The type of mine dump that is best for metal detecting are the ones that consist of mixed sizes of rock and are located near some sort of excavation, commonly a shaft or adit. Sometimes the piles located along a trench dug by the miners can be productive as well.

The lesson of keeping one’s eyes open to other possibilities is one of the great secrets of successful prospecting. Prospectors need to always be on the lookout for opportunities.

I probably swung over a few targets without noticing them. My first target came  about ten minutes later as I went over a part of the high bench in this wide section of the dry wash.

The old timers typically washed these areas down to bedrock, and some areas appear terraced. I would imagine this is because these hydraulic mines were generally where the miners found old Tertiary river channels on the sides of mountains that were gold-bearing.

Many suggestions had some pieces or parts that would work some of the time, but Dredger Dan’s suggestion was, in my humble opinion, the cleanest, cleverest, and most dependable.