What to look for when prospecting

Hi chaps
First time at prospecting living in Perth, i have bought a gpx5000 got it working real well on small pieces of junk ie bullets, buttons,staples, tin etc.
I just can not find any gold for the life of me.
i have had the detector for 4 weeks now and have traveled to Coolgardie,Southern cross,Bullfinch,and Yalgoo, but no luck in all these places just junk.
I am using Tengraph and just going to old or closed gold mines on pending lease.
I know most places have been flogged to death.
But my questions are when you arrive at a choosen spot, where do you start looking?
I have been going low n slow but wondering around hoping to jag a piece of yellow.
should i concentrate on a smaller area?.
What do you people do to be successful?
I love being out in the bush thats always a win, but to find a piece or 2 would be mined blowing!!!!
Thanks in advance
Scuba

Hi Scuba and welcome to the forum.
the question you ask is the biggy. where do you look for gold?
start with mindex overlaid onto google earth, this will tell you where historic and live mines are. get your permissions if required. use geo maps to identify ground, minerals and the geology.
this will put you in the area where gold has been found b4.
once there look for old dig holes, newer ones are ok but if done correctly there shouldnt be much left to find around them but they are worth a look as someone found gold there. old holes especially from the VLF days are great. look for old shafts to search around but you may find a lot of junk. if you know what old timers dry blowing piles look like (the ones with a small shallow indent only a mt or two long, followed by a small graded pile of stones next to it) these are great indicators of workings around gold, old scrapes from google earth are good but can also contain lots of rubbish. there is a lot to this game and it has taken me 4 yrs to only just start to get an idea. go out with someone experienced as this will help you immensely especially with the machine setup, listen for faint signals, most of the loud ones are junk but dig them anyway. be patient and enjoy the time out, the gold will come with persistence. in Yalgoo i found a small patch last year that is still putting out albeit small scraps, head out on the north road, go past the homestead just b4 (a few hundred mts) the might be mine on the LHS there is a small creek with a scrap or two on the uphill side, try in there or around the area.
good luck buddy
Martin

Thanks for your help Martin i will look in all the areas that you said, i think your right with persistence & patience.
Fingers crossed for 5th week in this weekend

hi scuba
yeah best off luck to you this weekend , 1st one is the hardest
agree with everything Martin has said, the big bit off advice to take notice of i believe is try and hook up with a experienced operator mate
you can read as much info as possible but out in the fields you start second guessing yourself or forget something important or you will say what do they mean by that .
it's a bloody lot easier if somebody is there to answer your questions for you or show you how to do something.
the main thing is put yourself in the right spot to start with and after that you just got to be lucky enough to walk over it and know what to listen for, with experience you will dig a lot less junk targets, but there is always a few you just got to dig and find out.
oh yeah stay away from coolgardie or within half hour drive off the place, been their twice for no result. and good o'l SX has never been kind to me although i got my 1st one their.
good luck mate
jase

Thanks Jase.
I might be better off traveling up to Yalgoo area again.
Taking it slow with a bigger coil on 18" nugget finder maybe working a 20msq patch at a time.?
Cheers

If you were to travel to Kal area would you go north or south of kal? Fir your best chance of finding a piece?
Thanks

my opinion is use the smallest coil you have, 11 inch or better still a 8 inch commander or the 8x6 sadie.
i know what your thinking deep is good but most times the gold will be small and near surface, when you find the surface gold it may be worth running a deeper punching coil.
the smaller coils will be much more sensitive then the 18 inch nf and will increase your chances.

i cannot answer the kal question as I've never been there detecting. i'm still new to all this myself with only a dozen weekend bashes under my belt in 4-5 years, and i would still probably be trying to find my 1st except for a few helpful blokes from this forum.

jase

Thanks Jase
I will run with the joey coil 10x5 i have its pretty good on very small junk so this wkend gold ! I might tske a trip out past Kal, im loose hope

stick in there mate, it will come
small coil low an slow and listen for those mellow solid sounds, not the screaming broken signals.
have you dug up any of those white bird shot pellets, tiny little balls that look white and you scrape the surface and it's silver in side. they sound like little nuggets so if you dig them your on the right path.

