12 Weeks To Find First Gold (Persistence Pays).

Hi All,

I wanted to share my experience when I first purchased the GP3000 Minelab - after many outings in the goldfields it took me roughly 12 weeks to find my first piece of Gold, the gold came out of white pipe clay with signs of quartz and ironstone in the area, it was rough on the surface area with quartz attached. There were also workings around the area but this piece was in virgin ground between workings on slight hill area just upwards of a small open cut drive/lead where what appeared to be a few shallow loam holes.

After a lot of patience and persistence I managed to find gold more frequently, some weeks were 3 to 4 days a week I would find gold - we hear many stories of people finding gold on the first day and so on, all these stories are wonderful to read and keeps that patience and persistence in all of us, brings that level of excitement back and we become more ambitious in our adventures.

I still wonder why I had never broken the 1oz mark - and still to this day I think what I have left due to inexperience and listening to the more experienced prospectors in the early days - when I first purchased minelab GP3000 I was advised by a few pro's to set to discriminate, while detecting anything that discriminated would pretty much stay unearthed. After a long day with nothing to show I was walking back down a gully and found a nice target when I dug down about 8 to 10 inches the target discriminated, I thought may as well dig it out. Fair enough it was an 8 gram nugget, I waved it over the coil a few times and it discriminated again.

I was shaking my head in disbelief - to me I thought discriminate was the bee's knee's of gold detecting the holy grail of the new technology, only to be disappointed when talking with John Gladdis of Coiltek. His words that have stuck to this day were "there is a fine line between discriminate and overload" from this day my detector has never been set to anything other than ALL METAL - dig everything, I will never forget this day walking through some workings detecting and see a 4x4 driving past and then it came back close to where I was, when I looked over to see a person walking towards me couldnt believe it was John - he asked how I was going and we talked about the day, thats when I asked the question and had him check my settings cha ching thanks John

After finding the first piece of gold and reading a lot of literature and gold related topics, reading and studying maps etc - we start to build an understanding of being able to read the ground to a certain degree. Whether it be the Salt N Pepper or the slight dip beside a group of workings or even the saddle of some test holes we seem to find our proven method in prospecting on our own or with other Professional operators

My 3 main things that I always concentrate on while out

1. Dig Everything (Gold can be in many shapes and sizes and can sound just like any target) We all love the smooth soft repetitive signals and also screamers can be big gold closer to the surface - for piece of mind dig verify keep or discard

2. Go low and slow and listen for those faint threshold changes which are repetitive - scratch the surface if you are not sure to see if the target signal increases, all it takes is a stick in your way or an inch of leaves and rubble to miss that target

3. Dont rush your day enjoy it because the ground and gold wont go anywhere - if you rush your day then you will be sure to miss it and no doubt leave frustrated and never try that spot again. Be sure that you are thorough in all efforts, I also feel very privileged just to be able to prospect

I have added some images of gold that I found over a period from 0.2 grams to 14.8 grams





Thats a quick summary of the earlier days from 2005 onwards - many wonderful stories along my travels

I am still currently using the Minelab GP3500 after upgrading not long after the GP3500 was released, mostly using a Coiltek 14" DD Pro - looking to invest in the Coiltek 14" Elite Mono to add to my arsenal

I might also look to upgrade to the GPX model - not sure on the GPZ at present - I guess I am fine tuned with the GP and still finding gold, we still hear many stories of users of the SD Models

Be well and Safe - Happy Prospecting

great read, and should spur on other newbies who are goldless to keep at it.

The GP series are still excellent machines, if you are in ground that allows the use of mono coils, then they aren't far behind much later offerings.
I still love the analogue GP series audio. Found many pieces with the GP's, and in some spots didn't leave much behind for later generation machines, but the Zed has squeaked out a few.

Great read and some sound advice Minelab Gold.
Cheers Steve

Nice to hear - I have been following the progress of the GPZ and noticed great results

these were a few pulled out last week total 14.5g with the GP3500 as always same old grounds which change slightly from controlled burn offs, weather and forest plantation during different seasons.



Hope to get some pics up soon of one patch area that I found to also help any novice prospectors with some insight, and dont give up it is definitely still out there and what is achievable when you stick at it.

Great read and info MG thanks for posting.

Thanks RM Outback,

Heading back out tomorrow - might catch some between the rain. - I'm thinking wet weather gear.

