How important is finding small gold?

[Guest]

Well? when I say small I mean detecting under 0.1gram the size gold we all seem to look for and find or are we waisting precious time when we should be looking for larger nuggets, yes small gold is fun and does add up but I feel like I'm always putting on small coil and looking for a better detector on small gold.
Honest opinions...

 

[Goldtarget]

Well I will have a go.... Firstly I think we need to reflect on what gold hunting means to us all. I like to put myself in the shoes of the old timers. How many struck out, there must have been a million duffer pans and most of the gold wasn't easy, (maybe abundant but not easy). So the top 5% got the Lions share and today I'm not sure much has changed. Perhaps too much focus gets put on result. Secondly for the last 20 years gold hunting has advanced to include electronic detection and more recently good electronic resources to aid the dedicated Hunter. Slowly but surely good ground must begin to shrink in the finite spaces that are available. I'm sure great expanses are still out there but detecting traditional areas that have been worked generationaly mat drop the success rate as well.

Gold going into the future will always be hard won, and I have to wonder just how many big nuggets are still really left to detect? Perhaps my view is skewed, a 1+gram day digging will Always be a good day, and if I could hit it with the detector at that pace or better I'd die a happy lad.

 

[condor22]

How scarce it is can be stated by saying; I recently read that if you piled all the gold ever found on a tennis court, it would be 30 feet high (less than 10metres for those that don't understand real measurements).

In real terms, that aint a lot!

 

[Coyote]

How scarce it is can be stated by saying; I recently read that if you piled all the gold ever found on a tennis court, it would be 30 feet high (less than 10metres for those that don't understand real measurements).

In real terms, that aint a lot!

It would do me!!!!

Your right though. I have read that there is just as much out there as what has been found. we just gotta be smarter to find it. the easy stuff (by todays standard) has already been found.

 

[Teemore]

Does it really matter, gold is gold and will always be Gold. Not sure we go out looking specifically for sub grammars but if that's the most likely find for an area then you'd be silly not to utilised equipment that's capable of finding it, if a larger piece comes along so much the better.
What size you chase and how you chase it is a personal decision, by some of the results and efforts I see some are obviously making at least a small living from their effort.
Others, me for instance do it purely for the enjoyment of being in that environment (always amazed at the hardship that must have been endure in the late 1800's) and I'm happy no matter what size it is or how I obtained it, panning, sluicing or detecting.
Think if I went out with the intention of searching for nothing but gm+ pieces I'd very quickly become disenchanted with the whole thing ........ If pure profit is your motive go get a real job, at least it pays consistently (or try detecting WA).
Cheers Tom

 

[Guest]

Well? when I say small I mean detecting under 0.1gram the size gold we all seem to look for and find or are we waisting precious time when we should be looking for larger nuggets, yes small gold is fun and does add up but I feel like I'm always putting on small coil and looking for a better detector on small gold.
Honest opinions...

Hello,

Interesting post. If i may ask you the following.

You went out for a year i think only with the gmt.
What was the total weight in gold finds?

How much gold have you found now With your pi
In around the same time?

It could be difficult to compete with a gold bug 2 or a gmt
On very small gold. The gmt is impressive on small bits.
In air tests I did today i could ping my .15 gram piece at
around 4" with a clear crisp signal.

Have not been out with it yet but I am hanging out
To use it and for Around the $550 i paid for it could
Be the best deal yet.

The issue though could be hotrocks so looking forward
To testing it and see how it handles the ground.

I would be happy like a pig in mud if i find a few good
Areas where i am able to pull out 5 or 10 nuggets that
Weigh .2 grams or there abouts each. If this starts to
Happen i would be happy to focus on the tiny nuggets
Because they all add up knowing anyone with a pi
Gold detector walking on the same ground is walking
Over and missing these.

 

[Westaus]

........ If pure profit is your motive go get a real job, at least it pays consistently (or try detecting WA).
Cheers Tom

I can assure you the guys in here make detecting WA look a lot easier than it is. Took me 10 trips before I found my first piece and to date that is still the total. In saying that off to Kalgoorlie on Sunday for a few days so hopefully be able to add to the tally ?

 

[PhaseTech]

Well? when I say small I mean detecting under 0.1gram the size gold we all seem to look for and find or are we wasting precious time when we should be looking for larger nuggets, yes small gold is fun and does add up but I feel like I'm always putting on small coil and looking for a better detector on small gold.
Honest opinions...

Simple, if you don't like the idea of going home with nothing, use a small coil and detector optimized for small gold. Generally speaking, in any given spot there are more smaller bits than bigger bits. This is both natural, and the fact that detectors of old just couldn't pick up the smaller stuff.

However, if you want your bit of gold to go "clunk" when you drop it in the bottle, then use a PI and a bigger coil, and be prepared to go home goldless often, knowing that when you do hit a piece it should be worth the effort.

When i get over to Vic (usually only twice a year), it's for a 2-3 day stay. Now I don't want to go home with nothing, but I'd at least like to be in with a bit of a chance to find something better. So what I do is on the first day I use an 11" mono in Fine-Gold and stick to old diggings. Usually spots where or close to where I've found gold. This will give me a few pickers.
Then the next day I'll put on a bigger coil and work some deeper ground, edges of surfacing, upslope for the head of working etc. If I don't get any joy, I'll head back towards the diggings and try around the edge of the workings, and concentrate where there is a build up of surface mulch. If I still can't find anything, I'll break for lunch and strap on a small mono and go back to the diggings. This strategy has worked for me in the past, and I've not gone home goldless for several years.

 

[trashmagnet]

g'day
the smalls are a pain in the butt by themselves, but sometimes have lead to good patches nearby in the past.
so the pain quickly subsides :lol: .
regards tm

 

[mxt sniper]

I have been hunting with a gpx4000 once last yr and three times this yr, its gotten me the big goose egg each time, well when I went in June to Nevada I took along my GB2, and hunted with it in the afternoons, I got three 2+ grain nuggets this trip, then in august I did same thing, and the GB2 won again with 7 nuggets total from 1.3 grains to 5.2 grains. I have no doubt the gpx will eventually find me gold, its just way harder to find large gold in these old patches. The little ones are still there unseen by the big minelabs with big coils, so I split up my day starting with the gpx4000 and 15x8 mono detech mornings, then over to the GB2 w/6" coil in the afternoons and am a happy camper, no more skunks.

 

[nuggetino]

Next time you go on a long drive through the outback be sure to take in every KM of road you travel and imagine thousands of KM of this vast spans running in either direction. That's what convinced me beyond all doubt that undiscovered goldfields are still out there. Unfortunately that's also what makes new patches so difficult to find. If I'm exploring new ground in the search for a patch away from the known goldfields I will take a smaller coil. As trash magnet says the tiddlers may be a pain in the butt but they can have big friends and being the small gold is more common it's the first indicator I'd look for when patch hunting. I'd be more than happy to find a patch of a thousand+ tiddlers and spend all day picking them out of the ground. On the other hand if I'm out in the triangle I usually switch between small and mega (24" dd) coils. We can dream right? When I get sick of swinging the trash can lid I work the mullock heaps for a few tiddlers to keep me interested. I'd be kicking myself coming back from a trip to mega nugget land without having at least spent some time looking for clunkers.