We all try to get together for this outing once a year although we missed last year for reasons unknown and had the early winter outing at Rich Hill in Yavapai County, AZ instead. When at GB we all get together in Section 20 on claims owned by Joe Bahde who is kind enough to let us use this very nice camp area on his claims. These claims are also used by the G.P.A.A. and are in their mining guide. We also were allowed to use John B's land in a different area of Gold Basin for our token hunt and other activities.

All are welcome to attend these outings and all is free except the steak dinner which we ask each eating to donate for their steak. We don't skimp either my friends with Mike K. (AZ4AU) picking out the steaks for us, fillets at that and an inch thick or better! Heck a slice of bacon wouldn't cover the sides and to top off the steak most everyone added a dish to the feed bag including two types of poppers, yum-yum!

This outing and several others are put together by myself and the great members of the Nugget Shooter Forum and although many are meeting for the first time we all seem like old friends. This outing was a first for a prize token hunt with tokens scattered over a huge part of JB's property on both sides of the road so many detectors could work without too much "cross talk" becoming an issue. This can be a real problem with PI units in the same area as VLFs making it impossible for some operators to hear a target. I think by using a rather large area we avoided most of that, at least I heard no complaints.

I was a bit worried at first that very few of the tokens would be found being scattered over such a wide area, but better than 60 were bagged over a day and a half with final drawing at 12:00 noon Sunday. The folks hunting were good with their machines and actually did quite well considering the way we scattered the tokens in bushes, washes, hill sides, and anywhere else they landed after a good toss. The hunt started at 10:00 AM on Saturday and lasted through Sunday giving everyone a chance to hone their skills and score a prize. The Saturday drawing was a blast with good prizes as well as the occasional "booby" prize (grin). There were some very nice prizes donated by forum members and some of the local dealers including Myself, Minelab, John B., Paleface, Blake, Corey, Herk, and a couple more whose names escape me...Sorry, but I met so many that I cant remember everyone so please forgive me if I have forgotten to add your name to any of this write up. Several folks went out on Sunday and scored more coins to win even more prizes and I don't think anyone left without getting a little something to take home with some fond memories of fun and friendship! I would try to list all that attended, but we didn't get a list of names other than those that signed in to the token hunt and I think from now on I will have a guest book for you all to sign in on! Heck that's the only way I'll ever be able to remember all the names, but I don't forget faces at least and next time I see some of you I will be struggling to remember your real and forum name, but after shaking hands a couple times it will sink in.

Saturday night's pot luck steak dinner was a huge success with Denny volunteering to cook the steaks, all 50 of them and to perfection I might add. Honestly I can't ever remember having a better dinner anywhere as the side dishes were out of this world also including a couple types of jalapeno poppers to take the chill out of the air. I think everyone was served a perfect steak and went away more than happy as well as full. These outings just amaze me because of the way we all get together and make everything work to almost perfection every time! Everyone does their share without being asked and my friends that is what makes these outings what they are and I thank you all for...well...just being you, members of the best forum on the world wide web! I mean where else can you bring together a group this size with many folks having never met and have such a good time?

The rest of the evenings were spent around the fire talking of finds and hunting techniques as well as showing off some finds. Free advise and detecting tips also flow freely around the campfire and there are plenty of top notch meteorite and gold nugget shooters to throw your questions at. One of our forum members Retta had the best gold tale to tell mainly because she brought the proof along to show us after enticing us with a tale of a multi pound gold nugget patch above and around a vein of gold still in place. Most of the loose stuff has been added to her collection now and she is excavating the vein with hammer and chisel

The best part about Retta's fantastic find is the simple fact that it makes the chance of finding such a deposit yourself REAL! There are still hundreds if not thousands of deposits like Retta located silently waiting for someone to swing a detector coil over them, perhaps you! She told quite a tale about finding her pocket and it sure is exciting to hear these things from the actual finder and to think she is still doing quite well.Just getting out there and hunting new areas and staying at it even when you are not finding gold knowing it is there just waiting is the key, it's not gonna come knocking on your door (grin) and once your into a good patch there is no other feeling quite like it to a prospector!

There were several nuggets found at this years outing also as well as some very nice meteorites. Blake nailed two very nice nuggets on Sunday and one is close to one quarter ounce. These are Blake's first nuggets with his detector and you couldn't have gotten the smile off his face with a jack hammer. I think Paleface got a pretty big meteorite and most of the other stuff I saw was small, but still the good stuff. I think the tally was about 9 nuggets and 7 meteorites for the outing.