Detecting in the desert

The Desert is so huge. Yesterday I got out of my truck after reaching my destination and thought " oh crap, where do I start"
I sure could use some advise. Where am I wasting my time? I have read that the washes have gold but are too deep to detect. the  hill sides seemed to be picked clean. However I found an 18 lbs. stone of solid iron about 12" down behind a big boulder. I could almost lift it with my super magnet. I guess I could find a 20 lbs. nugget if it was deep in a wash. What is a smart way to detect in the desert when a working slob like me has limited time to waste?

 WTG Tales  Good post 

Get books by Jim Straight or Larry Sallee and they will answer all your questions. The books are inexpensive and full of info. One place I know to get them is, Chris Gohlsons Arizona Outback web site.


                                  Good Luck!!!


                                    Cooter

I agree with the previous tips, and I'll add a few more learned from that oldest institution of learning: The School of Hard Knocks.

I'll save you some time on your desert amblings--if you want to know where to go, get some books and maps of the areas that were drywashed extensively, dredge the Internet for like information as well.

Why? Nuggets got trapped on the classifying screens and went into the waste piles. I've seen absolutely beautiful gold come from those old drywash piles--one nice nugget flaunted in my face because I was too stupid to listen to the advice to carefully detect ALL the drywash piles in that area!

Take a pick and a rake of some kind--detect the surface, rake it down several inches and detect it again. You'll have to go through a bunch of old piles, but you've got a greater mathematical chance of finding a nugget, and a nice nugget to boot.

I was too stupid to listen to this advice when I was in Arizona detecting, and as a result, it cost me some breath-taking specimen gold and nuggets.

Don't be stupid like me. If someone offers to take you to a patch, and then if they tell you where to concentrate your detecting, hammer that ground to death in the time you have. Don't go wandering off in search of a new mothelode--find the gold in the motherlode they've put you on to.

There are books, videos, and articles on how to recognize very old tailings piles. As well, look for trumpet plants (look them up on the Internet so you'll know what they look like before you go)--they like the rich iron that is often associated with drywasher deposits--I didn't believe that either, and that cost me a very fat and sassy nugget!

Furthermore, don't ignore modern drywash piles--I've seen nice nuggets that came from them after the drywashers moved on. Remember: screens keep the larger rocks out of the drywasher, but they let the nuggets ride off with the waste!! Use this knowledge to your advantage.

I hope this eliminates some of your overwhelmed sense of the vastness of the desert. I absolutely know what you're talking about, but I also now know what not to do when I go to the desert, and I now know exactly what I'll do when I go back next time. Only this time, I'll have a far better chance of finding a nugget: I'm dumb, but I'm not so dumb that I can't learn.

All the best as you focus your efforts on a much smaller search area,

Lanny

Consider joining a group like the Antelople Valley Treasurer Hunters Assn.  They have a website.  Another group is the Westcoasters in Riverside.  By joining a group like this you get a lot of experience and help from others that have already been in the situation you are now.  They also have a lot of good claims also.  Jerry

   I do better in areas were there is broken white quartz rock around also up toward the shoulders of the washes. Look around for what I'd call seams, places that have a distinct change of soil condition like red or black layered against blond. or rock upheavals were two types of rock separate in a seam. I'm not saying right in the seam necessarily but in the debris Fields near them. Of course exposed bedrock especially fractured areas.
   It may sound goofy but the ground under your coil is the best place to focus your attention. I'm the kind that second guesses my choices and let my mind drift to this place or that, but when doing that I'm not hunting the spot right under/ around my coil. Bird in the hand worth two in the bush kind of thing.Once you pick a spot hunt IT, don't ignore that inner voice with second guessing.

There is a lot of good information within this thread... The Antelope Valley prospectors have several claims around Randsburg. They are reasonable to join and their newsletter editor, Rick Wyatt, is a very good nugget hunter and knows the ropes. He has been detecting and finding nuggets for about 20 years. ....

Cooter's advise is very good. Larry Sallee's booklet, "Zip Zip" is still in print. Another
book  "Those Elusive Nuggets" by the late Willie Merrill and several of Jim Straight's
booklets such as "Advanced Prospecting and Detecting for Hardeock Gold" has also
up-to-date- information on nugget hunting for eluvial gold in the desert. 

The ICMJ magazine has good information regarding many facets of mining, milling, and prospecting... Also the late Popular Mining magazine.

Two prolific writers have been Larry Sallee and Jim Straight. Both have written
articles for Western and Eastern Treasures Magazine on desert-type prospecting.
Both have an established track record of being out doing it.... Again Mr. Straight
was a pathfinder in using a VLF to detect for gold lost by dry washing. He wrote
an article about this which was used in the 1982 Silver and Gold Annual and he is
still writing articles about nugget hunting in the deserts; the latest is in the 2008 Silver and Gold Annual and it is about a special eluvial placer, known as an eolian
placer which seems to be associated within the high-wind desert areas, especially
the pediments...  Mr. Sallee has also appreared in seveal videos sponsered by White's; they are well worth getting a copy of them..

I hope this helps you get up to speed... with gas/diesel now expensive, spending
a few bucks to buy the above mentioned booklets and magazine articles is now
a better way to go than just heading out into the desert without a plan...