By David R. Toussaint
“Your metal detector doesn’t find the gold,” he told me. “You find the gold and then you put your metal detector over it.”
I met Don Gaines in late 1994, and he changed the way I think about gold hunting. Gaines, a retired Navy technical instructor, has found hundreds, maybe thousands, of gold nuggets by working the ore dumps from old gold mines with a metal detector.
“Huh?” I said. “Find the gold first, and then put your metal detector over it,” Don repeated patiently.
I wondered if this was just a variation of the old “gold-is-where-you-find-it” saying, or if it was really something new. As we talked, I began to see what he meant. To find gold, you have to know at least one of three things:
1) Where the gold is (if you know this, your success is guaranteed-duh!).
2) The rock formations associated with gold (a degree in geology helps).
3) Where gold has been found before (this only works sometimes).
Then a light bulb went on in my head. I already knew where the gold is and where it had been found before. I didn’t need a degree in geology to find it. Gaines had already found it in an ore dump near an old gold mine in southern Nevada. Why wander the desert hunting for placer deposits or pocket gold when I already knew where the gold was? This was no time to be timid!
“Do you think I can come out and hunt that ore dump with you some time?” I asked boldly. “Sure, it’s all right with me,” replied Gaines. “But you’ll have to get the permission of Harley, the mine owner. It’s his mine, on his private property. I’ve worked out a deal with him where he lets me keep half the gold that I find. Maybe you could work out the same kind of deal. Oh yeah, don’t forget to bring along a case of beer for Harley.”
Four months later, I sat in Gaines’ four-wheel drive, looking across a sage-brush canyon at the mouth and head-frame of an old mine. Right there, next to a gravel road, was a sign that read, “PRIVET PROPERTY, KEEP OUT.” I didn’t know if the incorrect spelling was intentional or not, but it sure was effective. I had to wonder what kind of dangerous red neck could have written it.
There was a case of beer in the trunk. Across the shallow canyon, I could see two large ore dumps on the side of the mostly-barren hillside, both showing flattened-out spots where Gaines had been working them. About 200 feet to the left of the ore dumps was a house partly concealed by trees.
“That’s Harley’s house,” Gaines said, pointing across the canyon. “His father built it when he came out here around 1910. Harley’s father was in Goldfield for the strike there. He made some money and came here. See that big head-frame farther east?” Gaines asked, pointing at a brown dot on the hill about a mile away. “Harley’s father knew there was gold here because of that gold mine.” Sweeping his arm across the horizon, Gaines continued, “He filed a mining claim on this section next to it and hired an outfit to sink a shaft. About 100 feet down, they hit the vein that connected to that other mine.”
So, Harley’s father had known where the gold was, I thought; and that’s where he went to go find it. Of course, 90 years ago he did not have a metal detector to prospect with. Because of that, he missed many of the smaller nuggets. Most of the large rocks from the vein were crushed and the low-grade material was cast off in the ore dump.
Harley knew we were coming; Gaines had already called him from his cellular phone. This was probably a good thing. Later on, I asked Harley if he shoots at trespassers.
“No, I don’t shoot at them,” he said without a smile. “I shoot them.” “Oh, you mean you hit what you aim at?” I asked with a laugh. “That’s right,” Harley replied with a wry look. I decided not to press the matter any further.
Harley told me he had grown up in Chicago, just a few blocks from the spot where the notorious gangster John Dillinger was slain by the FBI. I found myself liking these independent desert dwellers. Harley gave me the same deal he had given to Don: He would allow me keep half the gold that I found. He would also keep the case of beer.
The next day dawned clear and bright with only a little wind. We were out on the ore dump early with pick, shovel and our metal detectors. I was using a new Gold Bug-2. I was curious to see how well the Iron-discrimination circuitry worked, how the 71-kHz operating frequency behaved and if the faint-target audio-boost could find smaller, deeper gold nuggets .
To get started, Don showed me his method of working the ore dump. On a flat area about 20-feet wide near the base of the dump, he threw out shovelfuls of the pale-yellow dump material. The dirt and rock seemed to leap from his shovel and spread itself evenly out about two inches deep over the flat area. “He’s done this before”, I thought to myself.
Wasting no time, Don picked up his detector and checked the larger rocks for gold. One gave him a signal, and he set it aside with some other large rocks. These he would crush later. Then he started tossing the other large rocks from the flat area; but instead of using his hands, he used his feet! The rocks started leaping from his lightweight running shoes like bullfrogs from a lily pad. Any soccer player would have been impressed. In no time, he had the flat area cleared of large rocks, and he began swinging his detector rapidly over the spread out dirt material.
