Knowing how to get the greatest depth performance out of your detector can be a handy thing, but it’s not an easy, simple matter.

The small-scale miner has reasonable opportunity to exploit some of these small, rich placer gold deposits. 

I decided to dig near it to see if there were any more and immediately uncovered others. In total I found a pocket with over 100 crystals in it. I was hooked.

There are many smaller old hard rock mines out there—more than you might think. There are some small hard rock properties that are even open to be claimed if one does the right amount of research to find them.

My hunch was that the gold is coming down the apron, falling off to both sides and into both gulches. I say that because the gold we found previously has the same characteristics and color across the entire area.