Great read and great advice...thanks Minelab Gold

Thanks for the write up.

Confirming what people that find the gold live by!

Looking forward to your future contributions to the forum, and welcome!

Cheers

RS

When I first started prospecting one of the harder things to do was to read the ground, because were are all not trained in geology we can see what is on top though unless we have the advantage of previous test holes shafts or gully to actually see the layers where we are detecting.

When we are in dense bush with a lot of forest floor and overburden it becomes difficult with some area's having am overburden of grass, leaves, bark and scrub which has built up over the years, this can make us lose anywhere up to 8 inches of rubbish on top, then with the top soil added we are pretty much detecting a waste area. I always think how great it would be just to take a foot of top soil off the old gold working area's. How much this would stimulate the detecting world - maybe if I find a lamp and rub it then I can wish this for everyone

Anyway that being said a lot of literature when first starting to prospect can be overwhelming and hard to take in for new prospectors, turbitide, metamorphic, granodiorite, devonian, silurian, ordovician, cambrian, basalt, newer volcanics, sediments etc

We see old timers saying Salt N Pepper as we know 2 main indicators for gold are Quartz and Ironstone, we take the layers that have formed overtime from sea levels and weather, salt water, distributing the gold in waves and currents in streams and old ancient creeks rivers, until eventually water dried up covered with sediments clays small rocks etc and got really hard from dry times, then again more weather rain sea levels rising more distribution of the gold and the likes for millions of years, again dried up more top soils cover our gold, when talking millions of years it easy to understand the evolution and easy to understand when put in layman's, in our lifetime which is a very minute scale compared to the evolution in its entirety.

We also see many pictures descriptions literature of prospectors trying to explain things and we still cant understand, looking at topo maps, geology maps, the make up of the ground still doesnt pinpoint the ground where you want to focus on - it only does on a large scale. You want to know what is under your feet every where you are detecting or at least have a better understanding so you are not swinging for nothing. We all know that it not possible to do this unless you were digging a hole every 10 or so meters a few feet down and this is pretty much going to waste a lot of time, the only thing we can do is look for the signs on top - read the ground, read the ground, take a walk before detecting to look for the signs, sit back and look at the landscape to picture how the water would have flowed in the days when it was covered with water in great volumes.

Its just like the large companies with the exploration license and mine operators they wont just dig the grounds before drilling and knowing whats underneath they prospect first - bring this down to a small scale detector operator and there we go, we know we can only see or here so to speak a certain depth into the earth so take the time to better your odds on reading the grounds.

Majority of the gold towns located in the Golden Triangle are built on the richer old leads with residential houses right on top, when you look at the surrounding bush area's there are still many area's to prospect and find that elusive yellow mineral. Many gullies which were never even tested with a test hole, its not because there is no gold there and never been checked by an old timer for gold

Say to yourself why has this not been tested? there was gold found in a lot of other gullies, this gully has all the signs, and check it. There may have been many reasons why. Take a town that was booming with 100,000 miners in a frenzy to find the gold, just like us we hear of a big nugget found or big nugg's on the internet dunolly, maryborough, moliagal, ballarat etc first thing we say is wow then we think maybe I should go and look there to find big gold. Exactly what the old timers would have done in the thousands, word spread fast back then they see miners going or hear of them going to the next big rush leaving potential gold

Take into account the history of the local area, many had to leave because of too much water or not enough and never returned 100km on horse and cart or by foot was a lot in those days. Where as we have the luxury of 100km per hour in vehicle so its much easier to travel gold fields

Now we have read the ground, good indicators, have no signs of test holes, we know its virgin ground, and we are equipped with a machine that can see or hear I should say into the ground for minerals, depending on the size of the gold we could potentially find 0.5g to welcome stranger up to a certain depth. For this the old miners would need to dig that entire section off the ground and process the material just to find what you can hear or see. What an advantage we have

You say to yourself just imagine if you could go back in time and have your detector back in those days, what about these days though in another 100 years people will be saying I wish I could go back in time to the late 1900's early 2000's when detectors were released. Still be cool back in the 1800's though

hopefully we can see some inspirational documentation for the novice operators to provide an insight into the wonderful world of prospecting

this below image was a reference that I created for the layman understanding of some geological formation - its a lot easier to understand than some wording used within the geology world, geology evolution etc

They say Gold is where you find it - most times it is in the ground and majority of old gold towns has the potential of anywhere within a certain radius along old gullies, hillside, old workings to have gold still there



Heading back out soon to a gully and should hopefully take some photo's of this big quartz vein white clay very mineralized area

Great read. Gives me hope! Cant wait for that feeling of finding my first piece of gold!!

