what made you

what made you get into this hobby? what made me get into this hobby was a friend had some pegged grounds and was doing very well with what he was doing. he was selling 30oz a month to perth mint back in the 90's and he was showing my dad some the bigger bits he had. the sd2000 not long had hit the market, the plans were they both were going to buy one each. dad brought his for $4000 2nd hand and off me and dad went, we didn't do that well with the gold but found a few coins. if we had been showen how to use it, what to look for things may have been different I was 16 years old. our friend passed away, we ended up with his old maps ect and we stuck at it.

once I hit 18 the pubs and party's took over the prospecting but once I hit about 32/33 I started back up, took the old sd2000 out to a spot and picked up my 1st nugget a 1.65g and never looked back. I had been helped by so many of this forum and met up with a few, things have worked out well and loving it.
cheers
stoppsy

When I was a little tacker 
My mum used to drag me round tibooburra
Digging her targets for her 
When the sds first came out 
But she only had the xt 1800
But even the little bits were exciting back then 
It used to be and still is a treasure hunt

As a kid I was always intrigued about these Metal Detectors that could see underground where eyes could not go. I was pretty good at spotting coins and stuff under counters and around coke machines and finding them in the street gutters of Mt Barker and Adelaide before and after school and using other techniques that I won't mention for getting my 20 c coins for the Pin Ball machines, so I always had the Hunter in me ! But it wasn't until my late 20's that I finally settled down had some spare cash to buy an old XT 1800 and go looking for gold in Echunga Gold Fields in between Shearing jobs. As you'd probably guess rubbish was all that was found and "THIS SUCKS" could be heard more often than not while swinging blindly through Blackberries. Finally living in Cairns during the off season between Prawn Trawlers I lashed out and bought a GP EXTREME the year they came out and found my first piece of gold on the Palmer River Gold Field. Havn't looked back since, just goes to show the difference experience makes in everything. Thanks Stoppsy for bringing back old memories.  Cheers   MARTY

I used to scrounge around all the garage sales & swap meets. One saturday on the way home from where I used to work , I was late to a garage sale & a metal detector was one of the only things left. Got it cheap enough ,but it wasn`t known if it worked. Cleaned the battery box ,put new batteries in & it worked.
Living in a heavily mined area , I have been researching the best spots & studying the old mining reports & old maps for 2 or 3 years .I have talked to a few people,asked a lot of questions & once I get this new detector I have been waiting for , I will go off with armed with all my info & hopefully find this elusive stuff.
I have managed to drag a mate into it & now he has a bit of gold fever ,too. Good thing is my mate has lived in the area for nearly 60 years & has a fair bit of knowledge about what went on & where. His father & grandfather worked in 2 major mines in the early to mid 1900`s .
This website keeps the flame going for me . A lot of experience & knowledge shared here and that helps make it an enjoyable hobby.


HH

in 1995 when working in Kalgoorlie, I ran into one of the local prospecting identities (who unfortunately is no more with us now, RIP Chris!). I was lucky enough that he was generously sharing his wealth of knowledge with me and took me out to the salt lakes with his new SD2000. After seeing how he pulled nugget after nugget out of the salt crusted clay, there was no turning back anymore  and so I ordered my own SD and started finding gold on the lakes on a regular basis until I hit a 10oz'er a few months later. The rest is history and I haven't even tried to find a cure against my gold fever .
bedrock

I've been detecting on and off since the late 1970's..I got started when mum & dad bought a 5 acre bush block near Alma,not far from Maryborough in Vic.,from what we could tell it looked like good ground (bits of quartz lying around).
Dad said we should buy a detector and give it a good going over..this was about the time the new gold rush was starting and every man and his dog were trying to get rich quick.
We lived south of Melb. so we headed to this new detecting shop that had just opened in Dandenong...Strewth!! The place was absolutely packed! wall to wall people buying detectors,picks,maps..you name it!
My brother and me were like little kids in a lolly shop   I made straight for a gleaming green Garrett Deepseeker and thought "this will do me" as it was supposed to be the Ferrari of detectors back then..dad said "you can put that straight back son,we can't afford it"  
We ended up buying a pommy machine called a C-Scope and next day headed up to the block dreaming of all the 50 ounce nuggets we were gonna find...Ha! we had no clue and no chance   it couldn't handle the ground mineralisation,the bloody thing didn't even have any kind of ground balance control,not that we'd know how to use it,we were total newbies  
Anyway,many years have passed since then,ma and pa sold the block,and i kept using that C-Scope and found heaps of nice coins with it..but i always wonder what might have been if dad had forked out the extra cash for the Garrett  The old C-Scope bit the dust many years ago and since then have owned many different detectors,but only really got the gold fever back in 2011 when i jumped in at the deep end and bought a 5000  and haven't looked back.

