Welcome Brett, probably the best thing you can do is buy a sub-gram nugget of ebay, they don't cost much, and can be invaluable for testing your detector in any given area, so that you know what response you should looking for, and to check the capabilities of your machine. Gold will signal differently, depending on various factors like ground conditions, depth, and coil used. VDI numbers can also be misleading, so i wouldn't rely on them 100%, better to go off the detector sound. Cheers.
Also, the secret to finding gold in the hot rock laden Jupiter Creek and Chapel Hill diggings is to detect the shaft mounds and white pipe clay around the shafts (especially at Chapel Hill) less hot rocks, more VLF friendly and easier to work. The pipe clay occurs between the bedrock and overlain ancient river sediments, and is actually made up of weathered bedrock which breaks down to clay - the gold basically settles into the clay layer and gets stuck there. In the good shaft spoil piles, you will see layers river gravels containing rounded quartz rocks, and the white pipe clay. The last material the old timers dug out of the shafts before hitting bedrock was the clay, then the gravels, followed by other layers including sands and conglomerates, so check the piles in reverse order to see whether they have been worked previously, or whether the pipe clay layer is still intact. Once again, this is more prevalent at Chapel Hill, whereas a lot of the diggings at Jupiter were alluvial followed by hard rock veining.
Also be aware of shafts at Chapel Hill, there are many, and a lot are disguised by heavy leaft litter and small openings leading to some very deep shafts. Not a place to go walking backwards or being complacent.
