New Members From SE Queensland

Hello everyone, this is my initial posting, and I must firstly make mention that I think this is a fantastic forum/community you have happening here. I've been lurking in the background @ 'The Finders Forum' for a couple of years without ever having known this place existed until a few weeks ago. Anyway, what follows is a bit about myself and the GF and our quest for gold in SEQ.


We've had gold fever for the past three years or so, and think it all started when I heard somewhere that 'gold 'n' ghosts' was the holy grail of prospecting literature. When I saw copies were selling on eBay for over a grand I realised I had to get my hands on it at any cost, a bit like getting a pirate treasure map I suppose. Anyway, after fruitless searches on the web for an electronic edition of it I eventually found a library which had a copy and went in to borrow it. It was then that I found out that it could no longer be loaned out due to thefts, and could now only be studied within the confines of the library provided you gave them 24 hours notice. They made an exception for me and waived the 24 hour notice period and fetched it from the bowels of the library. Within moments of thumbing through the books pages I quickly realised making notes and trying to remember details would be a total waste of time due to the enormous amount of information, and in particular all the detail contained in the many maps. I asked the librarian if I would be allowed to photocopy some pages to which she responded "yes, you may copy up to 50 pages per visit." I happily agreed to this and considering it was an A3 photocopier we managed two pages per scan which pretty well covewred the SE corner so I was a happy chappy indeed, especially seeing as the cost of the photocopying was less than ten dollars and she did it all for me as I stood and watched. With the sacred texts now in hand, I spent many hours approximating the points of interest depicted in the hand drawn maps of G&G into waypoints using Google Earth and topo maps. We would then jump in the fourby and head out to these locations. The mere fact of being able to find the places referenced was rewarding enough at first, but it wasn't long before we started getting a little more serious.


We started sifting through dirt and river-wash with our bare hands at these sites in the hope of seeing just a spec of gold but we never did. I now realised it was time to get a lot more serious, and so we purchased a $15.00 gold-pan from a disposals store on the outskirts of Gympie. I asked the guy in the store for some advice on where we should try the pan, and he said fat-hen creek, so away we went to Kilkivan to try our hand at panning. We already thought we knew how to pan (we'd watched lots of YouTube videos on it and were almost experts) but for us fat-hen creek didn't deliver a single spec in our pan. It was back to the drawing board, and wasn't long before I'd come up with what I thought was a very clever plan.


I had the idea of using my bait-pump as a suction crevicing tool. Indeed a bait pump can be be easily converted to a crevice-sucker with the addition of a suitable nozzle, but you have to lift the pump out of the water and quickly empty it into a nearby bucket with each pull of the plunger. My variant on this was to make a fully-automatic unit by employing 50mm flapper-valves on the inlet and outlet so as I could just pump away like the clappers. This worked really well during testing at home when decanting the backyard pond, but when tried in the field the flapper-valves continually became obstructed by pebbles making it pretty much useless.


Momentarily defeated, it wasn't long before I'd came up with another harebrained scheme to win some of the yellow stuff. You see, I'd just found out about syphon-dredging. This is where you use a long length of non-perforated ag-pipe in a creek with a steep gradient. You cap the lower end of the pipe and take the other end upstream to a higher point and submerse that end until the entire length of the pipe is filled with water whilst the upper opening remains underwater. Once that is done, you have your assistant un-cap the lower end and voila, you are at the helm of an extremely powerful 4" suction dredge. This type of dredge doesn't use a sluice, but rather relies on the inherent riffles that make up the ag-pipe to capture the gold. These dredges can be so powerful that there are supposedly several instances of people having their arms sucked into them and de-gloved. Anyway, to spare you of finer details of our dredging operation, we suction-dredged till the sun went down and then made our way back to the car with the coiled ag-pipe, (hopefully containg lots of fine gold with the odd nugget or two to boot) our legs and feet covered in leeches. The next day we cut open the ag-pipe to force it to surrender all the gold it had collected the previous day; but there was none. This miserable result compounded with the many that preceded it put the kybosh on our gold-hunting field excursions for the next year.


