What is your most memorable tip on how to find gold?

Have been following Adrian's post with interest. "Where Are The Forum Good Ole Days?"

See if we can get this one rolling?
Back in the early 80's swinging the state of the art Garrett Deepseeker, several trips with out finding any gold I stopped off in Yalgoo and washed a bit of dust down with a few beers in the Yalgoo pub.
Met an interesting "old timer" propped up at the bar and entered into a very interesting conversation for the next hour or three.
He had been chasing gold rushes through the decades, one piece of advice has stuck with me through until this day.
He explained that gold deposits in WA run North & South. eg: Norseman to Halls Creek.
As a rule, not gospel, where ever you find a shaft or shafts the reefs run East & West so between the shafts is always the place to begin your search.
On my next trip I met a couple in Meekatharra (Bill & Nancy) who invited me out to Chesterfield (Big Ben & Hewitt Find) spring to mind. Found my first gold 1 1/4 ozs in ironstone & 1/4oz in pure quartz.
Looked at my Belele map and could see what the old timer explained.
A later trip back to the area with my dry blower resulted in 5 1/2 ozs of fines in a couple of weeks. (Would have made an absolute killing if a SDC2300 was my back up)

Back in the early 80s, I remember reading somewhere that finding gold with a metal detector was 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration!

Col

i reckon the question should be -- learning what you should be listening for in finding big deep gold - and the only way you can do that is having a mate show you, or by pure chance you checking out a noise by being inquisitive.

that happened to me in 2002. after two years of finding smaller, obvious, shallow gold. i got this unusual response in the gp extreme, and since i had recently found a ten gram shallow piece nearby, me being in good spirits, decided to dig what i would otherwise have walked away from.

it was a 109gram solid nugget down over eighteen inches

after two days celebration, i got back to that spot, and within fifty meters area i pulled out another ten or so good sized nugs down deeper, that amounted to three and half ounces. it was the makeing of my capacity to find the better nugs deeper down that arent so obvious.

i havent looked back eversince ... kev

never give up

Hi
In Victoria the trees tell you what your walking over.That ring of gravels around it has been dragged from the bottom as the tree has grown.When that ring is not there the ground is too deep for detecting.Trees tell you whats going on under your feet.Nice of them.
Cheers Dig

Learnt the above from the late great Jimmy Stewart a brilliant man

To prove a promising area thats huge like in WA.If the ground permits tie a motorbike chain to nylon chord and drag it 2 to 300 metres to the four points of the compass.You dont have to pretty and meticulous. Your only after the obvious noisey piece.By continuing to halve each segment your drag marks show you where youve been.When the first piece is found , then work off it slowly with half steps.North South ,East West and diagonally.Learnt this from a frenchman called Gil from Leonora years ago.He was quite incredible to watch, detected a such a fast pace that he would go 3 steps past tbe target.
Cheers Dig

My tips are:
Low and slow, get to know your detector and be confident with it.
Don't leave your pick at home, don't wear steel capped boots, charge the detector battery before you go, don't forget your headphones. << All things I have done!

Cheers Mick

My tips is real simple...but the hardest to learn....if your attitude isn't right don't go prospecting

Mechanic wrote:My tips are:
Low and slow, get to know your detector and be confident with it.
Don't leave your pick at home, don't wear steel capped boots, charge the detector battery before you go, don't forget your headphones. << All things I have done!

Cheers Mick

Say Mick, how about leaving your detector at home? Luckily, I was only 15 minutes from home before I had a look at the back seat and noticed something  important missing... derrrr

slimpickens wrote:

Mechanic wrote:My tips are:
Low and slow, get to know your detector and be confident with it.
Don't leave your pick at home, don't wear steel capped boots, charge the detector battery before you go, don't forget your headphones. << All things I have done!

Cheers Mick

Say Mick, how about leaving your detector at home? Luckily, I was only 15 minutes from home before I had a look at the back seat and noticed something  important missing... derrrr

LOL Think I forgot my power lead one time too

Goldtalk, You got that right! If your not in the right frame of mind there is really no point, unless you were to just happen to stumble upon a patch of nuggies, things woudl change real quick!

Cheers Mick

My tip is an old one, Dig every signal, you wouldnt believe how many people I have seen walk away from a target saying "nah it's rubbish" and it turned out to be gold, every one has done it. Tip number Two, Dont trust your Discriminator, my biggest nugget discriminated and it was 10 ounces, nearly walked away.