“That’s a pretty fast swing,” I commented. “I get a sharper signal when I swing it fast,” Don replied. “You know, there is no right way to use a metal detector. The only right way is the way that works for you.” He soon knelt down, held the detector-stem in his left hand, grabbed a hand pick from his belt with his right and dug a small hole. Carefully making a small pile with the excavated dirt, he swept his detector coil over it. Hearing no signal, he rechecked the hole, and then ran a large cow magnet through it. The magnet protruded from the butt-end of his pick. After a few checks of the growing pile of dirt, Don must have located the target, because he grabbed a handful of dirt from the pile. Still holding the detector by the stem with his left hand, he started pouring small handfuls of dirt on top of the search coil with his right hand, jiggling the coil slightly to make the target sound off. After a few handfuls of dirt had fallen off the search coil, he heard the target and poked around in the dirt on top of his search coil with his index finger.
As soon as Don had the target in his hand, his hand flew away from the coil and a small piece of something flew away toward a large pile of rusty tin cans and other junk beyond the ore dump. I figured it hadn’t been a gold nugget. “It was a piece of blasting cap,” Don said. “It’s made of brass and it sounds just like gold.” “Can I see the next piece of blasting cap you find?” I asked. “So I know what it looks like.” “Sure,” replied Don. “These tiny pieces of blasting cap are all over. When the old- timers dynamited the vein, the blasting caps disintegrated and the pieces went everywhere.”
A few minutes later, Don found another piece of blasting cap and showed it to me, taking a short time out from the steady, unhurried pace he had set on the dump. It looked like a small, twisted piece of copper that had turned dark green from age. It joined the other junk in the junk pile. A few more pieces of junk; a rusty nail, a piece of tin can and a tiny piece of rusty wire emerged from the ore material and were quickly discarded.
Don spread another pile of the ore-dump material out on the flat area and let me search this one with the Gold Bug-2. After checking the large rocks, I swung the detector a few times over the dirt. In no time, it went “WHAM!” I flipped on the iron discrimination and it still went “WHAM!”
“Hot dog,” I thought, “This sounds like gold.” I pinpointed the target, knelt and started pouring dirt on the head of my search coil. “WHAM!” went the detector again. Gingerly, I poked around on the top of the coil until I moved the target. Certain I had a gold nugget, I poked a tiny piece of twisted dark metal and heard another “WHAM” in my headphones. I had found my first piece of brass blasting cap, the first of many I was to find.
“I usually find about 20 pieces of junk for every nugget I find,” Don said consolingly.
I kept swinging the search coil and digging junk targets until Don stopped me. “Hurry up,” he said. “Dig only the targets that sound good to you. To find gold you have to move material.”
Once again, I covered the flat area with more material, checked the big rocks and began swinging the detector. I soon heard another “WHAM” in the headphones. The signal sounded good, “probably just another piece of blasting cap,” I thought. I hunted the target down and found a rock about the size of your thumb from the last joint on. It felt a little heavy. I brushed off some of the brown dirt and saw a dull, yellow color gleam through. I was stunned. I didn’t know what to think. I couldn’t believe that I had finally found a gold nugget. What’s more, this was a good-sized one! “Don, look at this,” I said, tossing him the nugget. Don looked at it, rubbed it, spit on it, rubbed it some more and declared it a good find. “There you go,” he exclaimed. “Your first gold nugget. Let’s get a picture with you holding it.”
The nugget weighed about 2 grams, and it contained beautiful white bull-quartz, a really nice specimen. Later, we soaked it in a solution of hydrofluoric acid overnight; and in the morning, the quartz/gold nugget gleamed like a beautiful woman’s smile. I decided to make a pendant out of it for my wife Julie.
Although the first one was the largest, it wasn’t the last gold nugget I was to find during my week-long stay in southern Nevada. Dividing my time between the ore dump and the casinos, I was able to take about 20 grams of gold from the dump, of which Harley generously kept a little less than half. My take wasn’t enough to make me rich, or even pay for the trip, but it was enough to make me happy. Before I left the old mine, I buried a 12-pack of beer on the dump where I knew Don would be searching for gold. Later, he told me he got a good laugh when he found it, but I think he got a bigger laugh out of teasing me. He told me he had found a large gold nugget just below the 12-pack after he dug it out. Don doesn’t usually kid around too much, but this time I think he was fooling, or at least I hope he was.
Back on the job, as I sit at my desk, I often think about Don working the ore dump in the vast open spaces of southern Nevada. He once told me the first step to becoming a successful gold hunter is to retire, and I can see he’s right. The second step, of course, is to look where the gold is.
I now have an open invitation to return to southern Nevada and work the ore dump just about any time I want. Chances are I’ll return there someday. I’ve learned my lesson: Why waste time searching the desert in places the gold might be when I already know where it is?
