Ants and Gold ???

Just had a couple of nice days away (grand final weekend and my team not playing !!) where I thought it would be nice to escape Melbourne and do a little prospecting. Weather was beautiful up in sunny Avoca.

During the weekend I came across three separate targets that were buried in slight mounds of dirt. Upon my first swing of the pick on each, I was confronted by hundreds of angry bullants where a quick decision had to be made...follow the cuckoo noise or retreat. As keen as I am to find gold, I'm not as silly as I look.....and the Ants won each time !!

The fact that this happened to me three times over two days got me thinking if ants do have an iffinity with metals of some sort...least of all gold. I cant help wondering if this has happened to anyone else out there ?? Or can anyone give me some sort of credible explanation to why this has occured...or am I just going crazy ??? I dont think I had sunstroke !!

To add to this, with an hour to go on the Sunday I got a signal about a metre away from a tree. It sounded good so I started to dig. As I was digging I became aware of a humming sound around me and began to curse the flies that had become increasingly bad all of a sudden. Except it wasn't flies...at the base of the tree behind me where I had flung my pick, I had disturbed a nest of bees. Pretty soon the sky had changed colour and somehow I got out of there without being stung. I'll never know what that target was either. Score for the weekend...Insects 4 Harry 0

G'day Harry

You had an interesting time mate.  

As for the bull ants, some people take great delight in dropping lead (old bullets) down these ant nests, these people must get some sort of demented pleasure from doing this in the hopes of getting an inexperienced opperator to try and dig there.  

Gold sounds about the same as lead so it is a good sound to hear.

cheers dave

Never fail to swing over unfilled holes, ant hills and emu poo, if sandalwood seeds were gold nuggets would be very rich.
Have never detected a nugget in either however do know prospectors who have.
What do they say, never walk away from a target even if you have ants in your pants.

Dig harry, the ants are less active early in the morning.
Mark your target in the arvo and hit it with your pick early next day.
My missus wears boots and gaiters etc etc.
I prefer thongs near an ant nest, so I can see every one of the blighters, and keep any eye on them.
But dig you must.

Quite a few of the old timers will tell you that when ants build their nests (in the gold districs) they will remove ALL impurities within their building site. This includes gold. Gold is an excellent conductor of heat ... that's the last thing they want in the middle of their lounge!!!!

Thus the stories of gold being found in the top few inches of ant nests! It kind of makes sense when you think about it  

Thank you so much for the input....I guess I'll just have to 'harden up' and take my chances !!! Interesting from getascripter and yes it does make sense when you think about it.

Cheers,
Harry

G'day.
When you dig an ant's nest the size of gravel usualy dictates the size of gold you will find.
Big Fella

what I have found it is the concentration of moisture in an Ants nest that seems to send of a signal specially when using the 5000 in fine gold setting. Just last Monday I got a great little signal but as soon as I started to dig I hit a bullants nest but I kept digging and dragging the dirt away but the target had just disappeared. Not in the hole or in the dirt that I dragged out. This has happened to me a few times now.
wombat  

G'day
Wombat I've had the same happening all week,you don't even know it's an ant nest till you start digging.
Big Fella.

Thanks Big Fella...so have you found gold in an ants nest ? or has anyone else for that matter ?

Yep, but only fine stuff ... I've dug the top couple of inches from the top, then taken it in my wheelbarrow to the highbanker, shovelled it in ... only ever got small gold, and not a lot of it ... but probably about what you could expect from the little critters doing their housework!    

Best time is very late in the afternoon. And the last ant hill that I did took me a couple of days .... just a half dozen shovel loads at a time so as not to put myself in the firing line ... they BITE!!!  

G'day
Yeah found a lot of gold in ant nests especially around Castlemaine Don't think it was a pretty site some days for any one to see the Big Fella doing a dance and strip,Feel sorry for anyone who saw that.
Big Fella.

He He...yep I'd like to see that...thanks for your input big fella !

I read this thread a few days ago then, on the weekend, I was out and scraped on a signal in a heap. Bugger!! Ants!! Then I remembered reading this and kept going. Glad I did!!  

WooHoo bristlehound ... hope in was a nice chunky piece??? You didn't just walk away did you??    

Only small but luckily, so were the ants. I can think of a few more holes I'm gonna have to revisit now though. Unfortunately, one belongs to a rather large and agro mob of jumping jacks. Full body cover might be in order.

Way to go Bristlehound...thats awesome. All of mine were of the jumping jack variety ...we used to call the 'inchman' because they are about an inch long....black with angry nippers. Dont know if they are the same ones as yours, but I found them consistently. Anyhow, by the sounds of things I'm being a woos, so I'll have to dig from now on...he he

Yes like the story, I have heard up north here of termite mounds being sampled to locate gold, they do the digging for you good idea I recon.