Annunaki said:

Great read. Gives me hope! Cant wait for that feeling of finding my first piece of gold!!

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Agreed! We got this!

Good read. I would like to read some more.

Very informative post Minelab Gold. Has helped me understand and recognise what to look for in the field.
Australia is such a vast country and I feel there is more to be found just in more remote locations.
Thanks so much for your contributions.
Cheers Goldhound.

Hi All,

Today I went out for a swing again and found a few artifacts/relics - what looks to be an item from an old gun, some odd shaped pieces of lead, gotta love some area's where you find the bullet shell then you find the lead next to a cut piece of wood what looks to be chainsaw and you think to yourself was someone shooting at this guy cutting wood.

First thing that comes to mind in the fields, what the hell is it. Try to verify what the item is, how and why is it here and you start to write a story of your own just to have a laugh or to think how it ended up there.

Some problems I have noticed in our local bush around old workings and the likes is people think its ok to throw away there rubbish in the bush in old workings rather than paying a few dollars at the local tips - I'm talking not just the general coke can which is bad enough but half trailer loads or boot loads of crap. Today in the bush, LCD LED TV 55" with the box next to it, along with car battery, general rubbish, kids pram, kids car seat, vehicle factory airbox

And another section looks to be crap from an old renovation of a house

Anyway while I was out I managed to snap a few pics of the deep lead gully to show some explanations - what do these pictures tell us when running our assessment of the grounds.

In this image which you all would have seen in the days in the fields along side a worked lead or gully - what do I look for when I see these holes


1. Look for the layers in the hole to see the depth of the levels - this will help you with how deep the top soils are
2. In this image you will see red arrows - this shows us the younger eroded quartz which has traveledfrom bigger quartz and because it is rough it tells us that it has not been exposed to massive amounts of water over time
3. Green arrow indicates a possible ancient water worn river bed of rock very large and due to a constant amount of water over a very long period, but in this hole it appears only in this one corner is this a pocket from the gully coming into this test hole - potentially yes and what do pockets contain if in the right spot in the river or creek bed - that right Gold and Heavies
4. The blue arrow indicates a bottom which the miner has stopped - now because this is only 1.5mtrs of the gully edge in the next images the gully is about 2.5 to 3mtrs in depth so maybe this bottom is actually a false bottom.


In this image you can clearly see the flow of the gully coming down around following the contour of the ground - with large amounts of water flow for thousands of years - we know where the gold and heavies drop off based on gravity and water flow


1. Again you can see the layers with water flow over time depositing the overburden, softs, top soils, clay, different rocks, clay, rocks, and finally below it all large waterworn rocks - lots of water over a very long period
2. Yellow is left over wash material that the miners would have dug down to to eventually get close to the upper surface of the rock bottom or creek or river bottom, then processing this material
3. Blue arrows again you can see its a harder level which would be a less volume of water over time drying up and making it like concrete until it forms up more layers - the higher the layers and less water over thousands of years and the earth movements causing rivers to change course or to simply stop the passage of water causing them to become a creek or river no more and simply get soft material wash down the slopes and building up the upper to clays and top soils until eventually just looks like a gully with now creek
4. The red arrows indicates how the miners took all the water worn material away and a certain width depth below to ensure majority of the heaviest material will be processed - again you see this frequent where a small erosion has occurred opening up pockets of water worn material
5. Is there still gold behind that pocket of rocks hanging off the side of the gully - there could possibly well be, when you see this well no one has bothered to look because it would be knocked of the creek wall - how much time and effort will you put into your prospecting? The old miners have dug out this massive deep lead why would I complain about spending 20 minutes or more when they have already dug out 10mtr wide and 3 mtrs deep haha - no harm in trying my luck on that pocket of rocks


Closeup view


In this image shows another way to read ground depths - you can see water always flows its course depositing material based on the contour of the land


