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Question On Beach Hunting After Storm


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Hit a small local beach this morning around low tide. Had heavy thunder storms and decided to see what might have been deposited. Using an Equinox800. This side of the beach typically for the last year has been encumbered by seaweed. So not many bathers. But it being NE, I figured maybe something had been made detectable. All I found were a couple of rusted metal spots, which funny, did not sound like iron with no discrimination. In the pools, using Beach 2 had several targets that showed 12-11. but couldn't recover Also showed with handpointer. Weird day! For those that have had more experience beach hunting, I noticed that the beach a striations in the sand and a few pools of water which I attempted. Sand was some what firm, not black . I will try to attach a couple of photos to get your opinions I usually have been a ground type detectorist and started beach hunting last year. Not good yet at reading the beach

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Low spots can be great holding areas for heavy targets.  If the sand in or around them is soft, expect light targets (pulltabs).  I seem to do well just outside of a pool for some odd reason.  Going off of your pictures, I'd hit around the rocks as much as possible.  If they aren't sinking then jewelry & coins won't go far down either.

Good Luck!

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Thanks Sting Ray.  I am thinking that most of the items on this side of the beach would be debris from old vessels.  The beach use to be covered in thick sea weed and stinks.  So few bathers here.  On the other side of the jetty it’s more a sunning and bathing area. The opportunity was there after the storm.  I am curious what the striating in the sand tell me. Not sure if it was the rough surf, or wind?  But they are all running  the same like little dunes.

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10 hours ago, Propjob said:

The beach use to be covered in thick sea weed and stinks.  So few bathers here.

Today, but how confident are you that it's always been this unattractive?  East coast US?  You've got 300-400 years of potential loss-of-valuable metal.  I'm not a beach hunter but I've been amazed at the old items I've found in places I thought were only recently visited/occupied (and how wrong I was).

 

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Propjob

I hunt different beaches than yours but I'll give my take on the matter.  I did grow up in Northeast Florida and have hunted many Florida beaches but now I'm on the West Coast.

When hunting a beach you typically need more than a thunderstorm to change it.  You need more ENERGY to change a beach.  This energy is from tides and waves.  This is what will move your targets to a location where you can find them.  If you are hunting a beach with few waves and little current/tides then you need to go out to where the objects have been lost.  They will not come to you on the beach.  This is often times the way of a freshwater beach/swimming hole also.

As was noted, you have had hundreds of years for objects to be deposited.  This is a good thing if you are finding a place where no one has detected before.  I typically hunt on beaches with large parking lots that have had many years of losses but also get new losses each season.  When our storms come in with larger waves for days at a time the storms will pick up these targets and move them.  We spend our time looking for these pockets.

Your area looks to be both relic and beach detecting which means you could have some really nice finds but there may be fewer good targets.  Be patient and you'll find what the beach has to offer.

Do a little research about that beach and find out what people did in the past 100-200 years.  There may have been a gathering spot or old beach house that would have targets from house to beach.  Ask permission when possible and the locals may give you some clues and history.

There are many things to consider and these are just a few.  You may need to change your beach!

Good luck.

Mitchel

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Hi all,  Just got back to the forum  makes good sense.  I do have a book on the river basin  Many ships did come and go due to shipyards and brick yards.  Thanks for the info and very thought provoking. Your right Mitchel, different beaches here

 

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It's hard to tell what your beaches look like but on mine the key is sand movement as in is the sand being moved out or has it been moved in. The way to tell is to look at the water 30 yards out and determine it's color. If it's brown it's likely sand has been moved out. If it's nice and blue and clean/clear sand has been moved in or up onto the beach.

Most generally when sand has been moved in the low to high tide area is squishy/mushy and my feet sink in 3-4 inches which obviously means your targets are also an extra 6-8 inches deeper than they were on a prior tide cycle.

Beach hunting success comes down to being able to read your beach. I detect mine early in the morning but I like to go visit during the day to see where my local depositors are hanging out. On a good cut most of your folks will create a towel line at the top of the cut especially if they have kids so they can see them playing in the water. Your discreet sunbathers usually hang out towards the back of the beaches and they lose rings usually due to taking them off to put sunscreen on and forgetting they left them in a chair pocket or on their towel. Lastly do a survey of where the tides seem to hit so you can see where people play in waist deep water and what a 2.8 or a 3.4 high tide looks like at your beach. The last two rings I found for clients were both lost at the waist level on first high tide mark. I was able to locate them during the first low tide just in the wet sand. I have another one tomorrow morning where it was lost shin deep at 1st high tide(2.8 feet) and I'm hopefully going to be able to hunt the wet sand rather than the shore break which completely sucks. 

You probably knew all this but I thought I'd chime in.

Best

Skate

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Skate ,  awesome information and insight.  It does shed light on some of the questions.   New Hampshire  only has a few miles of beach where bathers are prevalent and they are well picked.   There are a little less known beaches that would tend to have bathers, relics and town laws.  The  state beaches are picked well but are replenished by visitors from surrounding states and tourists. southern Maine beaches are equally attractive.  The beach that I showed photos of , is as one writer said, worth checking the history. This is all good info ,not only for me but others on the forum.. Thanks

 

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Prop,

I would suspect that your beaches are going to be money beaches, specifically old money beaches. Also it's important to remember that sand moves not only daily but historically. What I mean by this is erosion from 100 years ago can and does look entirely different that what it does today. An example of this is happening right now in my county. I live across from a canyon that is basically sandstone and the city of Malibu(or LA County) is currently trucking that sand in to replenish the beaches down south of us in Malibu. The current erosion is happening so fast and at such a volume that they can't keep up. By altering the natural movement of sand they are obviously alternating the makeup of that particular location and just like my beaches are now different yours may have looked completely different during the roaring 20's. Cities/counties are notorious for jumping the gun on sand replenishment. About 20 years ago Ventura was in a panic over parts of certain areas losing sand and now there's parts where they're now having to remove sand because there's just too much and the movement was all natural.

I'm not sure what kind of scoop you have but I would make sure it has an angular shape rather than the wide mouth so you can get into the rock layer. There's nothing worse when you're hunting in a rocky stretch to push into the back of a wide mouth scoop and have your foot and ankle try and separate because your foot twists off the back. If this hasn't happened yet you'll know it when it does. John Volek makes a good one (xtremescoops.com) and I'd recommend the Surfmaster type.

I think your beach situation is going to net you some awesome finds and I would bet old money. I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

Skate

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