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Any Tips On Beach Hunting?


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There are quite a few hardcore beach hunters here. I'm not looking for Equinox settings,  I'll probably use one of the beach modes on my 600. Most likely I will use Beach 2 because of the 50 tones, as I'm used to 50 tones hunting in Farm 2. Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

I have a few places I'll be hunting on Tybee island east of Savannah GA, maybe the local Sheriff's office can give me others. 😀

What I am looking for is approach, what part of the beach or tide gives the most bang for the hour. I use maps and stuff to find farmhouses, but a beach is a beach. There are a few forts there but I'm sure they are off limits.

Any advice would be appreciated! I have a nice beach/river scoop rig, even a floating sifter for deeper water. I can't hunt the river here until I get a permit for anything beyond low tide, I've been saving that for when the farmers have planted.

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Not a very experienced beach guy, relics are my thing, but I have picked up a thing or two...

First of all, don't use beach 2 unless you have to in order to keep the the machine stable due to salt and/or black sand in the water or saturated sand because beach 2 has a lower transmit power.  You may also want to use tracking GB too due to shifting salinity levels in the surf.  Use beach 1 if you can in wet sand.  If you are working dry sand, use any mode that will run stable because it will be deeper than the beach modes in general.  If you are focused on gold jewelry on dry sand use Park 2 or Field 2 for small targets and gold, which can ring up just about anywhere from 0 to 20+, but will mainly cluster around 7 to 15.  Bottlecaps will give a spurious high tone in 50 tones but will be jumpy and will typically iron grunt if you wiggle off the edge.  A small coin spill, though, can mimic a bottlecap with several unstable numbers, but the individual targets will reveal themselves with wiggle coil action or pinpoint mode.  Juice bottle freshness caps ring up a solid 7 and sound like a ring with a nuanced slightly hollower sound, so have fun with those...lol

Most bling is lost in the water when rings slip off suddenly cold fingers or jewelry gets torn off by wave action.  You can choose to either hunt in the active surf past the break or after the break (exhausting with the wave action and hydrodynamic coil drag, look out for holes and tether all your gear to you) or follow the tide out to sea (in other words start your session an hour or two before morning or evening low tide and move out with the tide line).  Look for erosion cuts and low spots in the wet sand.  Gold and heavier coins sink to the hard pan/shell gravel layer, so the less loose sand, the better.  Zig zag and look for target patterns.. If you start hitting a line or cluster of deep quarters (or actual rings) you know you are in the right spot, grid or spiral out from that clstur spot or follow the line until it peter's out and double back.  If you are banging on deep nickels, you know your machine is tuned to hit deep gold too.  Use pinpoint target footprint tracing to rule out shallow, large junk targets such as beer cans or aluminum tent stakes that can ring high.

On dry sand, work the "towel line", pedestrian access area (where people drop stuff jostling with their belongings or footwear or beach concession areas for more recent drops, especially clad, that tend to get vacuumed up quicker by the local regular detectorists.

Different experience from your paradise relic farm fields, but just as fun, though I prefer a rare button to a modern gold ring, but that's just me. :smile:

Most of all, have fun, relax, and enjoy your trip.  See you when you get back!

HTH

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Chase,

  You pretty much said everything I would say! Not bad for an occasional beach hunter!!👌 Thanks for saving my thumb energy!👍

   F350,

       All I will add to what Chase said is, as long as you define where it's legal to hunt, you should be in good shape! Here, we are mostly restricted to between the dune line/high tide line, and the low tide line! 

   Beware of hazardous sealife in the water, if you are able to hunt there! Water hunting is very time intensive, so if you are limited, stay dry, or very shallow! That will let you cover the most area!

Good hunting!!👍👍

   

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7 minutes ago, Chase Goldman said:

 

Not a very experienced beach guy, relics are my thing, but I have picked up a thing or two...

