Roadside Prospecting ???

[midnightmoon]

Hi all.
I am new to prospecting.
My work schedule leaves precious little time to actually get out. For now. But, the OT pay is helping me load my arsenal for later.
Anyhow, I recently moved and now live near an ancient riverbed [off limits to active prospecting]. There is an old road nearby that cuts through rolling hills. And there's a lot of old abandoned mines in those hills [yea, off limits, too]. In some sections of road, you're passing through a 20ft - 30ft cut. Layer upon layer of rock and dirt with fresh erosion at the base.
I so want to pull off and fill a couple of 5 gallon plastic buckets! I want to run some test pans! I want to buy a Falcon MD20 and check this hillside out!

This is driving me nuts!

Has anyone else prospected the roadside?

--Katt

 

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[nuggetshooter323]

.You can usually do that without any problems on a small scale, but I wouldn't escavate huge holes. The MD-20 is perfect for crevising, or roadside prospecting like this. Search around with the MD-20 until you get an indication, dig it out, throw it in your 5 gal. bucket and move on to your next signal. You dig only areas that have a "beep" or a "boing", the "beep" is for metal of course, and the "boing" is black sand. It doesn't go really deep, but it will indicate on gold you can't see. All your doing is cherrypicking the good signals and moving on. If you get the MD-20 with the 3' probe, get the pole attachment( it will save your lower back and your knees). Which ever model you decide on, get the nylon case for protection, and it allows you to hang it on your belt. I got their accessory headphones, but I found that the volume is so loud on the internal speaker so I've never really needed to use them. If your out with it, don't let the control box get wet, but the probe and the cable are waterproof. You can use it in shallow water, poke around under rocks and crevises to pinpoint good areas, the one with the probe on the long cable would be useful for this. Also, there's a five year warranty and you can call them anytime if you have questions, I know this for sure because I've called them myself. I've had mine for four or five years and I love it( in an equipmentty kind of way). I hope this helps.

 

[Lanny in AB]

That little Falcon will sure spot the gold if it's there. If there's lots of hot rocks there, it may drive you crazy with all of the signals.

However, the way I stopped many of those signals was to pass a supermagnet on a telescoping wand (nice and compact and easy to carry that way) through the dirt before I detected it. Moreover, as I'd move down a level or two, I'd sweep the dirt with the magnet again, pull the hotrocks and chunks of magnetite off the magnet head, and then I'd detect again, use the magnet again, then detect the much quieter ground, which made it easier to find the gold.

Some hotrocks will not be magnetic, but in my area, they were far less numerous than the magnetic ones. Be sure you've got a plastic scoop and a plastic gold pan with you. The Falcon will detect incredibly tiny gold, so you'll want the scoop to isolate the target (the detector head is so small that after using the MD in the field for a bit, you'll soon be able to get the target ID'd right under that small coil), and then it becomes an easy thing to scoop and trap the signal. Furthermore, if you have a plastic gold pan with you, you'll be able to spread that small amount of dirt all over the bottom of your pan. This makes it far easier to find those tiny gold flakes.

On a side note, I found a bunch of small nuggets this past summer with the Falcon too--it's not snobbish about pointing out larger gold to you.

All the best,

Lanny

P.S. Click on this link to my thread and you'll see some Falcon gold: http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/metal-detecting-gold/69-bedrock-gold-mysteries-50.html

 

[TAKODA]

Hi all.
I am new to prospecting.
My work schedule leaves precious little time to actually get out. For now. But, the OT pay is helping me load my arsenal for later.
Anyhow, I recently moved and now live near an ancient riverbed [off limits to active prospecting]. There is an old road nearby that cuts through rolling hills. And there's a lot of old abandoned mines in those hills [yea, off limits, too]. In some sections of road, you're passing through a 20ft - 30ft cut. Layer upon layer of rock and dirt with fresh erosion at the base.
I so want to pull off and fill a couple of 5 gallon plastic buckets! I want to run some test pans! I want to buy a Falcon MD20 and check this hillside out!

This is driving me nuts!

Has anyone else prospected the roadside?

--Katt

" Has anyone else prospected the roadside? "

I have . I always keep an eye out for a good smash and grab .
Discount them not . The yield can be better than you anticipate .

 

[Astrobouncer]

Not my picture got this from another forum, but here's some gold recovered from a dirt pile on the side of the hwy.