About James Cross Jr.
This year I reached my 20 years of metal detecting and 15 years of gold panning benchmarks.
Well, there is a first for everything. I am going to share with you the story of how I found my first gold nugget with a metal detector. I was thirteen years old and spending a few weeks working with my father to put in an underwater pipeline to one of the lakefront cities along Lake Tahoe's shores. We were staying in Carson City, Nevada with a friend and I knew there would be some fun places to metal detect in the area. On our first day off, I convinced my father to take me to a location a few hours away that supposedly had gold nuggets. I was excited because the odds of finding a large gold nugget near where I grew up in Utah was not very good.
Seeing remnants of old mining equipment and mine shafts really got me excited and optimistic. We headed to a location away from any active claims and searched the fringe areas. In the process, we came across what appeared to be an old tailings pile that we decided to search. Using my first gold detector, a Scorpion Gold Stinger, I slowly combed over the pile hoping for a signal. Up until finding this pile, I had mostly found a lot of iron nails and other junk items. Anyways, at the top of the mound I got a strong signal and began to dig. About four inches down, I popped out a 1/3 ounce nugget. I was ecstatic and my dad was as well. After I had calmed down and secured the nugget, I continued to search the mound. I hadn't gone another foot and I had another signal. It turned out to be a 1/4 ounce nugget at about the same depth as the first one. We were thrilled.
Working our way to a nearby gully, we scanned the banks that were not covered with too much overburden and to our surprise pulled out a couple of small pickers. By this time, my father, who was merely watching me detect, since there was only one metal detector, decided it was time to cut in and do some detecting himself. He found a few more pickers before it was time to call it a day.
A few days later as we were wrapping up the project, we decided to try a little gold panning along a stretch of the Truckee river. One of us panned while the other used the metal detector. On the upstream side of a small bush we got a pretty good signal and recovered a small picker. Getting another signal in the same spot, we decided to pan it out. We were able to pull out 6 small pickers from this one hole. This gold was very unusual. It was water worn, but very porous and crystalline. You could actually crush the gold with your finger nail because it was so porous and then the crystalline wire gold structure was visible. We later saw larger specimens of this type of gold at one of the casinos.
From this time on I was hooked. I had caught the gold bug. Ever since then I have enjoyed prospecting as well as metal detecting, though I must admit, that the day I found my first gold remains at the top of my list of favorite prospecting memories.
Happy Hunting!
James Cross Jr.