Ten Month Layoff - Do I Remember How To Do This?

[GaryC/Oregon Coast]

Had a two story garage/shop/storage loft build overtake my life these last ten months, leaving not much free time to metal detect or fish in my newly adopted state of Oregon.  Well that has been happily concluded with satisfactory results.  The Eugene club (55 miles from me) got an invite to hunt a County Park not usually open for detectorists under the conditions they provide proof of all the trash they collect at the end of the hunt.  Well that could be arranged very easily and the club got all it's members to show up last Sunday to this park and we had at it.  I have to say I haven't touched my 800 for quite awhile now and was really concerned I was not going to know how to operate it again.  I basically just wanted to get back into digging all signals and re-train myself again on the positive signals.  I always liked hunting in all metal with the X-Terra and sorting out all the signals, so that is what I did this trip.  This particular park is not that trashy and has pretty mild soil anyway.  I have the 15" coil and started with that one for the first two hours.  Most coins were no deeper than 3" and very easy to pinpoint with that big coil.  I was only using a handheld digger while most others were using long handled spades.  I can see using long handled spades for deeper coins, especially if using the 15" coil because pinpointing would be getting a bit harder then.  By lunch time I changed to the stock 11" coil and did much better hitting the two rings my first two targets.  Don't ask me the numbers because I was hunting in all metal and I don't really look at the numbers anymore.  Since we were also looking for trash I was pretty much digging all targets good numbers or not.  By days end, maybe five hours the club had a nice haul of pop tops, cans, slaw, nails, general trash to make the County happy and secure another invite back at another time.  A good days work and a needed re-training day for me.  At the end of the day I felt I hadn't forgot that much, like I had thought.  Muscle memory is a wonderful thing.

I ended up with 36 coins, a mood ring, a possible silver ring (not marked), a flying brain pin back, a button, a set of house keys, and a gold colored (CORO) 1960's costume jewelry necklace which gave me a heart attack when I saw the brief glint of GOLD.    GaryC/OregonCoast

[fredmason]

Nice haul!
what did they want the trash for?

fred

[GaryC/Oregon Coast]

I think they just want to see that we did promise to clean out the trash.  It was only sent to them in a picture, not physically!  I don't believe many people believe how much garbage is below the surface of those freshly cut park lawns.  As detectorist we seem to be the only group of people who are obligated to prove our right to use the parks for our hobby.  At least that is what I have come up against when talking to some park personnel.  I should have posted that picture we sent the Eugene parks department  (big error on my part, as I don't have that photo).  It was probably in excess of ten pounds of stuff.  GaryC/Oregon Coast

[fredmason]

Yes, Gary

people can litter the parks, kids can dig holes, the squirrels and gophers can dig all they want...but, no one with a metal detector should ever be left alone... 

fred

[Joe D.]

In Saint Lucie County on the Treasure Coast,  your allowed to detect in the parks! You just can't dig anything up!

  I was told this by the Parks Department  Supervisor several years ago! First i asked if he was kidding! NO!  I then asked the same thing about kids, pets, etc... he would not relent!🤣🤣😥