Mono.

Many years ago, (another lifetime), my girlfriend (now my wife of 44 years) and I, used to go camping at Steiglitz in Victoria and do a bit of amateur gold panning.
We had fun, loved the bush and found panning exciting.
It used to be eerie at night camping alone in this former gold field, listening to the sounds of ghosts in the trees of miners past.

Over the next 12 months we had accumulated approx. 1/2 a teaspoon of gold flecks. It may not have been much but we did have fun.

I decided one day that I would make all of these little bits into one nugget. Mr Google wasn't available back then and I in my amateur and inexperienced way decided to heat them over the gas stove in the kitchen.

My spoon got hot, my fingers got hot but the grains of gold didn't melt.

I recalled reading somewhere that mercury was used to bond gold grains together, so I broke a thermometer and mixed the gold into it.

Nothing happened.

I decided to heat it over the gas stove again.

All was going well until the mercury reached boiling point when all of a sudden my spoonful of gold started spitting like popcorn when within a heartbeat I'm left holding a completely empty spoon.

All of our hard earned finds were now lying in microscopic droplets on the kitchen floor.

Lesson learnt.................................use a bigger spoon.

No I'm joking. Today I do know better but back then, it was an interesting experience.

Peter.

PS: Does anyone ever fossick around Steiglitz anymore?

The most memorable tip I can give to anyone on how to be a successful prospector towards finding gold is; After all your research is done, the moment one enters their destination, sets up camp, saddles up & switches on their detector, (and although not easy to do at times)  is to forget/leave all your worldly problems behind you & start concentrating on your surroundings/the task at hand. One must start thinking gold, breathing gold, smelling gold, to the point of tasting gold. Believe it or not, this manner of thinking has lead me to many a productfull/successful journey. The surrounding trees/shrubs, rocks, the type of ground/dirt you walk over, might lay silent, but all have a story to tell, to the one that pays attention to see/listen.
Some here say it's all about ground time, others a whole lot of luck, well, like flogging a dead horse, all the ground time & luck in the world aren't much good to you, if you don't know what your detector/coil combo is capable of, swinging it over all the wrong type of ground. Luck (and although comes far & few in between) only plays a role towards the size/quantity of ones find/s, but consistency in finding gold from place to place, from one day to the next, cannot be achieved, without putting in that extra bit of research, going that extra yard & the experience is sure to follow.  

Cheers Kon.

One tip I pass on to detectorists who ask , "Where do I look for gold " , and it seems basic , " Where gold was found gold can be found " .
Nearly everyone wants to go deeper and find the big bit that has been missed , which is fair enough , but does everyone set their detector
to give them the best shot at it . The only way is to test in the field and given time and the settings for a given day and place can be arrived at .
Fully understanding you detectors capability is my best tip .

The most memorable tips I got was from an old timer, when I first started panning as a young tacker. He showed me the type of clay in the creek (where I was panning) and how to puddle it in the pan properly. He also showed me a Quartz rock and told me that this was the type of Quartz associated with gold.

Cheers.

Mike.

Look for the obvious, do a quick scan then do a wide scan in non obvious places (not immediately apparent or such as would ordinarily be expected) around your chosen spot.

The best advice I can give to newcomers to this hobby is: dig every signal, move slowly, at the end of the day is not how much ground you covered but how well you covered it, try to read the ground the best you can, trees, bushes, reefs, outcrops, everything in the bush is talking to you if you are willing to listen, but most important of all, don't be discouraged because being positive is essential.

G'day

Back when I was a newbie I asked an old timer in Coolgardie where did he think the best place to look for gold? and he said to me "where the blackbutt trees are" not knowing what a blackbutt tree looked like and keen not to seem ignorant I just thanked him and went on my way , as it turns out they are easy to spot as they are everywhere --ha ha very funny

Another old fella gave me some real and very sound advice that I still follow to this day, he said never walk away from a signal and dig everything until you know what it is, and I can attest to this being very true as over the years there have been many nuggets that I dug that I could have easily have walked away from as the signals were iffy, or even sometimes sounding too good making me think it was trash, but always that good advice made me stop and dig it anyway, thanks mate,

cheers

au-fever