New Zealand Gold Prospecting & Metal Detecting Forums Archive

GOOD

I'll be detecting for at least and hour every day.
If I'm unable to detect, I'll go out at night and do it anyway.
I plan to post a picture every day, if I don't find any thing, well I guess I might have to do an extra hunt QQ
I've spotted a few hungi spots, the local [ancient]maori would have a feed on their way back from the sea, before they climbed up to their Pa (visible from my location, and less than 5km away, I've got a stone adze head, unsure if it was found locally).


BAD

It is a poor area, best I'll probably find is a maori musket ball, perhaps an old musket, or silver coin.

Farm; not an organised one, lots of iron scrap from at about 100 years, and a few scrap dumps.
Mostly iron junk, lots of wire, and fence nails & fencing staples.

It's very muddy, rainy, stormy in this location. The last thing I want to do is slip over and smash my detector.
The kikuyu & blackberry [no berries :( ] are half a metre high, and cover much of the land, even flat areas.








UGLY

Electric fences cause nightmarish interference.
A radar ping that sounds very similar to a target signal, often followed by an echoey 'bloob' sound - hugely distracting. It necessitates 4 swings over a target, it cannot be tuned out the way much interference can. But I'm getting better at ignoring it.

Target located under cow pat.

I've chased false signals where the iron sands concentrate after rain on the farm tracks.
This might be a complete waste of my time, perhaps I might learn some extra detecting skills. I'll let you know at the end.



This is the grassy area between blackberry & kikuyu grass I came down.


Same position, shot of a grassy area where I can go.
The Blackberries have been there for a hundred years or so, but I'll begin to clear them, so there'll be more detecting area in the future.


Today:
Covered about a kilometre sqaure.
Best, a bit of alumium wire.
A bolt that fell off a tractor, probably.
I gave up when I found the large bit of wire, it's a pain to carry, I've got to figure out a way to carry wire easily.

See me tomorrow

Edited by user Thursday, 16 June 2016 12:10:32 PM(UTC)  | Reason: forgot to mention electric fences

Started out before sunrise this morning


Old cart road that circumvented a hill; white line, navy blue is current road.

Previously I detected the orange area where I thought the road went (quite difficult to work out area when you're on the field - especially when the map is at home!).
Where the road was cut down into the side of a hill, I only found a tin of old nails (red dot), did not dig up as the area is very boggy beginning of creek and disillusionment had set in hard.

Today I detected the light blue area.


I found several targets around a hangi pit, but perhaps it was only an old farmers fire & they wanted to keep the shellfish smell far from the house...?
Only found rusty iron scrap today, here is the highlight of my day:


(sorry about these joined pictures, thought they'd come out better; my phones been a bit hopeless at taking panoramic shots)

Love reading about hunts with background, rather than "went out, dug stuff, here it is".

I'd have a run over the big three people movers on that farm: Ridges, roads and rivers. Then any flat areas on low hills, or their sides, and then move out into the open paddock.

Streams may have had watering places for travellers horses.

Have a look at the paddock boundaries - back in the day a large paddock now could have been several smaller ones, and people would follow the fence/hedge to avoid walking through crops. Check Google earth, particularly older photos taken during dry summers, as these often show features otherwise not visible. You're looking for dark green or dry, parched linear features.

Work diagonals from corner to corner, as direct line between any gates (Gates often in corners rather than mid hedge as it gives better access to neighbouring paddocks)

Tin of nails is good. Don't disregard it. It could mean someone spent some time sitting there. Spiral search around it. Okay, it was a bunch of nails, but could easily have been something more interesting... or valuable.

Anytime you find something man-made away from an obvious reason. Switch off the detector, sit down and try and think why that item ended up there. Rest stop at the top of a steep climb, view, lunch stop, camp.

Keep the updates coming (and check out the top of that small hill in between the old track and the current road!)

My posts are this way because of the rest of you guys on the forums.
I plagiarise to improve my posts.



Thanks for these tips, infact this whole mission is due to motivation from you.
Yeah, ridge lines and valleys are one of my next targets, the valley; because they'd probably walk there for shelter (wind and rain here are dire). There is also a small lake, which dries up during very hot summers.
There is a creek that runs through most of the farm to a sea inlet - maori travelled this route for sure.


When I finish detecting the rest of that road, I'll be back to clean it up.
Part of doing this, is to simply tidy the farm up.


Hit the bush today for a change of scene - sick of paddocks.
Sadly more barbed wire and crap!
To keep my self motivated, I pretended it was 3 weeks walk in the South Island bush, so no way to procrastinate (no where to flee) and the ground was full of gold.

While back where I found a gold ring, I was having a rest reading the graffiti scratched into the park seat; "buds nearyby."
Later I saw black planter bags in the bush. Today I saw some more in a secluded corner - hmm, dope growers perhaps?

Edited by user Friday, 17 June 2016 7:45:43 PM(UTC)  | Reason: few additions

Great posts PD, cool pics, hope you discover something super cool.
HH Iggy

Day 1
Farm track: 2 fencing standards & iron crap. Where the rain washes the sandy soil it is rock hard, I had switch my spade out for a miners pick!
Day 2
small paddock, iron & a ring! Turns out to be the rim of an old wooden cart wheel, there is a photo of one that hasn't rotted out - there are more to be collected I'm told. Some low overhead power lines caused a corner of paddock to be undetectable.
Day 3
Another track, more iron.
Day 4
Paddock, more chain links and a coin? No, turned out to be a washer - Always poke the hole.
Day 5
Track around paddock, iron.
Day 6
Lake round 2, nothing, in the future I'll get right into the muddy centre.
Day 7
Old house site, barbed wire & nails, requires much more repeat digs.

Okay, I'm sick of the farm for now.

This week I'll try to detect the beach every day, 4 hours minimum, and since I'll be finding something for sure, I'll return to daily posts.
I have total uncontested reign of this area, it's all MINE.

I'll still do occaisional farm detecting, mostly I'll focus my efforts on travel routes & old house sites. Other farm locations will be reduced to 30min, as it takes 40min travel time across the farm on foot, and all I dig is iron scraps which is soul destroying.

And I'll get my camera ready for some videos, in a few days time I have a strange recovery technique to reveal...


Off to beach now, show you what was there later this evening.

Ask her if she knows of any family caches buried.

Made it to a new beach today.


Only a few sinkers and copper.


A & B 84g each.
C is a lead nail head
1. turned out to be a tiny 3g sinker.
2. was a Lee jean button (inset) - they must have really been going at it to rip that off.

Few tiny square pieces of Alumium - battery contacts?
Copper screw, some very light metals, battery components?

The egg & tiny sinkers are probably my favourite so far.
Maybe these locations have been detected out?
I did find a pre 90's pull tab, so who knows.
Spotted a few grass areas to try also. There is a nearby island, I'll venture up once I know the tides.