings, and they were located with my little Minelab X-Terra 705!

I had never gotten serious about chasing the gold with it as I've always been using my GPX 5000 recently.

But, I decided to give the X-Terra a serious run in the goldfields, and it's done very well indeed.







By the end of the run, I'd collected 16 nuggets in total! (The nuggets range from the biggest, weighing in at 2.5 grams, all the way down in size and weight to the smallest.)

I named this patch Nugget Hump, and there are a series of stories about these finds. Sorry it's taken so long to get them done. I posted them over on my main thread, http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/metal-detecting-gold/69-bedrock-gold-mysteries-127.html , but it's taken far too long to get them finished.

Here's the first one:

Nugget Hump

It was a location I'd passed many times. It was a place where others found nuggets, yet it was an area that continued to get the best of me. I don't mind getting skunked, but this was ridiculous.

I'd seen photos of some of the nuggets recovered from the surface of that old channel. The site was capped with concreted material that varied in stubbornness; for instance, some of it would break down each and every changing season to give up a bit more gold, while other portions required sledge and chisel work just to break off a tiny portion.

As for mining history, the Oldtimers had worked all around the area in the 1800's until they'd hit the concreted material, but the size of the cemented deposit had stopped them cold, well, at least on the surface.Yet, being the canny miners they were, they drifted below the cemented materials, finally hitting the gut of the old channel, and they'd done very well until they cut into a barren glacial run.

In the twentieth century, the modern miners with their bigger equipment, had chipped away and reduced the concreted deposit bit by bit, but a stubborn portion was left behind, standing defiant. Moreover, this remaining section was where nugget shooters and panners converged each spring thaw to carefully check the material that Old Man Winter had loosened for them.

To keep my interest in this area warmed up, I kept hearing the story over and over again of a beautiful seven gram nugget that had come from the place, and one day I actually got to heft that beauty and snap a picture of it. The nugget was quite flat and teardrop shaped, but it was a gorgeous buttery yellow, and so I determined that one day, I'd get myself a nugget from that spot. I mean, who likes to get shutout, right?

Well, for years I detected that deposit, I panned buckets of material, but all I ever got was a small picker. No nuggets for me, and no good concentrations of flake gold either.

To make me feel even worse, I met a guy one day that had run twenty buckets of sluff (from the action of the winter's frost) in the spring, and he had a quarter of an ounce of sassy butter and copper-colored gold (two very different varieties), but I never had anything close to such luck. The hunt for the gold was proving to be a serious challenge. And, stories like the one just mentioned only ramped up my desire to find some of that elusive gold.

And then one day, the world turned, and I had a rare opportunity to detect where someone with even bigger, more modern equipment had recently broken through some of that cemented material to expose ground that no one had ever passed a coil over.


More to follow as I find the time.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

​Nugget Hump, continued:

I'll have to take a minute to update you on the detecting conditions: the area was littered with pieces of ironstone, as well as about eight other varieties of hotrocks. With a VLF, the detector would always sing a sailor's drunken tune as the coil passed from false signal to false signal, and this was with a DD coil to boot.

As fate would have it, one day I found myself underprepared to tackle this newly uncovered ground. All I had with me was my little Minelab 705 X-Terra. I'd zipped out to the goldfields on a quick trip to check on equipment and our accommodations but without any clue of the earlier mentioned mechanical work that uncovered the virgin ground.

You see, if I'd had any clue what I was about to stumble upon, I'd have packed my Minelab 5000 as it runs almost completely quiet in the ground conditions I've already detailed. However, luck is a fickle mistress, and that morning when I'd packed the 4X4 Dodge with my prospecting gear (my wife was with me on that trip, and she loves to chase the gold), all I had in the detector world of toys was the X-Terra.

The moment we crested the hill, I could see that someone had been moving a lot of stuff around. The general area is a beehive of current placer activity with many active claims, and someone had been hard at whatever it was they were about. Furthermore, the spot is nestled in a beautiful canyon where great swaths of deep green sentinel pines and firs keep watch, and have so kept watch for thousands of years. On a side note, the crystalline river runs quite a ways lower in the canyon, as the ground I'm talking about is an old stranded channel that hasn't seen the action of the river since dim eons ago. However, up on the bench claims, there's evidence everywhere of the Argonauts of old that toiled for the gold: remnants of drift mine posts and pillars, numerous piles of hand-stacked stone, rusted wheels and rails sometimes appear, and the ghosts of cabins still haunt the copses of undisturbed timber.

Well, having seen that there'd been recent activity, and that a whack of that cemented nastiness had been moved, I pulled the red mule off the road and then coaxed it to climb the short distance to where they'd been working. The whole area was backed by a massive climb of glacial run, but the gold was found in the old channel a good drop from the till. Massive peaks stared down in stony silence as I climbed out of the truck. The freshness of the mountain air strikes me each and every time when I open the door: the scent of the conifers always a pleasant reminder of how far I am from the rush and fumed chaos of city life.

My wife was in the mood to relax for a bit, so she opened her window and reclined her seat to read from a book for a bit. She likes to play with the gold down at the river, and this lofty perch didn't suit her preferences, so she let me head off on my own.

As is rarely the case when it comes to nugget hunting, the first find happened rather quickly. The little X-Terra (in all honesty) had never really captured my imagination as a true gold-getting machine. I love its discrimination circuitry for finding coins as it does a fantastic job of that. However, I'd never taken the time to learn how to be an active dance partner with its gold circuitry in the mountains. But, as the 705 was all I had, and as it was the one I'd taken to the dance, I was going to stick with it.