I have dug quite a few bits of shot, i was on some nice ground at the wkend, it was hardened dirt with all stones stuck in it just over the bed rock of about 10" i got a very faint warble sound, so scratched a couple of inches off and the signal got louder, yeah! I thought, got down to the bed rock and it was a nice round piece of lead! Bugger (with a smile) are well. It cant be far away

Hi Scuba, from what you described in your last posts - finding bird-shot and following up on that warble - you are doing it right. You WILL find gold, no doubt, it's just a matter of time. Listen to the advice the guys have given you, it's all good.

The only thing I would add is 'listen to your machine'. Get to know it. What it sounds like. When 'something' is not quite right, and it's repeatable - work out why. Like the warble you described. In that case it was a slug, it could have been a hot rock, or just mineralisation, or a bit of gold. The bottom line it has to be something. Over time you will be better able to interpret what these incredibly sensitive 'sensors' are telling you. It will become a sort of sixth sense, just like your sense of smell, or sight which at the end of the day are just electrical signals to your brain.

Good luck
Stingray

I think your right stingray getting to know the machine and its sounds. Thanks for the posative vibs.

Like Stingray said, it will become a sixth sense, which like all the other senses can and will lead you astray now and then. Check it, check it again and then dig it.
Geos have a saying that "the best way to ruin a geological model is to drill it".
Same goes here, dig it all and add the results to your knowledge bank. When you are absolutely certain that strange sound is a piece of lead at 18 inches, dig the bastard and prove/disprove it.
Did I mention dig them all?
You are listening to your machine and the first piece will come when it is ready, you just have to be there to hear it and of course dig it.

Thanks Dozer, dig all targets

I agree, to dig everything if it's random. Swinging on some scraped - raped ground and being disheartened with junk noises... Dug one of them once in Cue, BANG! 11g Nuggie. Until then, I was tying too hard and was finding what seemed twice as much birdshot as everyone else.

No-one gets em all as they say, and runs aren't always isolated to scraped . turned over ground by machines.

Another hint - forget detecting on hills near rifle ranges. Ive got enough lead to start a sinker business!

Thanks Nuggie
Fingers crossed for the weekend

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Got my first nugget chaps. Thanks for all the posative coments and helpfull tips.
It 1.22grams awsome first nugget.
I found it with the 10x5 joey coil, slowly covering a bit of ground but still very good.
Only out for one day around Kal the rained off on Saturday.
I was thinking of getting a larger coil to cover more ground, i have a nugget finder 18" spoke coil but it to heavy realy and bulky.
What are the good guys using with a 5000.?
I was looking at the new winding coils maybe a 14x7 or ?
Thanks again

nice piece for your first mate.

your well under way now, keep it going.

nothing but good news from the coiltek elite range or the n/f evolution jobs.

did you notice the sound, mellow, solid . that's what you want to be hearing.
congrats

jase

Thanks Jase
i did notice the noise soft not harsh.
Kick a couple inches off and louder beaty
What size coil would you get for a bit more coverage without the wieght ?
Cheers
Scuba

well done Scuba, great when you hit the first one and hopefully many more to come.

Congratulations, many, many more to come.

on my last trip to Kal a bloke was using a gpx5000 with a nf 17*11 advantage coil (older style) he was going out over the rehab areas on my mates lease over the coarse of 8 weeks he picked up just over 2 oz's, and most of these were tiny .2's, .3's etc he was rewarded for his patience and persistence, I tried the rehab areas but they drove me insane with the rubbish.
I also use the 17*11 coil on a 4500 and find it has great coverage and sensitivity having found 7 sub grammers the smallest being a .25
we were east of Kal most of the ground had been gone over (alot) there were detector holes everywhere, which can be a good or bad sign which ever way you want to look at it.
congrats on your first nugget you will never forget the first one

Great news Scuba... If your 18'' is too heavy and your Joey too small a 14" of some description may be a better compromise as a search coil to cover more ground, be a bit lighter, not too big to get hung up on obstacles and still have decent surface sensitivity. Don't forget to experiment with a few different settings to get the most out of each coil you have in the ground your detecting on. The advantage now is you have a REAL test target to use to fine tune your machine for the best response.

...then once onto a patch, you can always go smaller or bigger then and GET IT ALL mate!

Hi me again, if you were to go prospecting on the symbols below which one would you choose?
I would probably go on 1 and 2......?
Thanks for the replies.
Scuba


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