Hi Sluicer. No I don’t detect creek beds. Most of them are claimed around these parts. I go up in the hills & usually a long way from any water. Sometimes in old timer workings & their throw out piles but also just random areas that look promising.
The GM 1000 doesn’t really detect to any great depth due to the size of the coils. It is a great detector but is more suited to small/tiny gold on or close to the surface. Good bedrock detector. The Nox 800 will get better depth due to its 11" coil. There is always a trade off re coil size, gold size & depth. There are not many, if any, places that haven’t seen detectors. You may think detectors haven’t been in certain areas but they have. So most of the bigger shallow gold is well gone & the hope these days is the best technology getting bigger deeper bits. Depends what you call big & what you call deep. The Minelab Pulse Induction detectors are very good at depth on smallish gold & there are many different size & shape coils for these machines. Both Mono coils & DD. The best of all gold detectors is the minelab GPZ 7000. Minelab only released two coils for this detector. A 14" & a 19" which are limited as to where you can poke & prod them. A Russian chap has made a range of coils for the GPZ 7000 & has them down to 8". His coils are what I am using on my GPZ & they do the business handsomely. The above gold was all found with a 15x10 inch coil.
Thanks a ton for the Advice JW ! Yeah I thought so as it would pick up the most microscopic pieces but only at very shallow depth . Luckily the area ( unless people have illegally snuck 5km up the back of our friends land) has never been detected, some of it has been dredged and washplanted but this was before the days of detecting and it has not been touched since 1990. It is also known for large nuggets, a gold nugget found there was at the time the biggest gold nugget in new zealand weighing in at about 80 ounces or so. But thanks a ton for your advice hopefully one day I can make the investment into a deeper detector? On the gold monster what coil would you suggest in general ( the clay ranges from at best 10CM- about 1M deep, but more often around about 30-35CM ) I thought the smaller coil but maybe the bigger one is better because it would get deeper?
Sorry im somewhat amateur to detecting as I normally just try for quater of an hour and then get bored and get back to sluicing XD .
Hi Sluicer. That big nugget would have to be the 99 ounce Honourable Roddy Nugget found in Ross.
I just stick to the 5" coil on the Gold Monster. But the 10x5 should get you a bit better depth. The Nox 800 might have been better for you on the West Coast as it is water proof to 3 meters & will handle the wet weather & the odd drop into a creek. Has an 11" coil as standard but you can get a 6" & a 15" I think. They are waterproof to and ideal for in the water as they are a spider web design.
The standard 11" coil is still very good on small gold.
Thanks a lot really appreciated. The nugget wasnt honorable roddy, I dont really want to give to much info or I might giveaway the spot, but this site is not close to ross, and the nugget was found during the inital rushes and was the biggest in the country at the time, and the gully it was found in was named after the guy who found it. I cant really give anymore info sorry. Although you never know I may be wrong this is just what our friend ( the landowner and guy who mined it in the 60’s 70’s 80’s and 90’s ) but I would assume he knows what hes talking about.
Thanks a lot really appreciate your help, hopefully I can get some better detecting in next time !
sorry the post in FB was taken down for obvious reasons, what it essentially showed was a 12 gramme rough nugget found over the hill from bendigo. Apparently found using digger and metal detectors, and apparently they were finding heaps, working unworked ground.
Hi guys. Nine little suckers for a late afternoon detect on sunday close to home. GPZ 7000 & the 15x10 Russian made X coil. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting to find a thing at this well thrashed spot. But I had not had the 15x10 X coil in there. Loving it.
Good for you Gav. Nice. I like the nox 800 with the little 6" coil. I reckon equally as deadly as the GM 1000 but with the advantage of the VDI # read outs.
Is there such a thing as old flogged ground on the West Coast with the amount of rain they have & the flows that go down the creeks & rivers replenishing the gold traps?
