How to start gold detecting
And be successful without depending on beginner’s luck!
By JL
We have all heard stories about newcomers finding ounce-plus nuggets their first time out with a detector; just like we have all heard of people who win tens of millions of dollars playing Powerball. Of course it happens; just don’t count on it. But if you follow the guidelines outlined in this article, I can guarantee you will find at least some small nuggets as a beginner while stopping short of guaranteeing you a Powerball jackpot.
But don’t do as Fred did. He borrowed an old detector and without seeking any advice, set off for the nearest well-known goldfield. When he got there all he saw was some old fenced-off mines and some new leases being bulldozed. Not knowing where to look or where he was permitted to detect, he scratched his head and set off for some uninhabited country nearby. He turned on his detector and its squeaking and berserk beeping tempted him to wrap it around a tree, but remembering it was borrowed, he restrained himself. Finally, he half sorted the machine out and found a large rusty bolt. That was all. He returned to town the next day utterly disheartened and ready to listen to anyone prepared to put an arm around his shoulder and tell him “all the gold is gone, mate.” If you follow some basic rules you will, I repeat, will, find gold, though I can’t promise riches.
Don’t listen to the cynics who will tell you it’s all gone. Just last year on Mother’s Day a father was simply walking with his daughter on the outskirts of Bendigo (without a detector) and his daughter pretty much kicked this 624-gram (20-ounce) nugget that was sitting on top of the ground.
Forget about buying a cheap secondhand, outdated unit. Detector technology has advanced dramatically in the last decade. It had to if it was going keep helping us find gold in previously detected ground. If you’re not sure you’ll enjoy detecting, hire a machine for a day or two, but remember that it takes time and perseverance to find gold. If you’re prepared to part with your hardearned and take the plunge, there are a few models that stand out from the also-rans. I’m yet to meet an experienced detector shop salesman who will lead you astray in this regard as they are always enthusiasts themselves.
However, if you’re talking to a bloke who only specialises in one brand, be prepared for a biased opinion. If you’re only chasing gold, buy a machine that is specifically made for finding the stuff. Some coin and relic machines are capable of finding nuggets, but finding small nuggets in highly mineralised ground is generally beyond their capabilities. Yet that is where most of your gold will come from. And you really want a machine with a fully automatic ground balancing ability. Does this mean that manually balanced machines shouldn’t be considered? Not necessarily.
There are relatively cheap machines that are excellent gold finders but if you buy one be prepared to patiently develop the difficult art of consistent ground balancing. It is a skill which continually improves but is never perfected, while an automatic machine balances perfectly and consistently. By the way, gold detecting machines generally have excellent depth on coins and the like but are limited in their ability to cancel out rubbish metal when it is thick on the ground.
WHERE TO GO
Don’t waste valuable holiday time by trusting to luck. Do a little research. You need to locate the nearest field which has been producing gold nuggets at shallow depth (up to about 30cm deep). If you have time, join a detecting safari with a professional guide. It’s a great way to learn the ropes quickly and you stand a chance of recouping the cost of the safari on your first outing. If you can’t join a safari:
1. Go to a prospecting shop and ask for maps and any other material relating to suitable goldfields that are easily accessible. Pump the proprietor for all the information you can, especially if he or she sold you the detector.
2. Sometimes tourist information centres located near goldfields have excellent local goldfield maps.
3. Contact the nearest state mines office and ask them to send you as much goldfields information as they have. Mines Department websites are reasonably comprehensive but they never put all the information they have on the site. If you don’t know if land is under lease contact local miners or farmers. If it is under lease, some leaseholders will give you permission to detect and even suggest where to look. Laws vary with each state but Crown Land is an open door with no hassles.
4. Find the phone number or email address of your nearest detector club. They are sure to advise you where to go but you will probably have to come along to their next meeting if you want all the information.
5. Ask Dr Google to help you with your research.
To start with, detect areas of ground that previous detector operators have found nuggets on. Don’t worry – they will have missed some of the smaller or deeper nuggets. It is far easier to find a little gold in a pre-worked area by careful scanning, than it is to fluke it in an untried area. Your new hi-tech machine will beep on tiny nuggets that older machines weren’t capable of finding. Remember, generally there are a dozen match-head sized pieces for every one pea-sized nugget, and a dozen peasized nuggets for every coin-sized nugget. You can find an occasional nugget in the mullock heaps of old diggings but you will find more on undug ground. Search within one metre to 300 metres of these workings if the ground is still hard or rocky. This unworked ground may have been too poor for the old timers to work but may prove productive for you and your detector.
Don’t detect in ground that isn’t hard, as gold would have sunk down to bedrock ages ago. If you can find ground where the bedrock (or clay, slate) is less than 30cm down, all the better. Any nuggets will be resting on it within reach of your search coil’s ability. After you have gained experienced on different goldfields, you will become familiar with the types of ground that might hold gold. This knowledge will later enable you to do some more ambitious prospecting on the fringes of goldfields, or even beyond. Professional prospectors often use bulldozers to enable them to detect deeper layers of ground and many detector operators avoid these worked areas like the plague.
That’s fine because you’ll be able to find the gold they turned their noses up at. Usually there are some small bits of gold that have been left behind. So, if you were to start your search in a bulldozed area, you would be an intelligent beginner. If you don’t know an experienced person, join a detector club to begin with. Personally I prefer to detect with just one or two mates but clubs are often the best way of gaining experience and you’ll learn quickly by tagging along. And, like I said, if you can spare the time sign up for a detecting safari. The professional guides usually are more knowledgeable than club operators and will take you into top areas.
