It was a beautiful day in Paradise, Alaska. Where the sun goes around you 24 hours a day. Mick and Cece Mann, the owners, have 4,000 acres of mining claims for prospectors to go up and have a wonderful time gold
hunting and fishing. On the second day of our two week trip, Mick was digging and stockpiling for the prospectors. Later we would check out his diggings for gold nuggets. My twin brother Gale and I asked Mick if we could go on top of the mountain by the waterfalls. Looking for gold nuggets with his Minelab
SD-2200D, my brother was going fast and furious and went clear beyond the waterfalls where the stream started. "Dale you are going too fast--you
better slow down--you need to concentrate," I told him. I went slow and took my time, checked every crevice and rock.
My brother came down and said it is time to get off the hill. I can't find anything and I have looked everywhere. He wanted me to follow him back down the hill but I had another reading with my Minelab Explorer XS. He helped me dig the reading. He wanted to know what I had found. "Put your hand out," I said as I dropped an 8 ounce nugget into his hand. "Oh my God, where did you get that?" he asked. "See, you should look a little closer, it was up by the waterfall." I checked all those areas, you have to dig. We dug up another target which ended up being a diver's lead weight belt.
"Show me where and how you found it!" my brother said. We walked up there and I showed him. I didn't get any readings. I saw all the over burn above me. I looked down and saw a bedrock and there was a
little cavity between two rocks. If there is a gold nugget anywhere it would be right here. I dug a foot didn't get any reading with my metal detector so I kept digging and was getting discouraged. I dug another foot and got a faint reading. I dug one more foot and lost the reading. I pulled my metal detector upwards and heard my reading again and dug another foot off to the side. I ran into another boulder and dug about 6 inches and there it was! It was lodged in a groove. I pulled out a gold nugget half as big as my hand from the groove and said, "Oh my God!" I held it up and thanked God.
We went back down the mountain to show everyone my nugget. Then we checked Mick's Diggings and pulled off some bedrock boulders from the top of the pile. Dale checked with his Goldbug II and got some tiny signals. I went over the top of the pile with my Minelab and also picked up some tiny signals. We found a gold nugget as small as a match head. My Minelab would only pick up gold. He would always have me check with my Minelab before he would dig for the gold nuggets.
In the next week we found 2 1/2 ounces of small gold.
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