1. See how much of a straight line (Yellow Arrow) the material has been deposited then over time with land changing at the upper top soil level is like a wave of upper deposits
2. look at the depth from the top soil with the red arrows and the difference with the blue arrows - not very good for prospecting with a high probability for shallow gold on the top - how do we know this because we have looked at the grounds along the side of the gully very frequent test holes here and there and this deep lead is 3 mtrs deep, majority of the test holes are 1.5 to 2mtrs deep
3. Maybe you could strike the odd piece that the old timers dropped on their mullock when digging test holes


Now we have looked at the deep lead in a few area's, distinguished this ground is deep to this ancient creek bed level, whats up further and where did the gold come from that made them dig to such depths

We walk up the lead to find very shallow diggings, red clays, quartz, ironstone, some schists maybe, and we see that the lead has stopped but along the way we see some gullies coming off the main lead

Now this 3 mtr deep lead has changed to 1 to 2 foot deep - we see shallow area on the contour of the landscape, undulating soft spots shallows and instead of 5 10 20 test holes there are 50 to 100 test holes and more shallow which is prime ground for detecting

If you find test holes close together is good, if you find test holes that look like it has turned into a lead following gold then 99% of the time it is because they found gold on one side of there hole and continued to follow it until they thought it had ran out - check these

Now on the sides of all these shallow workings Im not talking just a few meters sit back and look at the flow of the deep lead which contained the heaviest deposits, these shallow workings meant that gold was sprinkled across the land in this section from run off, or a shelf from the ancient riverbed, and prospect beyond these workings

We ask why did the gold just stop and where did it come from? - the reason it stopped is because of the change in the earth over millions of years, the river bed has gone and the gold that was being deposited cant no more because the river is gone, where was the primary source who knows it could have been 100mtrs away or 14kms away - pushing out of a reef and falling down hill for millions of years into the ancient creek, even direct reef into the ancient creek, maybe a natural underground spring

The only thing we can do is put ourselves out there and keep prospecting - maybe you will find it 100mtrs away

Why did the miners just stop - maybe it was excessive water or even drought, my guess is because the deep lead had ran out of gold is why they stopped, these guys in the leads continued 10 20 50 100mtrs up and down stream until they were sure that the gold had diminished and became not viable for them to continue and off they went in search again - for us finding 1gram is fun and gets you going for more - in the early days they needed a far lot more than a 1 gram slug to encourage them of a rich payday we are talking shovel the pay dirt out and have ounces on the shovel loads - which reminds me of a story

I remember standing in coiltek one day and this old guys comes in with a big jar and in the bottom was 100 or so nuggets and a weight of 8 ounces or so - and his words were - "I found a spot in the bush what must have been pay dirt the old timers were shoveling and missed their wheel barrow" And his excitement was next to nothing at this time - I guess in the bush may have been a different story, I would have been jumping up and down like KG and Ringy

Thank you so much for your time and effort....definitely enjoying your write ups with pictures.

Noogle said:

Thank you so much for your time and effort....definitely enjoying your write ups with pictures.

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Thanks Noogle,

A little time and effort goes a long way especially in the goldfields - some interesting clips that I seen on youtube also show how much people risk and the efforts they put in for very little reward in search of gold. Some Ghana operations are much like it would have been in the old days here but even more primitive with their lack of equipment pretty much a shovel and the bucket on the head type of operation.

If you look at some of the mining operations in Ghana on youtube shows how much dirt they dig for match head size gold, and one that really shocked me but shows the extreme efforts and life risked for again a very small piece of gold is the Children Underwater Mining in the phillipines on youtube

When I see these operations digging 20 or so 1 foot holes with no reward doesnt bother me at all

I think the more modern operators want easy gold - take a little time and effort, much patience and persistence

Another note when I first started in 2005 I purchased a 1 gram nugg from Ballarat Gold Shop off Cordell just to know what the sound was like and what depth I could achieve, If anyone can find lead in the ground they are surely doing the right thing and eventually they will find gold just keep at it.

In the next images I will show some ground away from any gullies/leads which has an Adit and a few lines of workings which are very shallow

Hi Guys,

hopefully some inspirational advice to all level operators - back out the bush today

Whether it is a hobby on weekends, after work during weekdays, full time operators - I like to set myself a plan, you can look at it a few ways, in my opinion does psychology play a part in prospecting - most definitely, discipline, is your plan testable can it be verified and repeated over time to produce rewards.