I've found a few nice old gold and silver coins but it doesn't even come close to the rush of diggin out a beautiful little nugget...although,to be able to find a mid 1850's Sovereign in amongst the diggings would be pretty bloody special!  

Cheers..Dave

Well I bought property not knowing it was in a gold area then after riding around on the dirt bike for a while and seeing all the mines I thought I would give it a go

Ben

Well  I often wish I didn't, too late now! Damn   Gold    

my mother made me do it! no seriously is that you,the real stoppsy?please someone that knows the real stoppsy confirm,as I and a lot of members got sucked in with the imposter stoppsy! 

I started in 1972 with opal fossicking. my Dad took me to Lightning Ridge and started calling me "eagle eye" after finding good opal back then, had them made or polished and came back home and ended up giving them my "girl friends"   if I knew what these solid opals would be worth now = bugga  
Anyway Dad was always after the "golden touch" and persued with vigour at Oallen ford and Shoalhaven etc, but the "demon drink" won in the end and I followed my own interests etc  
untill 3 or so yrs ago and decided I am coming towards retirement and now I can persue ALL my interests   trouting - sapphiring - golding - camping - bush living - and detecting etc and it dont matter which way I go I will have something to do and having survived a "C" scare it has made me more determined to do what I want and when
Cheers

When the mining company was drilling on my grandfathers farm In the late 80's is when I started forming an interest in precious metals

What made me?
Well Dad always said I looked like the Milkman,and mum reckons I was delivered by a Stork.

Seriously though Stoppsy,I guess it all started as a 2 yr old ,Sniping for gold on the Turon.......
Well OK, I actually fell in while my parents were panning,but mum reckons i was hanging onto a rock on the bottom in 3ft of water.
Yes fairly commited I was as a youngster.
The tale only gets worse from there. Panning at every opportunity,reading old G,G&T mags until one day I lost the plot and bought a SD 2000.
Come to think of it.....I had done the rounds of all the loose women and the party scene by that time,plus surfing,fishing and shooting had lost its gloss.
The rest is history.

blisters wrote:my mother made me do it! no seriously is that you,the real stoppsy?please someone that knows the real stoppsy confirm,as I and a lot of members got sucked in with the imposter stoppsy! 

I can confirm that this Stoppsy is the real McCoy.

I was 17 years old and working as a diesel mechanic at Red hill mine at Heathcote when an old dump truck operator dropped a 1.5 ounce beautiful smooth and water worn nugget in my hand, he found while detecting on the weekend...... That was it, I was hooked for life! But have never taken it to seriously, I do it for the fun of it and the rush. Been detecting on and off over the years.

Regards Ren...

geez there's some great story's on how people got into/how they started. when I was out Saturday with my dad and a great friend steve, I was just walking around swinging the coil and realized how much I love detecting. I have a lot of confidence in my gear and 99% of the time come home with a rattle in the jar.

blisters, it is me mate not an imposter, I know that when someone took my name and everyone thought it was me. it took a bit to get that imposter off line but thanks to the mods they got it done. not sure why someone would wont to do that but was glad a member informed me about it so me and the mods could deal it. it just goes to show there's few low lifes out there that will try and bugger it for everyone.
cheers
stoppsy

Im pretty green at all this but I guess growing up in the bush with motorbikes utes and going around hunting we would come accross the old gold mines in the mountains, sometimes the old diggers left there gear there too, all rusted up. it was kind of intriguing... as a little kid my dad used to search for old bottles as a hobby it was great going out with him.
Now that im all grown up.... kinda. i bought my son a metal detector 8 years ago with the intention of combing the beaches, we never found much.... i left my ex two years ago and have hooked up with a chic that will follow me to the ends of the earth to be by my side and we have this plan you see.... as hobby and an interest we are researching old ghost towns so we can visit them and have just began practising panning and detecting.... last week end was our first real adventure! i learnt i took way too much gear with us, the creek was all wrong as it was more of a gutter that got washed out. BUT i did find a coin under a tree root about 200 mm down!! turned out to be a 10 cent piece !! its now called the coin of hope! and ive recessed it into some old drift wood which will hold all the coins we find. this week end is a reconnaissance mission. will be searching through scrub for old forgotten towns and checking out some more creeks in the Ravenswood area, if i can get to them. we love it!!

