<p><strong>I had spent the last week in April getting all things ready for my annual trip in the Pilbara, specifically Nullagine.</strong> The trip North is usually a month or more depending on gold. I chose to leave a little earlier this year to give the GPX 5000 a good test on some familiar ground to me, where good gold had come before. Also the fact that my prospecting mate was busy in the East, and was not able to join me for a few weeks.</p> [split] <p>Upon reaching my first spot late afternoon, I set up camp and prepared for the next day. I set the detector up with my mono coil as I prefer to work mono coils. I find the GPX 5000 to be really good in ‘Fine Gold Timing’ but when areas become very mineralised a simple change to ‘ Enhance Timing’ really has the edge.</p> <p>I was picking up consistent gold in some of my old areas; pieces up to six grams. While detecting these areas I was thinking of any spots where in the past the ground was noisy and showed depth.</p> <p>I was happy with my first weeks results and remembered an area that I had been over previous years and managed to always get pieces with each new model of detector. The area has seen a lot of detection and had been pushed with machinery numerous times.</p> <p>This area had deep noisy ground and in the past I had unearthed pieces up to 15oz. It was a nice morning for detecting and I was at it early, taking my time to slow down and listen for any change. The area is small, so to grid and investigate any threshold change is essential. After an hour or so investigating a few possible targets that were quickly dismissed, I got a slight threshold change that made me stop and test from a number of directions. The faint but consistent response from all sides gave me the confidence to take a few inches off the top. The target response did not improve but it was still there to my ears and still in the same spot.</p> <p>I then, thinking it may be a ground noise, dug out about six to eight inches and widened the hole. At this point checking the signal, I became confident as the signal in the same spot became a definite solid signal. After numerous digs with the pick and checking the target it was apparent I needed the crowbar and shovel. An hour of toil saw the nugget out – 54oz in my hand.</p> <p>The GPX 5000 in ‘Fine Gold Timing’ had produced my largest nugget, in an area that new technology keeps producing, the hole depth was about two and a half feet. I was keen to tell my mate so I went back into town and phoned him – he was as excited as I was. I detected a few other areas and then had to head back to pick up my mate who had just flown in to spend the rest of the trip detecting with me. He really wanted to go and see where the 54oz piece came from so we headed back. </p> <p>When we set up camp, we sat back and chatted about the options on the GPX 5000. The discussion got around to ‘Enhance’ mode and how it handles very noisy ground. At that point we went back to the noisiest area on the pushed ground – dark red chocolate patch is the best way to describe it. I switched to ‘Enhance Timing’ with a few other adjustments, balanced the machine and slowly worked the defined area. Checking each variation in ground , a scratch, then move on. I then had a noise that needed investigation. I called my mate over and asked him to listen. He said “gotta check it - there is something there”. Out of curiosity I flicked back to ‘Normal’ and was not as confident a signal was there.</p> <p>We both dug, detected until it was clearly a target. We used a pin-pointer to locate the target as again the hole was over two and a half feet deep. To our amazement we uncovered a 60oz nugget , just solid – our excitement was unbelievable.</p> <p>The options on the GPX 5000 made this possible to pull these pieces off flogged ground.</p>

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