talk about luck

hi all, just got off the phone with my paramedic mate, he said to me "guess what happened to me" well i was driving between maryborough and dunolly when a bloke was waving me down so i pulled over and it turned out that he was actually waving to his mate in the parked car to come and see the piece of gold he had just found (with a dick smith special that he had in the cupboard for years and decided to put a set of batteries in it and give it a go, his mate reckoned it ws too hot so wasnt getting out of the car) so he asked my para mate if he wanted to see the "nugget" my mate nearly fell over it was about half a housbrick size !!!! pure gold no rock or quartz, so needless to say my mate couln't wait to tell me about it, knowing what my gold score is at the moment !!! so yes another big one has been found in the triangle. regards, gary
ps uu want to know the worst bit i have driven past that spot several times and remarked to my wife that there is gold there for sure, but didnt have my magic wand with me !!!!!!!!

What a fantastic story.
If this bloke was out in the current 40 deg + temperatures then he is one lucky man.
Lucky he found the gold.
Lucky he didn't drop dead.
Lucky he didn't get locked up for being mad.
One thing is for sure. I recon he would have celebrated with a few cold beers.
Brett.

hmmmmmm one can only dream,
wonder if we will see pics of this one.
Ed.

Gday

You hear about this sort of thing happening time and time again, people just wandering into a spot and picking up big slugs, has to make you wonder sometimes.

How often have you arrived at a new spot, got your gear on and within minutes you snag a piece, then you think that theres bound to be more, hours later you give it away with nothing else for your efforts, this happens a lot.

Maybe you would be better of just driving through an area and randomly stopping here and there at the worst looking spots and giving it a go, also it seems that novices seem to find the bigger bits, maybe its because they just wander in to any ground, no matter how it looks, where the trained prospector probably avoids such ground as it does not "have the look" and moves on to the next more likely looking spot.

cheers

stayyerAU

i think uu hit nail right on the head stayer, regards, gary

I agree you are spot on stayyer.The hit and run or stay and play side of gold has me beat .The number of times you find a piece in that first session and then nothing for hours has me stumped.The mathematical probabilities that you can walk over the first piece within minutes but find no more you would think is not on,yet it happens time and time again.
Three years ago four of us were in an area at the back of Royal Harry,we were getting low on water so decided to go back into Leonora to top up on the way back I saw a likely spot so we decided to put in one session.Everyone found gold in all points of the compass not a lot 5 to 8 pieces each It wasnt virgin dirt,there.. was evidence of a campsite.We were rapt,left topped up with supplies and were back the next morning.The area wasnt small probably ten acres.We camped for 4 days and not one more piece was found.To this day I cant understand it could be possible to do so well in 2 hours and so badly in four days.Are there Gold Gods and how do you get them to smile on you.
Cheers Dig

Gday Dig

Its got me stumped too, and its happened time and time again to me, I now prefer the hit and run method, and that is exactly why I set my landcruiser pc up as a camper van, so that I can move about more freely, as its only a matter of throwing the detector in, closing the door and I'm off.

I have always done better from randomly trolling about places rather than being too methodical, but I still have to make myself detect crappy looking ground even when my instincts tell me to move on.

I think that you have more of a chance of finding a patch this way than staying put, you cover new ground, and because its new you tend to be more interested in it, when you keep going over the same area it soon looses its lustre, especially when you dont find anything for awhile.

cheers

stayyerAU

I think it probably happens to most of us - I just put it down to a combination of pure luck and the law of averages. Last year I arrived in Laverton about mid afternoon and after setting up camp I figured I still had a good hour and a half of daylight left and keen to get into it, I shot out to Hawks Nest and after switching on and tuning in I wouldn't have gone more than 5 metres from the vehicle when 'bingo' - first signal, a nice 6 grammer. I worked the area all the following day and got nothing. It was just pure luck that I set off from the vehicle in the direction that I took.

I met another bloke out there who told me that he went back to his old campsite from 5 years previously and landed a 79 grammer within a couple of minutes right next to his old fireplace - he had camped there for 4 months back in 2003 and never once detected close to his camp. Pure luck? Sure was.

caveman

Gday

Just remembered someone showing me a nice quartz specie he picked up awhile back, cant remember where it was but anyway he was detecting about the place and wandered into someones old camp site, he walked over their old fire place that was still obvious and had a circle of quatrz stones around it, on waving the coil over it he got a signal and thinking it was rubbish he kicked the stones away, on waving the coil over again there was no signal so he started to test the stones, one lump giving a nice positive signal.

Still thinking that there must be something stuck to it he picked it up to find visible gold over the clean side of it, the other side was black and discoloured from the fire, someone missed out.

Another story was from a bloke I met near Cue he was telling me that while out prospecting back in the 80's he was sitting in the camp (dont know where it was) and enjoying the peace and quiet when a crow came along and was sitting in a tree nearby cawing and such, he said that after a short time the noise was giving him the shits so he jumped up and snatched up a lump of quartz to chuck at it, he was just about to sling it at the crow when it registered how heavy it was, on looking at it it had visible gold all through it, turned out to have quite a few oz in it, the doubtful expression on my face caused him to dissapear into the glove box of his car and return with an old docket from the Perth mint showing the quantity of gold he had been paid for,and I vaguely remember him getting about $1800 for it, by the reciept.

Dumb luck I guess

cheers

stayyerAU