In researching my family tree, I found that my great grandfather Dennis Collins came out from Ireland in 1853 to chase the gold.  His sons became Dredging Engineers around the 1880,s and worked on the dredges around Yackandandah and Ballarat which gave me a taste  of the gold fields.  I wondered what it was like so I saw an ad advertising the Goldman in Maryborough who would take a person out with a 2100 for the day.  I didn't find any gold but enjoyed the bush and the adventure .
Finally in 1999 I bought a 2200 and after 6 months started to find a few pieces.  I wanted to experience more and should have joined a club. However I went on the Internet and started a forum on MSN just to see if there was anyone else enjoying the hobby.  A week or two later someone joined the forum and there was two of us, it was exciting!  13 years later there are almost 5000 on the forum and I still get a kick out of it when a new chum just like me, finds the forum and learns there are people out there who want to help and they go out and find their first piece.
Thanks fellas for being part of the adventure
Jeff

My attraction to gold came about after my D.O.D. took us 3 lads down to Little Hartley in 1963. It was the middle of August and it was cold - No, more like Bloody cold - No, it was actually F,F,F,Freezing  - and after a day of exploring the Cox River, Dad built a real White Fella fire and we all settled down around it. We were playing Capitals (whats the capital of....), when dad started to shift the river boulders we were sitting on to get closer to the fire.
Well, Dad started shifting those big rocks by rolling them, when  the one he was rolling had it's backside turned to the fire... It was covered in fools gold and the sight of that big rock shining like the stars in the sky has never left me.
Every one of us Lads thought we'd struck it rich and Dad left us to dream on that thought until the morning. After a freezing night, Dad put us straight about what we thought was gold and showed us how to get the good stuff. It was a good lesson in life along the lines of "all that glisters is not gold", and that's how it all started...

She who thought camping was in a motel!!! got taken out in South Australia in the middle of nowhere!!! in the middle of winter!!! in a tent in 2001.

There was about an inch of ice on the inside of the tent in the morning and then approx 3 days later the rain fair bucketed down and mud and slush everywhere. So Chris got told in no uncertain terms (after we were repeatedly told that we almost had collected enough rubbish to find our first piece of gold) that I had to go home to normal surroundings and he could stick his prospecting right where .....

However he persuaded me about 3 weeks later to go back to the goldfields as ""he knew where I would find a nuggie"""' how many times had I heard this before? Whether or not I felt sorry for him and/or didn't want to be staying by myself at home I went with him one more time and we found our first gold nuggie (not the size of the palm of my hand like I thought it would be but weighing in at .4g!) I near peeed my pants and danced around like a looney until the adrenalin rush passed and then proceeded to find another 8 pieces in a very short time.

Standing and looking at that tiny nuggie that was like 50 million years old and untouched by human hands just got to me and I have been hooked ever since.

Thanks to all those folks that have posted on this and other forums with all the information that so helps everyone. There are some really special friends who have contributed so much of their knowledge and help to us in this wonderful hobby. Priceless.

Thanks for posting this topic Stoppsy.

Cheers
Lyn

 I had no choice in the matter i was born into prospecting. And have never known any different. cheers

My real exposure to the world of prospecting was when I met the man in the above post !!!!!  

hi stoppsy,great to have you back bud   grandparents on both sides owned hardrock gold mines,one in Mareeba one in charters towers.my parents have owned alluvial gold mines since I was knee high to a grasshopper,i worked with them on the minesites while doing my weeks school coraspondance in a couple days to get back to work. many stories in between,fast forward to 2005 did a run with the oldman to give an alluvial miner some advise on his gold plant efficenty,and prove up what payable dirt was on his leases.the miner had a 3500 and encouraged me to give it ago,i wandered off with my son in tow with the pick.an hour later come back with a 8 grammer that my son claimed cause he dug the hole! 2 years later I had some free time to go for another run with the old man to another alluvial miner that was seeking help and run into my current prospecting partner working in the area.sold my retail shop and have been working with him ever since. 

