Mount Crawford 7/1/21

[Krusty68]

Hi all. First post here and thanks for having me. I spent a good part of the day at Mt Crawford for the following. The crumpled up thing looks to be a copper jacket from a .308 round, back of an earring and a small crystal. All the other usual suspects as well. Not sure what the black stones are, but they are slightly attracted to a magnet, and the small one circled was about 2 deep and still gave a good signal on the 2300. 5 cent coin is for scale and the nugget I bought at auction, incase I EVER need to identify and nugget in the wild ?
Cheers.

 

[OzzieAu]

Keep going Krusty..... youre doing well scoring all those targets, just that the right ones are well hidden up there.
I think it took me 2030 trips to score my first nugget up there.... good luck :goldnugget:

 

[Krusty68]

Thanks Ozzie. Is there a method in how you cover the ground? I only did about 2.2k in 6 hours. Doesnt seem
Like youd ever cover enough ground to find anything.

 

[OzzieAu]

Krusty, if you say youve walked 2.2 kms in 6 hours, I think you may be just meandering all over the place.
Im not sure where you were walking..... inside the locked gate on Ridge rd. (annual permit holders only) or just walking in around Watts Gully area..
The best method imo would be to choose a gully and be patient and thorough in one spot, rather than walking willy nilly.... its there, but it doesnt come easy.
Do yourself a favour and get the annual permit ($50) and you get the monthly combination to the gate, then just drive to your chosen search area.... good luck.

 

[PeterInSa]

OA, from memory Pensioners $30/yr and from a Ranger late December combos unavailable until late March for April?

I thought maybe wrongly, that you could walk in inside the locked gate, provided you have paid the daily entrance fee/yr fee, and have enough puff to walk into a good area.

 

[OzzieAu]

Thats all correct Peter, except for no go at all on total fire ban days.
Walking in is a pain :N:

 

[Flatlander]

I hope to get up there now, seens im back in SA now, i got my 12 month pass a few months ago, probably take van up and camp when it get a bit cooler somwhere new, different scenery, bought a new vechile from Adelaide couple of months back just about finished decking it out draws,lights 12v, sus out the camping spot on the way back from Adelaide when it was getting first service looked allright.

 

[OzzieAu]

I think theres no camping Dec, Jan, Feb. fire season..... too hot and snakes about anyway.

 

[PhaseTech]

When I'm onto a spot that is producing, I may do ten trips covering an area the size of a basketball court. I hit it with different detectors, different coils, different settings etc. Any combo that might have a different target window hot spot. Only when you can't find any more targets (any metal at all) do I consider it done.

Be careful when identifying targets. Unless you know for sure it is foil or lead or brass, don't toss them. Many gold pieces will be unusual. Some are soo stained they give off a brassy colour. Others are associated with ironstone, and/or nearly totally black.

Here's a 4 grammer I got, which just looked like a rock. Had to give it a good clean before the gold showed itself.

Then there's leaf gold which can be so flat and smooth, it looks like aluminium from a can. The black stones in your photo are most likely hematite. They can sound good and scream when they are very close to the coil. Often there's some nuggets in the same area so worth persisting.

My advice is do your walking and exploring with GPS in hand, not detector. Mark any likely areas, then come back and give them go with the detector.

ickshovel:

 

[LORD]

Those little black rocks are haematite, Crawford has plenty of them and they can sound just like a tiny nugget.
Looks like your doing the right things from your finds, small lead shot plus the small haematite so keep at it.

This is my only nugget from Crawford after several trips, got it 2 months ago swinging with OzzieAu in Watts gully
Just gotta keep looking mate

 

[Big Johno]

Speaking of walking in and the locked gate ! funny thing happened on my first visit to Crawford years ago, I didn't know anything about anything back then and while I was driving around looking for somewhere to pan or detect I was following a car when he stopped and opened the gate, he waved me through so in I went, I went on having a good day keeping fit by digging lots of holes & trying to break the depth record with my 5000, it was late on winters day when I thought it was time to go home, I get to the gate and it was locked I drove everywhere looking for a way out but couldn't find anywhere so I went back to the gate and as it was getting dark had to make the call. The call to arms as I was in new commodore wagon not a 4 wd with about 6 inches of clearance. I had to hunt around for some small logs and rocks to build a ramp up to the top of the big momma logs they have lined to prevent access around the gate. I hit the ramp hard and launched over the big boundary log totally crunching everything under the car, exhaust, sill panels, trans sump etc BUT I got home safely. Lucky for me it was a company car and it was true what they say about company cars, they can be formula 1 or 4WD, they are amazing. :Y:

Moral of the story don't go in the gate without the combo.
cheers Johno

 

[Jaros]

Oh the lessons we learn the hard way..

 

[OzzieAu]

Speaking of walking in and the locked gate ! funny thing happened on my first visit to Crawford years ago, I didn't know anything about anything back then and while I was driving around looking for somewhere to pan or detect I was following a car when he stopped and opened the gate, he waved me through so in I went, I went on having a good day keeping fit by digging lots of holes & trying to break the depth record with my 5000, it was late on winters day when I thought it was time to go home, I get to the gate and it was locked I drove everywhere looking for a way out but couldn't find anywhere so I went back to the gate and as it was getting dark had to make the call. The call to arms as I was in new commodore wagon not a 4 wd with about 6 inches of clearance. I had to hunt around for some small logs and rocks to build a ramp up to the top of the big momma logs they have lined to prevent access around the gate. I hit the ramp hard and launched over the big boundary log totally crunching everything under the car, exhaust, sill panels, trans sump etc BUT I got home safely. Lucky for me it was a company car and it was true what they say about company cars, they can be formula 1 or 4WD, they are amazing. :Y:

Moral of the story don't go in the gate without the combo.
cheers Johno

Yeah Johno, that would have got the blood rushing....
Same thing happened to me awhile back ( before I had the permit ) during a forest motorcross event... saw the gate was open, so thought beauty and in I go. Found a well isolated spot and started detecting :Y: Getting late and time to head out, get to the gate and locked... oop: Lucky for me I had the ranger hq phone no. in my phone and also lucky they were still there, otherwise who knows, might have had to ramp it over too.. :argh: