The 4 Unwritten Laws of Gold Prospecting in Western Australia

Your detector isn't the reason you're not finding gold. Four rules decide it before you ever switch the machine on — where you go, what you know, how you cover ground, and what you learn from every dig.

How to Read an Old Mine Shaft (and Find the Gold Everyone Walks Past)

Most detectorists crowd around the collar of an old shaft and miss the easiest gold on the site. Here's how to read the shaft, chase the strike, and work the downhill slope where gold has been shedding for thousands of years

Hidden in Plain Sight: 5 Overlooked Gold Zones in Historic Workings

Most beginners walk straight past high-yield targets because they focus on the obvious markers—the massive mullock heaps or the deep, yawning shafts. They operate under the mistaken assumption that if a site was worked a century ago, it must be "cleaned out." In reality, gold is often missed not because it isn't there, but because it is hidden in zones that were either ignored by old-timers due to the limitations of their era, or are bypassed by modern prospectors who lack a geological understanding of how gold moves

Why Finding a 50kg Gold Nugget Could Ruin Your Life

Every prospector has the daydream. So let me start by making it specific. At the time of writing, gold is sitting at around $5,000 AUD per troy ounce. A 50-kilogram nugget — one like the Welcome Stranger, the largest ever found — contains roughly 1,600 troy ounces of gold. Do the maths: you're looking at $8 million dollars sitting in a hole you just made with a hand pick.

The Ground Is Lying to You — And It's Costing You Gold

Here's the setup: nearly every gold nugget ever found in WA's goldfields came from a soft, pale, crumbly layer of clay sitting beneath the surface. Not from ironstone. Not from quartz reefs. From cream-coloured clay that most prospectors walk straight past on their way to something that looks more 'geological.'

What to Look for When You First Step Out of the Car at a New Gold Prospecting Location

Most prospectors start swinging before they've read the ground. Here's how to spend 10 minutes looking before you detect — and why it changes your results.