New Zealand Gold Prospecting & Metal Detecting Forums Archive

If you are detecting the river a good place to start detecting is where the river changers course or fans out and heaves the overburden up onto the bank or bedrock during a flood.

When the river is in flood there is a huge amount of force that up turns some of the river contents and deposits them on the exposed bedrock with some of the heavy metal being forced into the cracks and crevices ect.

While detecting these areas you may find a lot a metal rubbish ect but that may be a very good sign that you are on the right track especially if you are finding lead shot and projectiles as the heavy metals tend to some degree flock together.

If you persist in these flood deposit areas chancers are that sooner or latter the goods will turn up.

A really good time to check out the river is when it is in full flood, if you are obserant you might be able to see a few spots that are a little calm compared to the rest of the river, another place to check out as gold is very lazy and runs for cover when it can.

Making an effort to get away from the easy access spots will also increase your hit rate.

If you are new to gold detecting in he river make sure your machine is able to detect SMALL metal targets.

Your detector should be able to detect at worst a match head size piece,if it cant to odds of you having a smile on your face at the end of the day will be slim.

Happy detecting

Steve

Another good idea in rivers and streams is to detect along the edge of tailings and gravel banks that the river has been cutting into, especially after floods and where the bedrock is shallow. As gold is heavy, the river effectively concentrates the gold in these types of spots for you. Let the river do the work!!
Cheers
GT

Hi GT, I was wondering if there is some sort of order you follow on a gold finding expedition. For exmple, would you use a detector until you found a small piece of gold.... and then set up a sluicing operation? [Would others pan until they found a little yellow before setting up a sluice box?] Or would you just stick to either detecting or sluicng? I'm wondering if a variety fossicking modes might be the way to go.... yet I guess that would multiply the amount of equipment you need to carry.

Cheers,
Roman.

G'day Roman Holiday,
If you pick up a nugget with the detector in the river, there's bound to be some more smaller stuff close by, so either get a mask and snorkel, or a "nugget viewfinder" (such as what JW sells) and go over the area carefully. Using a crevice scraper, viewfinder and detector you can get some nice gold doing this sort of thing. The trick is putting in the time with your detector to find the right spot
Cheers :)
GT

Hi Guys.

My 10 cents worth too!

One of the first things you should learn when getting into metal detecting , is to lose your natural desire to stay near the water. You “don’t” need water to find gold with a metal Detector ! By working away from the water can actually increase your odds of making good finds that have been overlooked by others. So, in river valleys don’t let the water distract you. Any exposed bedrock or material has potential.

For me, I always found that the best target areas for my metal detector operations of the past, was not over the old piles of tailings, but over the large areas of Bedrock exposed by these operations.
Nuggets, (Hopefully) and smaller gold, lodged in the cracks and crevices of this bedrock as the hillsides were washed away, (even the Dredges left some bedrock exposed in parts) and these original concentrations of gold were often missed as the Old miners needed to be able to tear up all this bedrock to process it, which was not comparable to what they could get just carrying on with their large scale sluicing operations. A lot of this gold is left to this day, Just waiting for someone to find some of it. (why not you? )
Metal detectors are the “Perfect” way to locate any of these deposits of gold that were left in these old workings.

Cheers---Colin.

Hi Auldrider,
Good to see another x-terra out there doing it.It took me a long time to detect me first piece of gold, a bit of an apprentice is a fair way to look at it.
Once I got the monkey off my back there was no stopping!!.Keep the faith in your detector and I am sure that you will be rewarded.
If you want a bit of extra change hit the local parks,easy digging under the swings ect in the bark,$2 and $1 id will display 30, me best is $30 in half an hour.
happy detecting Steve