Fast forward to present day. I suggested to the GF that she should invest her savings in gold bullion as we both believe that the price of gold is set to explode, or at the very least keep pace with inflation. She baulked at my suggestion and decided to invest in a GPX5000 instead. Her reasoning: if we get a good detector we can just go out and get gold whenever we want to instead of sitting on a static volume of it. Without thinking too hard I agreed with her and before we knew it we were the owners of a new GPX5000 and burning through hundreds of litres of diesel around SEQ visiting all the hot-spots. Stumbling about in the push like a partial cripple (We had a jetski accident a week prior to getting the detector) we very quickly learned about soil mineralisation, boot-nails and bullets, but still no gold! Thus far we have had a swing at Elgin Vale (scrubby Creek diggings), Jimna (Peters Creek), Chinaman creek and also Kilkivan. I think our next attempt in SEQ will be Mt Gammie, Pratten and Talgai. If this fails us then it's off to the golden triangle where we have a relative that owns a pub a lodgings. In conclusion, it has been a great adventure, and we've been to many wonderful places but still no gold. In our recent adventures we have seen a lot of fresh evidence of people going after alluvial and I am very seriously considering building a micro-dredge as this is the direction I was taking in the first place. I'm sure at least in SEQ the dredge will pay for itself well before the detector ever does.


I think that's more than enough of an introduction for now as this post is so long-winded it's becoming almost as exhausting as hunting that elusive yellow stuff itself!


Regards

Jason and Zoe

Sounds like your not holding back with the effort, my dad lives in Nerang and i only just spoke to him a month ago for the first time since i was 15 [28 now] i told him im into gold prospecting and would you believe he told me he used to do it when he was younger over the border in northern nsw, he used to sluice, i didnt ask where exactly but i did ask if he ever found anything and he said yeah they found gold, i told him if me and the missus come up there over christmas he will have to show me the places, ill flog it with gpx 4000 you never know, so if i do go up there and i find anything ill tell you the spots,

It could have been near mt warning but im not sure maybe more west, next time i speak to him ill ask where it was, good luck

Hi Jason, Hi Zoe,

Welcome to you both. Sorry to hear about your lack of success. Have you had a bit of good instruction on the detecting side of things ?

Jig

Welcome Byteman this forum is full of information to help you with all sorts of questions you may have.
Good luck Frog.

welcom to the forum Byteman, i havn't got to read all the statement that you have put up as i should have an early night so i get up bright and early tomorrow..... anyway this forum is very helpfull for anything that you need to know or help with and there a lot off good hearted people as well.... when i get back from detecting tomorrow i'll sit and ready what you have posted.....
cheers
stoppsy

G'day Jason & Zoe,welcome to our forum.

Have no doubts in the machines capabilities.You guys have bought the best metal detector available,(for gold prospecting) on the market.Sounds like you need to do a day or two tuition,out on the gold fields with an experienced operator as (Jigalong) stated,which will help put you on track with the 5000s capabilities,searching methods/technique,and the type of ground,nuggets are likely to be found.

Cheers kon61.

Thats the first time I,ve heard of gold fever without finding any gold.With that determination you deserve some so I,m sure someone will offer a few pointers.Welcome to the forum.
Steve

Hi Guys

Didnt read your book lol. but,
where are yaz from jason & zoe ?

Pete in WA

Gday Byteman


Welcome to the forum, wow thats some story, anyway you have the hunger so now you need to learn to feed it, and the up side is that your lady wants to do the prospecting with you as well, thats always a bonus, as many of the guys/ladies here can tell you its a lot harder to get serious about it when your partner is pulling in the other direction and cant understand the value of getting another coil etc etc etc.

You have top class machine so there is no reason at all why you guys cant get on to the gold, time on the ground is relevant to success in this game, if you can find junk and bullets you can find gold, slow down and take your time, try to concentrate on a small area at a time rather that trying to do the whole place at once.

If you have only one detector between you then you may find it better to take turns with the other partner keeping within visual range but not close enough to engage in a conversation with you, as while you are waffling away at each other you are not listening to the ground, been there done that, its nice to have someone to help dig the holes but its better for them to keep their distance, the partner not detecting can also be specking while they follow you, you will be surprised what can be found laying on the surface as well.

Anyway if you have any questions feel free to ask, and as earlier suggested it would be worth your while to do some tuition in the field to give you a better idea of how your machine operates and to get a feel for what sort of ground and features you need to be looking for.

cheers

stayyerAU

gday Jason and Zoe

Gee, reading that i thought you'd taken a page out of my own book! I too was bitten by the fever but never found anything, lol. Hey, you guys have the right machine! Your gold WILL come. Keep swinging and dont forget to tell us how you go

Hello again, and thank you for welcoming us to the forum and for all your advice.


In response to some of your questions, we're in SEQ just north of Brisbane. We have never had any detector tuition, though we like watching detecting videos on YouTube (BusterFuggly in particular and his adventures at Hill End) and practicing in the back yard with varying sized pieces of aluminium. The guy we bought the detector from wanted $300.00 for a few hours of tuition and figuring we're pretty handy and good at figuring things out we thought we'd just try and pick it up for ourselves. Apparently we can attend a free Minelab detecting course but the classes are held quite a long way from here so we haven't really considered that option yet.