The night before I charge my gear and maybe read some gold doco's - In the mornings I get into the right state of mind, I have my breakfast and morning coffee, then look at maps, google earth and picking a location - I check elevation as well - also look at spots where I have previously found gold and what can I find that maybe was missed

1. This image was before I left today - when I overlay the Doug Stone and John Tully maps along with geological I notice many of the gold workings are not listed or documented - I set an area and mark down spots of interest and stick to my plan


2. How many of you drive through the bush tracks and look at the road - see how we have quartz and you drive along many places and see the change in geology just along the road sides


3. You drive along the tracks and look into the bush and see this - thats right tree's and nothing - most are looking for signs of workings road side so they can have a further look at prospecting - you would just drive past this and think nothing of it - no recorded workings, no gold maps recorded this area - google earth shows nothing but tree's and elevation - no gully - no leads - no creeks - nothing at all - its very handy if you know the bush but if you dont know an area how can we tell - I like to get out walk into area's just t look at the grounds and rocks - might only take 10 minutes but well worth it


4. We have gone for a walk and notice workings further into the bush area - around all the tracks it is not noticeable from road side - thats an advantage already finding these is excellent - because our chances are slightly higher - when looking at the grounds there is no creek with only a slight elevation around all sides of this undulated land/area - this tells me that its like a bowl from the lowest point at these workings in every direction elevates upwards from 2 foot to 12 foot of incline


5. On further inspection we see conglomerate with ironstone quarts - this stuff is like a hard base of everything that is on top - what we have now is excellent shallow opportunities - in the previous image we can see the workings everywhere in this area are very shallow - prime for detecting - at the top of the workings appears to be an adit type hole in the side of a big hole - when you look into this hole it continues back as far as I can see and opens up like a room at the entrance - we now have an excellent area because all the workings lead downwards from this





6. While swinging away and unearthing many targets I came across this target - near a very old broken away tree stump, sticks in front looked to be a previous cover up of a detector hole, the signal was just back from this - when digging I came across a tree root in the ground and got the target out roughly 8 inches down


Nice little 2 gram nugget


7. While prospecting keep your eye out on the holes and the side walls to see the depths of the top soils overburden, in this image you will see mixtures of quartz, ironstone, schist, mineralisation on the quartz, pyrites

You see this hole is very shallow with clay bottom - red clays in the area soft spots in the ground where the ground is slightly undulated in spots - gold sticks into the red clay



8. After cleaning the gold it has conglomerate attached to the gold - was this from another big piece that a miner had broken it off, did it come from another big piece with gold encrusted within - we check the area for larger signs - in this case I didnt find any other targets but I only had another half hour or so of daylight



9. Another reason I went back to this area was due to being in the very early days of 2005 prospecting and having my settings to discriminate - I wanted to try here again 10 or so years later - to my amazement some very nice large pieces of lead which screamed in the headphones - and some other bits and pieces



Conclusion of this is to show that no matter how much we think that we have covered the area - we still manage to find gold - with the amount of tree's bushes, leaves, sticks, tussock or spinifex depending on which part of the map you are on - shows us that I missed these targets - In saying this its also good to change area's just for that feeling of other potential opportunities and change of scenery

We cant get every little piece of the ground we can only do our best on the day and keep at it

Another note with this post is that setting a plan helps a lot - its like every adventure that we go on for the hunt for gold

If this post helps even just one person then its all worth it

Hi.
Some advise needed. I have a Garrett A2B. Box is damaged but the machine is immaculate and works. Do you know what this would re sale at as I have no idea where to start.
Thanks

mintslice said:

Hi.
Some advise needed. I have a Garrett A2B. Box is damaged but the machine is immaculate and works. Do you know what this would re sale at as I have no idea where to start.
Thanks

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Hey there Mintslice, it may help if you start a thread of your own in the Garrett section. Cheers

Here. https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/viewforum.php?id=33

mintslice said:

Hi.
Some advise needed. I have a Garrett A2B. Box is damaged but the machine is immaculate and works. Do you know what this would re sale at as I have no idea where to start.
Thanks

Click to expand...

Hi, I have never used anything other than Minelab - Im sure if the machine still operates 100% then the re-sale shouldnt be too impacted from some damage to the box/housing - assuming you mean control box

If you know a handy sheet metal worker then fabricating a box should be easy for your re-sale to ensure you get the maximum possible

You could just check the current cost for the Garrett A2B and then see if there are any second hand ones for sale and start your costing from there.

All the best