While recently out detecting for gold on a very warm day in Northern California, I was in an area that had given up several nuggets in the last few years with my GPX-4000 and even more withe my GPZ 7000. I felt pretty confident there were none left, as there were several other 5000s and 7000s behind me after I told others of my patch. The patch was in and adjacent to a heavily timbered area that had several inches of organic material above the soil. There are a lot of volcanic hot rocks there and usually have to run the 7000 in difficult. That particular day, I made other adjustments to my preferred settings and was able to stay in normal. The ground was uneven and hard to get a decent swing, but did manage to get a repeatable signal. After a couple of boot scrapes and a pick scrape, I had a very good signal. I had a friend close by; who is a very competent detectorist.
He also was using a GPZ 7000. I put my detector down and had him come listen to my signal. My machine was too close and causing interference, rather than shutting mine off, I moved it out of range for him. He was using external speakers and I could hear what he could. As I returned to my scrape, I could see him swinging, but there was no signal. I was sure I had a good target. He asked about my settings and he changed to mine, and the signal was there. He helped me dig and recover the nugget. It turns out to be one of the prettiest and most unique nuggets I have ever seen. 4.66 dwt. or 7.23 grams.
Norm – CA, USA.