I knew enough about ground-balancing the machine, and enough about adjusting the rest of the electronics so that I was soon at it. I looked at where the concreted material had been broken away, calculated where virgin dirt would have underlain the solid mass and started swinging the coil.

Almost instantly, right on the surface, I had a sweet signal. It sounded great in the headphones, and when I ran the magnet through the small pile of dirt I'd pinpointed, nothing jumped to the super-magnet, and the signal remained strong and clear when I trapped the dirt in the plastic scoop. As I shook the pay dirt onto the coil, a solid "whap" let me know the target had landed. Moving the bits around on the coil, I was soon disappointed to see the lead from a bullet. Lead is the great counterfeit of electronic gold prospecting! Someone had very obviously been shooting at the hill recently!

Undeterred, I swept the area yet again, and this time I was rewarded with a softer, yet constant repeating signal, no matter which direction I passed the coil over the target. I removed a couple of inches of soil, kept the coil the same height as before over the target signal, and it was louder this time, much crisper. After removing about eight inches of gravelly overburden, the signal was screaming. Once again, I passed the super-magnet through the small area of pinpointed dirt. No attraction to the magnet. This is always when things get interesting, but as I'd so recently been supremely disappointed, I put my anticipation of sassy gold on hold.

I captured the target area of stones in my scoop, and the signal was still screaming loudly. I shook the material onto the DD coil a bit at a time, discarding all the silent siftings of dirt as I progressed. But, at last, a loud electronic groan let me know the target was on the coil. Because of the heavy clay in that ancient channel, the lump on the coil was indistinct. All I knew for sure was that it was not magnetic, and that it was much larger than the small chunk of mangled lead I'd sorted earlier.

I plucked the target from the coil, hefted it in my palm, and it was heavy. That's always a good sign. I scanned the scoop with the X-Terra again and the remaining dirt was just as silent as a busted CD player, so I chucked the barren dirt away and dropped the target into the scoop.

More to follow as I find the time.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

More on Nugget Hump

With the target in the scoop, I poured a little water in and worked the lump with my fingers. Almost instantly, the lump gave off a golden flash! By quickly rubbing and washing the rest of the clay away, I soon had the solid gold nugget ready for a closer look. And what a look it was. The piece was not hammered and flat like so much of the gold I'd already found in the surrounding area. Instead, this nugget had lots of bumpy character, and in the sunshine it produced a nice buttery yellow glow.

Now, it doesn't seem to matter how many nuggets I find, for there's still a thrill when there's one that's different, and this one fit the bill to a T. Moreover, remember that my wife wasn't far off, reading her book in the truck. So not to appear too excited, I slowly wandered over her way. Well, the air was a bit cooler than when I'd left her, and she had the window closed. So, I tapped on the window. She rolled it down. I told her to hold out her hand, and since I don't drop worms or bugs into her hand when she does this, she held it out to me.

I dropped the nugget into her cupped palm, and immediately she started to lightly bounce her hand up and down, to sense the weight of it. She pulled her hand into the truck and looked at the nugget. Well, her eyes sure lit up, and she smiled one of those beautiful smiles of hers."Where'd you get that?" she asked. I pointed to the hump. She handed the little beauty back so I could put it in my plastic nugget bottle. She told me how nice she thought the nugget was and asked me if I thought there were any more. Of course, I had no clue, but I left pronto, eager to get back to sweep some more of the area.

I'll provide a bit of background on sweeping the area: the spot was littered with cobbles varying in size from golf balls to watermelons. So, I drug, and rolled the larger rocks off, then raked the area down. I do this so I can get every mm of depth advantage for the coil, and especially with the X-Terra, as it doesn't have the punch of my 5000. Furthermore, the closer I can get the coil to the ground, or indeed to "scrub" the ground with the coil will get me a tiny advantage to hear faint signals or tiny interruptions in the threshold that I'd miss by simply swinging the coil above the ground.

Is this process extra work? Absolutely. Do I enjoy it? On hot days I hate it, and on cooler days, it's still a zero on the fun scale, but I've found it's the best way to get the best shot at another nugget when you've found one in the area that might have company. What I'm talking about here is clearing the area carefully to see it there's a patch of nuggets hanging out with the first one, and this is a great method to help avoid missing gold when you've already found gold in a spot.

But, back to my story.

About six inches away from the nugget hole, I got another soft signal. I went through the same check-recheck-sort process described earlier, and soon had another nice nugget. This one was smaller, but very respectable. However, it was hammered flat, and the little sweetheart was a darker color of gold than the first find. So, I knew I was hitting other gold moved by the glaciers, the other color produced by the two gold-bearing runs. Things were getting very interesting.

I strolled over to the truck, tapped on the window, my wife stopped reading again, rolled down the window, and she went through the same routine as before, with her once again complimenting me on a nice find. However, I could tell I'd grabbed more of her attention this time as two nuggets in such a short time is a rare thing, a rare thing that could lead to something more interesting.

I put the nugget into the bottle, rattled the gold around in the bottle close to my ear to hear the nuggets growl as they spun around inside (this is a little ritual I always do for multiple finds), and off I went to hit the hump again.

If I'd have known what the output of that spot would eventually be, I'm sure I'd have run back, but I was still in the early stages of shooting for nuggets in that place, so I strolled back to the hump happy and satisfied that I'd captured two nuggets. Nonetheless, I was hopeful there'd be more too because the memories of others finding nuggets for years at "Nugget Hump" was running a full-color loop in the video images of my brain.

More to follow as I find the time.

All the best,

Lanny