HOW TO USE YOUR DETECTOR
When you find a promising area (gradings, old diggings, shallow ground) do not detect just any haphazard course. Choose a small patch, say 15 metres by 15 metres and cover every square centimetre of it. Do this by keeping the search coil within one centimetre of the ground and sweeping it slowly – sweep the coil no more than about half a metre from side to side keeping it as level as possible and move forward, about 5cm, with each sweep. About one third of a coil’s length is more sensitive than the rest of it. If you find nothing, keep trying other patches of ground until you find a nugget, then be extra careful as there are usually more to be found. Ignore most wide, gradual changes in sound as they are usually due to ground mineralisation. But dig up any short or sharp signals, no matter how faint. Most of the targets will be small hot rocks or scrap metal but some will be gold. If you have a manual ground balance machine, you might have to rebalance every 15cm to every six metres, depending on ground conditions.
If you find a bit of gold and the ground has leaves, sticks or rocks covering it, get your garden rake out and rake the ground smooth. If there are small nuggets about you will greatly improve your chances by doing this, as your detector will penetrate deeper into the ground. If the signal is faint, first scrape a little soil from the indicated spot to one side. If the signal moves then sprinkle the soil from the heap onto the search coil. It will beep when the metal object touches it. Then simply blow the earth off the coil and the little yellow object will be left behind. Bury a match-head sized piece of lead at 1cm and a pea-sized piece at 4cm. Pass your coil over them and get used to the faint sound they will produce. Practice in your backyard or the beach where the ground has little mineralisation, before you attempt the difficult goldfield ground.
If and when things get back to some semblance of normality around Australia’s coastline, surf carnivals like this will re-emerge and with them the legend of the lost $2 coins will continue
The $2 coin (include the $1 as well) is specifically designed for metal detectors. They are heavy and flat, producing an excellent signal. They even look like gold. With their smooth, slippery finish they were undeniably designed to fall straight out of the pocket of any reclining figure. In short, their whole purpose in life was to be given out as change, lost, recovered, and spent as quickly as possible, thus allowing the cycle to repeat itself again and again. I approached this new windfall scientifically, and to ensure a measure of success, I took to following the activities of the local surf club with great interest. While surf clubs mainly exist only in the more populated areas, they are all grouped into branches and districts. Throughout the summer they are continually involved in various competitions within these branches and districts. General carnivals, Rubber Ducky rescue boat races, and most importantly, Little Nipper competitions. Practically every Sunday one of these types of events is happening at a beach near you.
The point to remember is that these competitions bring spectators. Spectators bring money. Spectators also attract myriad opportunists; raffle salesmen, ice cream vendors, drink and pie purveyors, and many other such reasons for opening a purse or a wallet. Because the miserable copper coin no longer exists, the currency mainly involves 50-cent, $1 and $2 coins. While I am not a student of gravitation, I do recognise that a $2 coin will fall into the sand faster, deeper, and with less chance of recovery than any other coin currently minted. Multiply your own previous bad experiences in this regard by the hundreds nay thousands that attend these surf carnivals, and you will begin to understand how much loot is possibly now laying, unseen, beneath your feet just waiting for you to wave your magic wand around. Perhaps, even now, there may be some detector purists still thinking, “But who wants to only concentrate on coins with no historical or collection value?” My answer is, while they are still legal tender, “me”. Non-historical, noncollectable, totally uninteresting coins that have no greater value than to spend them. I love them! I know that in every beachside town and caravan park lurks many a detector operator who has placed his machine on ‘hold’ (another word for ‘disinterested’) and hopefully this article will jog your motivation bones back into action. However, before you rush madly down to the beach, let me offer a few words of advice to make your search a lot easier:
1. Check with your local surf club for the dates and location of the various competitions.
2. Having ascertained the date and venue, visit the carnival while it is in progress. In this way you can note the areas where the most spectators are congregated. Also watch for the food outlet sites. These are the prime areas to hit later.
3. Don’t wait for later. Be there ready to operate as soon as the crowd starts to thin out. Tomorrow will be ten detector operators too late.
4. When detecting, use headphones if possible. With recently dropped coins your signal will be loud and clear, but the headphones will cut down on surf noise and they certainly discourage inquisitive little kids and talkative old ladies. If pushed for a definite answer, tell them you have only found two 5-cent coins and a million bits of foil. This will discourage them from competing with you next week.
5. Most important, make, buy, acquire, or steal a sand scoop. In today’s society, to plunge an unprotected hand into the sand while groping for the source of a signal courts unimaginable danger from used syringes, broken beer bottles, sharp plastic containers and even the odd large rusty nail left over from the burnt out barbecue or beach angler’s late night fire.
6. Always remember to take the rubbish you find with you. If it’s not worth keeping, it’s certainly not worth digging up again next week. Carry a dilly bag for this garbage and put it in the bin on your way off the beach. Remember with pride, that if you found nothing of value, at least you left the beach in better condition than you found it.
NOTE: The $2 coin was introduced in 1988 and replaced the $2 note. In its first year, 161 million were minted, followed by an average of 22 million coins per year up to and including 2008. From 2008 up to 2017, an average of 27 million $2 coins were minted every year. Interestingly, the $1 and $2 and coins are only legal tender up to the sum of not exceeding 10 times the face value of the coin concerned.