One thing you will notice is the Gold Monster will nut off with false signals as the coil breaks through the water surface. Once under, no problems. That can be a bastard if scanning very shallow bedrock with the water surface lapping the coil.
JW 
I certainly noticed that yesterday - total pain in the butt!
Yeah the weather is starting to warm up and so is the water bring on summer, a day out prospecting with no gold or not much gold is still a good day out the gold is just a bonus ,the more time you spend out there doing it the more you learn and you just never know what you are going to find 
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Totally agree - fresh air, exercise, no mobile phone reception - bliss!
Was very interesting too to see the ground yesterday - one bank was vertical with about a four foot deep layer of rounded cobble in the bank. Obviously the creek has changed its course over time but I’m not quite sure of the explanation for a four foot deep layer of rounded cobble - it does seem a lot.
Most likely old timer stacked rocks. You will comes across these in creeks worked for gold by the old timers. Could be a wing dam as well. Becomes hard to tell as over time these tend to get buried & altered by floods. If you are new to this you are in for a cool journey if you really have an interest in this stuff.
JW .
I certainly have an interest, my old career involved a lot of work understanding hydrology of rivers around bridges.
If these were stacked by the old timers then that it very interesting as there is no record of any gold being found in this creek by the old timers, but a four feet deep layer of very round cobbles does seem a bit unnatural. I might revisit it and try to get a photo of them.
If the old timers didn’t work this creek then it likely doesn’t contain gold. They didn’t miss much & they prospected every where to look. If the creek does contain gold then it most likely wasn’t in paying quantities for them & not worth their while. Better prospects elsewhere.
JW
The old records are quite possibly incomplete - that certainly wouldn’t surprise me given that we often can’t locate the construction drawings for bridges only built 60 years ago!
Its damn annoying that the Gold Monster reads aluminium cans as being gold - got all excited there for a bit this afternoon!
Also got to discover that the tip of a prospector’s pick works really well for rotating the spindle on a scissor jack when you can’t find the proper tool for the job and unfortunately need to change a flat tyre!
Any non ferrous target will come up as a gold signal. All discrimination does is tell you its ferrous, ie magnetic iron. So brass .22 shell casings, lead, copper & anything non magnetic is seen as a
good signal. That’s the way it is with gold detectors that have a form of discrimination. Even then the discrimination ability is not 100% correct. Hence why most gold detectorists dig all signals. That way you sleep easy knowing you have not walked away from a gold signal. Put a strong rare earth magnet in to the end of you pick handle. On getting a signal wave the magnet over the signal & if it is iron crap it will leap up on to the magnet. Saves you a heap of time sifting through the material to only find it was a rusty piece of iron. Old timers boot tack, horse shoe nail, rusty bit of old sluice pipe etc.
JW
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That’s good advice - will do!
I managed to get another punctured tyre today - two in two days and no gold is a bit frustrating!
With the gold monster, shot gun pellets are a real bastard.
JW
I have no doubt! Could drive you nuts after a while!