Our family had a farm at Tumbarumba in southern NSW with gold and sapphires in the creeks all around us. All spare time since about 7 years old I spent panning and seiving ...and shooting. My parents got a garrett deepseeker then xt1700 then a 2000 and every model since. They detected WA and VIC every year till dad passed. Brother stills goes to WA for 5 months every year and VIc for a month or two. He is up to year 16 prospecting over WA. My first detector, after borrowing family detectors for a while was a 2200. . Our family has 5 nuggets over 30oz and a couple dozen over 10 oz to our name, with a couple patches over 100oz.

So with roots in prospecting, we got hooked on detecting when the 2000 was released.We have gold fever bad. My problem is a fulltime job slows me down.
Tributer

hey tributer,good story mate,great pic of your prospecting bike bud   will put me crf 150 Honda up for a standing start race over 500 meters for pink slips what ya reckon?  what can I say ride red is the only way to go! 

wow there is some great reading on how people got into this hobby, love reading them  
cheers
stoppsy

Yeah Blisters the postie is a good prospecting rig. You don't need to have a trailer to carry it and without a trailer you can still get your 4WD to areas way off track. What I like best is you can easily bail off them if a crash looms and they let you cover more ground. Re Hondas in general I like posties but that's it. You would not catch me riding any other Honda or any other kind of rice burner, I always used to race bultaco and can-am dirt bikes (the two wheel kind ...if you are over 45 years old you might remember them)

yeah tributer,can-am was to rich for my blood  yz,  rm and kx were my bikes of choice  did a couple of seasons racing motocross in nq.bultaco was more of a trials bike wasn,t it? yeah I agree no trailer for me the 150 fits on the back of the Toyota as part of my perment prospecting gear. the only time I take a trailer is when my son comes out with the quad,which isn,t to often these days  sorry stoppsy

Tributer wrote:Our family had a farm at Tumbarumba in southern NSW with gold and sapphires in the creeks all around us. All spare time since about 7 years old I spent panning and seiving ...and shooting. My parents got a garrett deepseeker then xt1700 then a 2000 and every model since. They detected WA and VIC every year till dad passed. Brother stills goes to WA for 5 months every year and VIc for a month or two. He is up to year 16 prospecting over WA. My first detector, after borrowing family detectors for a while was a 2200. . Our family has 5 nuggets over 30oz and a couple dozen over 10 oz to our name, with a couple patches over 100oz.

So with roots in prospecting, we got hooked on detecting when the 2000 was released.We have gold fever bad. My problem is a fulltime job slows me down.
Tributer

I think that adds up to around 3/4 of a MiLL! Geeze take a holiday mate an leave some for the rest of us   

I once caculated that I could live for 30 years on a million at my current standard of living and not have to put any of it in the bank  

I became interested in gold at about 8 years when my Grand father showed me a bit of qtz with gold sticking out of it that he had got from his mine  near Bonang Vic.GD was an hard core Old School miner. I was facinated and he began teaching me how to find the stuff. How to pan, sluice, dry blow sink a shaft to 30 foot and how to timber it so as it would not fall in on you, how to make a windlass, recognise Indicators of a particular area, and about rocks and geology in relation to gold, silver and tin.
     Gold has been running in my veins ever since.
Gold lead me to my interest in gems and that lead to my interest in the earth and the planet and that lead to my interest in Astronomy which made me wonder about whether there could be life on other planets and that lead to my everlasting interest in UFOs and little black eyed greys. As a kid still, I remember hearing some weird noises comming from an short wave radio and Dad told me that it was Space Noise and so my interest in radio and electronics began and continued to this day.
So! almost ALL of my interests can be connected to when my Grand dad showed me a piece of gold from his mine near Bonang........I still have that piece of qtz/gold speci.
Grand dad (Mums Dad) also mined in Reola, dunolly, up along the Palmer and for opals at Lightning ridge and a lot of places in between

great story Adrian ss, I went opal mining at Lightning ridge when I was about 14 years old with a family friend. it was awesome going down the mine and drilling, picking at the walls. we had a 44 gallon drum full off opals with us when we come back to vic. wish we still had that drum as there was some moneys worth there now. I don't know what happen to that drum i'll have to ask my dad  
cheers
stoppsy