The signal I was hearing was coming from a vertical bedrock crack on the bank of the creek. I removed my backpack, took out my crevicing tools and started to clean out the crack when I saw a glint of gold.

So let’s dive in and see what I can do to convince you that this is the year you should be out staking your own claims.

Your odds of going home with gold will be higher using the discrimination mode, even if you might have misread one of the targets you rejected.

We decided to check some spots that were pretty good to us on previous trips. The detector was deceptively simple with few buttons and auto-ground balance.