Tips on Using a Fisher F75 to find Gold?

[Krystyn]

Hey all,

So I am finally picking up a Fisher F75 this Wednesday and will start gold (and meteorite) prospecting on BLM land here in Arizona.

I have watched a bunch of videos and read a series of articles but I am wondering if anyone has experience with what they found was the best setting of finding Gold with the F75.

I am mostly curious about the Jewelry setting. I have a (very) small amount of flour gold that I can test with and will let you know any thing I find out as well.

Also, any tips for desert hunting?

Thanks!

 

[Foragist]

Well, the flour gold probably won't help for testing. A small lead splitshot sinker or buckshot will give a good signal to practice with.
You want to be able to detect small metal objects-like nuggets-amongst the mineralized soil and hot rocks you will find out there. This means you probably can't run it "wide open" at full sensitivity/gain/power. You should be able to move your coil around (low and slow) without a lot of ground noise, but still able to hit that buckshot 3-4 inches deep.
I don't think you really want to discriminate or notch out anything. Set it to detect all metal; even iron. If you can hear it tell you the difference between iron and non-ferrous metals, that's great, but if you have the machine discriminate out the iron, some gold can go unheard too. So run quietly over the ground, and let your ears tell you which signals to dig.
Most nuggets out there will be small picker sizes, and give fairly low numbered signals, but sound good...very much like small lead pieces. So dig all the bullets and other junk, and hit the nuggets when you can!
I really wish I could be there doing that, but Wisconsin is a lot of gas money away.

 

[Krystyn]

Foragist, Thanks for all those tips.

I will be interested to see if the detector reacts to my .5 grams of flour gold.

 

[Foragist]

Foragist, Thanks for all those tips.

I will be interested to see if the detector reacts to my .5 grams of flour gold.

I would think it would if the gold is all bunched in one corner of a vial, but you can't expect it to give a good, consistent enough signal for nugget practice. A solid piece of lead would be better. Multiple sizes and shapes would be better yet. Multiple sizes and shapes of actual gold nuggets would be best, of course, but lead is much easier to come by, and gives a fairly similar signal.
I don't know the F75, so(after my first post) I did a Google search for Fisher F75 gold nuggets, and found some helpful discussions online. You should look into that as well. That machine will work!