I started the day off at Talbot going over an area I had done with the 5000 and Elite 14”mono. Only pellets so off to Amherst... I detected my way to where I got the last 2 nuggets 3 trips ago. There were a few signals on top of the soil which moved after I scraped the dirt away, then finally there was a more mellow signal obviously deeper down. I spent a little time trying to get the exact centre of the signal but the deeper I dug it appeared that the signal was being picked up by the back of the coil so I had to dig behind where I started. There were plenty of rocks in the hole and they were pretty compressed but just enough dirt between to get them apart without having to get the big pick. In the end it was only about 8” down and eventually out of the hole. The thing really blasted my ears but still took a little locating. Finally it was in my hand and oh boy how rusty it looked, this flat piece of metal. I gave it a good wash and it looked like gold now but I still wasn’t convinced. Another wash and it now looked like a really good nugget of about 13 or 14 grams. I’ve never found a nugget over 13 grams and this looked like it might go half an ounce if I was lucky. It gave me quite a surprise when I weighed it. 30.9 grams all up. It has some ironstone and a very small amount of quartz in it and after soaking in an acid bath for 2 days the final tally was 28.8 grams of beautiful shiny gold.
Damien – Victoria, Australia