@kiwijw so what mode do you tend to run your Nox 800 in? Wondering what the ground is like down there compare to the coast…
I turned mine on using Gold 1 and immediately thought I’d made a mistake buying the Nox as it was so noisy. All was good when I swapped to Gold 2 for “difficult ground”. Kept hitting the odd bit of mineralised ground but soon figured out what was going on after chasing a few phantom targets. Though I also nearly gave up on a few phantom targets that did indeed turn out to be good nuggets but hidden in what felt like impossible locations. I guess cracks must have been in the rock at some point that later closed up. Seen it before and still amazes me when gold can get to hiding in!
Hi Gavin, I know well & truly what you mean by gold being down inside what looks like solid bedrock where there must have been a crack at one stage for the gold to get down in there. I recently bought a Milwaukee battery powered kango after spending hours smashing away with cold chisel & hammers & screwdrivers into what now is solid bedrock. Only to end up bringing to the light of day smooth water worn alluvial gold. My trusty pick just not being up to the job & taking too much of a hiding.
I haven’t used the nox 800 for a wee while but pretty sure I was using Gold 1. Full max sensitivity, Multi frequency, all metal mode & flicking to discrimination to check on targets got. Then working off the VDI numbers. I have got many bits of small gold with the VDI’s in the negertives down to -4 -5. -8 -9 was usually hot rocks but the magnet on my pick was the best discriminator on iron rubbish I am in the habit of digging all targets & through doing that realised that tiny gold can be well into the negertives with the Nox. I am talking very small gold with the 6" coil that is most of the time not even registering on the VDI numbers at all but just a very slight blip/fart/hiccup in the threshold. I had a strong run on a few spots comparing the nox 800 with 6" coil & the GM 1000 & 5" coil. Impossible to separate the two but liked the Nox 800 as the GM 1000 has a habit of a bit of bump falsing on the coil where as the nox, like the GB2’s little snipers coil, is rock solid. I reckon that is due to the windings being epoxy filled & locked in with no chance of movement inside the coil housing.
You obviously have sussed it out & got it running good for your detecting location & conditions. Probably different for me here in Central as it is for you on the West Coast.
Yeah, that 6" is deadly! Dug a few good gold targets myself that didn’t show up with a number so I know what you mean. If there wasn’t any mineralised bedrock close by I tended to investigate anything that gave a consistent signal. There was definitely mineralised bedrock in this creek as I broke a few pieces of solid rock off that continued to give the signal. I thought I had it sussed with hot bedrock giving a 9 - 10 number, but then I started getting into areas where the numbers would be 1’s like a lot of the gold targets I found. Just when you think you’ve figured it out…
Good going Gavin. Way back when I was into detecting and cracking out, it was amazing just where you find gold in bedrock. After a while we just put the detectors aside and concentrated on breaking out every crack, as many gave no signal. Yet produced good gold. Normally deep down and on its side. This was with a 17000 Minelab years back. It was the best gold detector in its day. Often what gave away a hairline crack that was more or less invisible to see, was a minute line of vegetation, usually moss. Only a few thou thick. And when cracked out, Contained gold. There has been quite a bit of conjecture as to how gold got into these tiny cracks. Obviously eons ago, they were more open. Trapped gold. Then closed up to protect their booty. The how"s and whys are no doubt complex. I have a few idea’s revolving around glaciation (Ice Age). Tectonic plate movement.(earthquakes) . Frozen water expands. Nice Kango you have there JR, bet that chews up that Otago Schist.
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I am in the habit of digging all targets & through doing that realised that tiny gold can be well into the negertives with the Nox. I am talking very small gold with the 6" coil that is most of the time not even registering on the VDI numbers at all but just a very slight blip/fart/hiccup in the threshold. I had a strong run on a few spots comparing the nox 800 with 6" coil & the GM 1000 & 5" coil. Impossible to separate the two but liked the Nox 800 as the GM 1000 has a habit of a bit of bump falsing on the coil where as the nox, like the GB2’s little snipers coil, is rock solid. I reckon that is due to the windings being epoxy filled & locked in with no chance of movement inside the coil housing.
Whats the weight there?