I must say, I quickly met head on with my first challenge. Half way through the training program, we were to have lessons in diving underwater in the river. After a short 15 minute deep water dredging lesson with mask, regulator, wet suit and 65 pounds of lead weights strapped around my waist, I bravely descended into the river following my leader into the 14-foot dredging hole. Within minutes, I knew I was out of my element. I couldn’t breathe as my face mask and regulator filled with water. Forgetting all my topside instruction, weights and all, I headed for the water’s surface, as I knew I was going to drown. Luckily, the training program included capable helpers who were right there to help me out. Nothing short of a fist fight would have gotten me back down into that hole! Thus ending my career as a deep water dredger. However, Dave did tell me I was very brave. That made me feel a little better.
A few days after my underwater experience, there was a rumor in camp that “Highbanker Bob” might have his successful sluicing & dredging equipment for sale. Thus began my friendship with Bob and my love affair with the Klamath River and surface sluicing.
Sometimes, I shovel dirt into the sluice box. But I usually prefer the dredging method, allowing more material to wash through the sluice box. This is where the water pump powers a small dredging unit that I use in shallow pools of water up on the stream bank. The material I dredge is directed through a hose into the sluice box.
With the sun quickly fading, I take a last look around, drinking in the beauty and serenity of the forest and the rushing river. Happily, we head for the raft, feeling good about our day’s accomplishment.
Four hours of 
During the first week, Henry learned how to really use his metal detector for 
The wildlife…the blue heron is working for his breakfast in the placid shallows as he is every morning. Some mornings, there is a black bear watching me from across the river, and he feels I don’t know he’s there, but I do, but don’t want to him know that I do (why disturb him?). The same silly mallard duck is foraging above the rapids (one day he’s going to begin his frenzied paddling toward the quiet water a tad too late!)…
That gleam of gold peeking from among black sands has never excited me. But rather than become a prospecting “widow,” I began to go along with my husband. After a thousand whys and how comes that I didn’t receive a satisfactory answer to, I found myself enrolled in a geology class at the local community college. Far from answering many of my questions, I discovered more and found that geology is not a staid and static science. In California and much of the West, it is a living discipline as the earth slips, slides, shifts and changes each day.
Simply being outdoors is reason enough for prospecting to be a family affair. In the springtime, the desert comes alive with wildflowers. Many people in the Los Angeles area make an annual pilgrimage to the deserts to view the riotous colors. But if you are a prospector, you are in the midst of the flowers. From a car, it is difficult to view the tiny, fragile flowers carpeting the desert floor or smell the scent of some of the perfumed varieties.
Wildflowers and cacti, rocks and precious stones, and history! Most of the productive areas today are the same as those mined by the old 49’ers. Research adds to the enjoyment of finding 
The memory is still very clear. When I was a kid about 9 years old, we played Cowboys and Indians in the ruins of bombed-out Hamburg in postwar Germany. We kids consumed the mandatory literature about Billy the Kid, the Lone Ranger, and the exploring of America’s Wild West. Sometimes we read with a flashlight under the bedspread, reading until deep into the night.
My first mining experience was a bad one. Everywhere I went along the rivers and creeks, I saw huge signs with KEEP OUT, ACTIVE MINING CLAIM. After two days of looking, I ended up along the old Steese Highway some 30 miles out of Fairbanks, working the tailings of one of the old bucket-line dredges they used in the past. The outside temperature was 75 degrees by the end of June; but when I put my hands into the water -brrr – I pulled them out and checked for frostbite. The water temperature was barely above the freezing point, and it took all the fun out of the gold mining.
When I went back to Germany (I had run out of cash), I decided to become a belt-maker. For the next five years, I worked in Spain on the lovely island of Ibiza, making and selling my designer-belts with great success. In 1987, I tired and retired. I had enough funds to be on the road again for the rest of my life and could do whatever I wanted.
Because of my busted eardrum, deep diving was out of the question. I could only 
That was nearly ten years ago, and today Dan and Verna consider themselves to be some of the luckiest people in the world. Lucky because they have each other, share a love for the beauty of the great outdoors. They also have the greatest job in the world… looking for and finding gold. “Now that’s not to say that we don’t get disgusted and even a little depressed now and then,” says Verna. “We’ve even considered making our living in some other way. In fact, one time we sold our trailer and even our dredge and bought a house. But the minute that sun started shining, we just couldn’t stand it. We sold the house and bought our 34-foot travel trailer and a new dredge and headed out for the gold and the river. When you come right down to it, there’s just something about professional mining and getting into the gold that makes all the hard work worth it.”
Verna is a firm believer in the equality of the sexes as far as gold mining is concerned. She gets a real big kick out of taking her turn at running the nozzle on their eight-inch Pro-Mack dredge. “You know, it’s amazing how many miners’ wives and girl friends I’ve turned on to the fun and adventure of actually getting under the water where the action is. At first, they often seem reserved or even a little taken aback, but boy do most of them have fun once they actually suit up and try it.”