Before we got the detector I knew about 'hot-rocks' but had no idea about patches of highly mineralised soil which can appear like a metallic target. We'd dig and dig and dig as the apparent target became weaker in signal and more spread out. Another thing that has surprised me is the amount of junk I'm finding at depths of 30+ cm. The last target I ever swung over was in Kilkivan and I was down about 35 cm. I was 100% positive that I was on to a good sized nugget (I was even thinking about where to go for a celebration lunch and a cold beer) and was quite stunned when I finally unearthed a rusty old nail. I was exhausted, hot, and sweaty and partially cured of my gold fever after that.


Stayyer you summed me up perfectly when advising not to do the whole place at once. My reasoning for tearing around like a madman was that seeing as I supposedly have a good detector the more ground I can cover the higher the odds of getting gold. Actually, Zoe gets annoyed at me for doing this, just like she does when we go fishing. When it comes to fishing, I know the spots to go to at the right times, and if I haven't got something within five minutes of arriving I crack it, throw the rods in the car and head off to the next location. It seems this approach has manifested itself from day one of my detecting career also.


Kingfish wrote >>Thats the first time I,ve heard of gold fever without finding any gold.<<

There is one other I know of that is the same; my mate around the corner who caught gold fever from us! Hahaha...

Hey Byteman welcome to the forum and a great first post!
Glad you like my videos and thanks for watching them.

Cheers!

Keep the videos coming Tuna, there haven't been any for a while now I see. I guess it's probably too wet down there as it is here at the moment. I love your vids mate, though I wish you'd start finding bigger bits!

Don't we all! unfortunately I take what's on offer lol
been a bit too wet out there lately, last weekend back early due to rain and this week didn't even bother

Hi Jason and Zoe. I spent 1/2 hour replying to you and then lost the lot.... So, in brief.
I see you hope to look around Pratten etc. A gravel road runs from Pratten cemetry through the State forest to the designated fossicking area at Thanes Creek. The folks that so generously decide where we can fossick really haven't any idea about gold or don't care as there is virtually zilch chance of finding anything in this spot.
The drive through, if you look hard, reveals workings in a number of places and all are fairly accessible in a normal vehicle. If you want to drive into Mt Gammie Nth you will need a 4x4 as the tracks have deteriorated. Don't rely too much on G&G vol 3 as in reality a lot of land is now private and as I said, State Forest.
I know the Rangers are not very keen on detectors in the State Forest. They can take your detector if they can catch you. Still, where else do we go? It seems that all the gold country here is State Forest.
Another area you may consider and only another 20 min. further on is Canal Creek and the Durakai State Forest.
Hope this helps.

Panther

welcome to an awesome forum with a wealth of knowledge and great members

happy hunting
Steve and Lea

Good morning all and especially Byteman,

You are very lucky that I read your post as I am an expert with a detector. Like you I haven't actually found any gold yet but when it comes to nails, bits of tin, wire, bullets, scaps of ancient metal buttons, soft drink tabs, iron pipe, horseshoes I am your man. I am more of an occasional detector waver rather than a dedicated all of my spare time detector waver. Been to the golden triangle in Victoria, bits of NSW, NT, and now northern Queensland. I have seen other people pick up nuggets and while they seem smug and self satisfied with their finds I can see them secretly eyeing off some of the really fine bits of tangled wire I have found.
Best find to date was a $2 coin six feet from my car.
I have found some gold by panning but there is probably more gold under my feet from filing bits of gold when I some times make jewellery.

Never mind, any time you are heading to the far north of Queensland give me a post and I will happily impart some of my hard won detecting secrets.

Yours tropically, Harry

Hi Panther, and thank you for the information you supplied regarding the Pratten area. I'll take your advice and also hit Canal creek whilst I'm down that way. From what I've concluded from my own research 'Darkies Flat' would seem to be exactly 5km due south of Pratten (am I close?). I've also noticed that by looking on Google Earth there seems to be a substantial amount of 'present-day' alluvial processing going on there also. One thing I've noticed over the past few years is that many roads which appear on new editions of maps are now closed off and on private property.


Bloody hell Harry, my blood ran cold after reading your post as I think I'm turning in to you if I haven't already! This detector hobby of yours must owe you quite a bit by now, even if you deducted that two dollar find from all you have outlaid. Zoe may have trumped you in the junk departmnent, as she dug up a rusty piece of mesh which sprung out of the hole and cut her hand open. Talk about adding injury to insult!