Here’s a question for those that have been in the gold game for a longer while. Do you think that your days of easiest / best gold are behind you? I suppose the answer largely depends on one’s willingness to keep exploring new areas and to travel in order to do so. Personally I feel this is the case for me at the moment. Might be because I don’t know about the 1000oz season I’ve got coming my way yet!
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Hi there Mat. I would say I have by far had my best days of gold detecting behind me. The days or even weekends of multi gram nugget finds a thing of the past. Hard to find a 1 gram nugget these days let alone multi gram nuggets.
This from a couple of hours detecting late this arvo.
Same for last sunday
And the sunday before
About 6 weeks ago I went back to an old patch that gave up to me well over 1 oz a few years back. First found with my GPX 4500 & 11" Coiltek Elite coil. Then cleaned up with the GPZ 7000 & Minelab 14" coil. It then dried up on me but I still dropped in on the odd occasion when I was in the area but conditions weren’t always favourable & I got no more. Conditions 6 weeks back were perfect & I had a 15" concentric Russian made X coil on the Zed. Managed to get 20 more little pieces.
That was my best haul for a long time all be it not a lot in weight but better than a poke in the eye with a blunt stick. 
Best of luck out there.
JW 
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That is a shame you feel this. We all have bad years and good years sometimes no years…for years at a time. Any gold is good gold and having the expectation of doing better than last time an the time before is unrealistic. I hardly ever weigh gold until I sell it. You get a rough idea by just by looking at it anyway. Every year I am being given the opportunity to look for gold for other peoples mining permits and the discovery, new things to learn and mostly the fun times and adventures is gold in themselves as we all know. And it was never about the numbers for me right from the start. It was about the spirit… I can say the older members on here past and present and all i have meet were my mentors. I wanted to look as beat up and weathered with tales to tell. As a kid being a gold miner meant I could smoke cigarettes and dring jack Daniel’s…be my own boss and have a farm…like the old timers…their main aspiration was to work with the seasons…gold mine, farming etc. So I guess I will never reach peak gold as I have set myself no base line to start with…I prefer to just flop it out at the Vulcan pub than talk about how much.
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It’s all good, things will pick up eventually, might just have to change the approach. Still have lots of fun times out chasing the gold.
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Nice one bro it all part of it you just never no
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Personally I think I have recently set some records that might be really hard to beat, but that the best is still yet to come.
A year ago we have went from clean ups like this being considered insane -
- this year getting days like these
The past few months it has slowed down a bit but somehwat recently pulled out all these for just 1/2 an hour detecting in a new spot we are hoping to head back too.
The key is just never stop looking, a location we previously thought was rubbish and we were not going to go back there, we decided we would go up just for one final scratch around, only to hit that second to bottom cleanup and do by far the best we had ever done. Just keep searching, 9/10 locations we try have no gold or nothing exciting, but every now and then you hit the jackpot. But yeah I reckon the best is still to come!
I have only been in gold for a few years though, so can’t really say.
Cheers
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My last trip and best gold and as a newbie to prospecting its only going to improve well i hope lol and if it doesn’t im cool with that just love being out there doing it and meeting some like minded good buggers along the way
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I find myself tempted to keep going back to formerly productive spots, but the best thrill is finding gold in a new stream. There’s plenty more of those on the map, so the best is yet to come!
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Personally I’ve had my best summer ever. Previously my biggest ever nugget was a 5 grammer I found years ago when I first started. Finally(!) beat it this year with 2 that came in at just over 8 grams each. Looking forward to some warmer weather again!!
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Nice work Gavin, not many like that around! Did you find them detecting?
I’ll go out next weekend and see if I can improve on things!
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8g and 2 of them that’s just greedy lol awesome good on u i still haven’t got a nuggie yet but its going to happen 
i got a monster 1000 to help that along now
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The last few years have not been as good as my claim days BUT this year hope things will freshen up but now dependent on health and access to where I know there is very good gold as two members of this forum will confirm - Hi Elias!
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Otago regional council and DCC are going to be clamping down on mining in sensitive areas like Deep stream.
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Some days you don’t find much. I’ve never used a detector. Always traditional techniques.
Good gold is always deep!
Still finding real nice pieces.
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And your point is? You had a snipe at me some time ago regarding a claim H. (not me incidently) applied for so whats your problem.
What has your comment got to do with the thread topic - just a nasty little swipe.
All rivers with claims on have ‘sensitive’ values, often related to native fish etc so I would love to know why you have twice had nasty little goes at us.
You were totally incorrect last time you made a snide remark re Deep Stream - why are you targeting Deep Stream Sean?
If you have a problem with me, something someone has said and being the big boy you are swallowing what others say then grow some balls and get in touch with me or come up and visit to discuss it.
You also know that if you had kept in touch you could have been part of it…and probably still can after all you have been good company.
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mine just keep getting better every year or season has been way better than the last two years ago i found my best nugget at 21.27 gram and the season just gone i found 19 gram and 6.7gram nuggets and alot of 1to2 gram pieces and overall around 6ounces in a very short while so indeed for me things just seem to get better and better so the best days are yet to come…!!!i think like anything the better you get at it the better the results and my paragliding boss his family moto is “IT IS GIVEN TO THE PERSERVERING” so yep keep the faith stay positive and keep hunting there are or is still plenty of gold in them there hills…!!!
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Some nice gold you guys have been finding! Cheers for the motivation, ill be sure to post when I next find something decent! I forget that I’ve had some oz days between my mate and I in the summer just been!
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Photos please or it didn’t happen. 
JW
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Haha, gotta be a little careful with what goes on public forums!
