The first week of September was the best nugget hunting Jerry and I had all summer up in Rattlesnake Canyon. We've both had pretty good days here and there scattered throughout the summer, but for shear fun and lots of luck that first week of September was a bit out of the ordinary for us.

It began on September 1st, the Friday before Labor Day weekend. Jerry and I met up at our usual spot and proceeded to work Gold Ridge for a few hours. Not finding much of anything, we decided to cross the big wash and loop back to our vehicles. As we were crossing the ridge just before the wash where our cars were parked, Jerry said, "This is the ridge I was telling you about. I crossed it a few weeks back and saw all these dry wash piles and thought we should check it out one of these days." We decided to snoop around a bit and right away I picked up a tiny nugget and told Jerry that there was gold around and we should check it carefully. Jerry went on to his vehicle to eat his lunch and I stayed on the ridge and managed to find another nice size piece of gold before he returned. We spent a couple of hours there and I didn't find another nugget but Jerry managed to find several smallish pieces as well as a nice 55 grain piece down about five inches. As we were leaving for the day, we made plans to return on the following Tuesday, the day after Labor Day.

On Sunday Jerry e-mailed me to tell me that as he was loading up for Tuesday, he noticed that his Goldmaster 3 was missing. He remembered setting it against the rear of his Trooper when we were preparing to go home Friday and he figured that is fell onto the road as we were leaving. What a bummer! I really felt bad for him. The only thing we could do was hope against hope that no one had happened across it over the weekend. Because our nugget hunting is well off the beaten track, we hoped that there was a chance that no one had come across his detector over the long week-end. Not a very good chance but we could hope for the best.

On Tuesday morning we got up to Rattlesnake bright and early. Jerry beat me up there and he was waiting for me with a big smile of relief on his face. His GM3 was right where he had left it. A real piece of luck to start the day with and only the beginning of our luck that day.

We began the hunt on the ridge we had worked the previous Friday. Since we had discovered it on Sept. 1st, we decided to call it Sept. 1st diggings. After a couple of fruitless hours, I got bored and wandered over to the ridge across the wash to the South. I spent an hour there working the ridge and finding nothing of interest, wandered back to Sept. 1st diggings and worked a while there again. Still no luck, so I trudged down and across the wash to the North of Sept. 1st. and began to work my way up the ridge over there. Within a couple of minutes I got a hit and pulled up a nice 18 grain nugget. All right!! Now we're cooking! I started hunting around that area and managed to find four more nice pieces within about 20 minutes. About that time, Jerry was coming down from Sept. 1st and I called him over and showed him my finds. We both worked the whole area for a couple of hours but didn't find another nugget. I went down to where we were parked and drove my Trooper back to where we had been hunting and spent another hour or so there and managed to find one more smallish piece. All-in-all, a lucky day for both of us. Jerry did manage to find several small nugget up on Sept.1st diggings.

We returned to the same area on the following Friday, September 8th. I decided to try a larger coil on the SD2200 just in case there was a piece or two we might have missed down a little deeper. We walked up the ridge from where we were parked to get to the area we had worked on Tuesday. I picked up about a dozen bullets along the way. When I was just above where I had found the six nuggets on Tuesday, I got a hit under a bush and it sounded just like every bullet I had picked up. Since you dig all signals no matter what, I dug up the target and to my great surprise and pleasure, it was a lovely 88 grain nugget. Very nice! That was the largest piece that I had found all summer. I found one more tiny 3 1/2 grain piece a couple of feet away from the big one and that was it for the day for me. Jerry also found some nice smallish pieces that day back over on Sept. 1st diggings.

Talking about luck. Jerry and I spent several more days working that ridge for a hundred yards or more backwards and forwards and top to bottom and never found another nugget there. It was just shear dumb luck that I managed to walk straight to the one spot on that whole ridge that had a few nuggets lying around to be found. That's why I always tell everyone to walk and swing, walk and swing. You just never know where you're going to find that next piece but you'll never find it if you don't put your coil over it.

The weather is cooling off nicely here in the Southern California desert. A bit early it seems to me. Usually we can't begin working the desert areas until after Halloween. Really looking forward to it this year. We had some heavy rains over the Dale area and just maybe some gold has been moved or uncovered for us. I really enjoy camping out in the desert in the winter for a week or two at a time. It's very quiet and peaceful there. You don't see very many people at all. I've spent weeksThere when I never saw another soul. One of my fondest memories of the tranquility that the desert offers us is of one day I was squatting down to dig up a signal and I heard a strange whooshing sound. It was a beautiful sunny day, about 70 degrees, not a breath of wind blowing and so quiet you could hear a pin drop. I wondered what could possibly be making such a strange sound and looked all around to see if I could locate it's source. I looked left, right, backwards and frontward. Nothing. I finally thought to look up and there was a huge crow flying overhead. What I was hearing was the sound of the air under his wings as he flapped them up and down in a slow and rhythmic beat. Now that's quiet!!