Most bling is lost in the water when rings slip off suddenly cold fingers or jewelry gets torn off by wave action.  You can choose to either hunt in the active surf past the break or after the break (exhausting with the wave action and hydrodynamic coil drag, look out for holes and tether all your gear to you) or follow the tide out to sea (in other words start your session an hour or two before morning or evening low tide and move out with the tide line).  Look for erosion cuts and low spots in the wet sand.  Gold and heavier coins sink to the hard pan/shell gravel layer, so the less loose sand, the better.  Zig zag and look for target patterns.. If you start hitting a line or cluster of deep quarters (or actual rings) you know you are in the right spot, grid or spiral out from that clstur spot or follow the line until it peter's out and double back.  If you are banging on deep nickels, you know your machine is tuned to hit deep gold too.  Use pinpoint target footprint tracing to rule out shallow, large junk targets such as beer cans or aluminum tent stakes that can ring high.

On dry sand, work the "towel line", pedestrian access area (where people drop stuff jostling with their belongings or footwear or beach concession areas for more recent drops, especially clad, that tend to get vacuumed up quicker by the local regular detectorists.

HTH

Thanks Chase. Great stuff!

I set up this query because I noticed a few people have been looking for advice in random posts. Couldn't find another where someone asked specifically, so if I could get some of the heavy hitters involved it would be beneficial to inexperienced "detector users" 😀 like me. Going to the shore a lot this year, and will be river hunting when I get back.

@KellycoDetectors has a great article on their site, hope they don't mind me linking to it here:

https://www.kellycodetectors.com/pages/metal-detecting-on-the-beach/

Your tip on nickels is just the 'gold' I'm looking for, and I hope it spurs others to chime in. 🙂

My limitation for beach detecting will be time. I can only spend early morning hours due to family activity unless I can herd all the cats to the beach! Planning on bringing a backup detector and gear (Ace400) if anyone else in the family is interested.

It's easy enough to get the feel for digging from videos, but not the approach and tweaks that might ensure better hunting.

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1 minute ago, Joe D. said:

Chase,

  You pretty much said everything I would say! Not bad for a occasional beach hunter!! Thanks for saving my thumb energy!

   F350,

       All I will add to what Chase said is, as long as you define where it's legal to hunt, you should be in good shape! Here, we are mostly restricted to between the dune line/high tide line, and the low tide line! 

   Beware of hazardous sealife in the water, if you are able to hunt there! 

Good hunting!!👍👍

   

Thanks Joe! Again spot on.

First thing I'm going to do is visit the island Sheriff's department. They are close by, and I've found in the past that they are very nice people. They may even know of a few places I haven't considered! I imagine it would be a good idea to get the ground rules from the enforcers. If I can even get "near" one of the forts... 🤔

I am an avid beach fisherman so I know what to watch for but you bring up a very good point. I got some water shoes. 😀 I've seen some pretty nasty jellyfish, anemones, small sharks and rays in my time, even water snakes. Something spiked my foot once in OBX that caused a nasty infection.

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Good article on Kellyco. They do mention hunting shady areas. Haven't seen those on my beaches and only shady areas we got here I won't detect because I could get robbed or shot!

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42 minutes ago, kac said:

Good article on Kellyco. They do mention hunting shady areas. Haven't seen those on my beaches and only shady areas we got here I won't detect because I could get robbed or shot!

Let's say "Reciprocity" is a good thing. 😉 Georgia is a great state to visit. I'd be more worried in places I used to live than I do now. I only go to shores from VA south.

Sorry you have to deal with that. 😵

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I live on the outskirts of the city, not really that bad. They have done a lot of cleanup around here. Still some iffy spots but those don't have any grassy areas to dig anyways. Few years back I wanted to detect an area that was an old RR station that was since torn down only to find a homeless camp in the area. Had to be on guard.

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24 minutes ago, kac said:

I live on the outskirts of the city, not really that bad. They have done a lot of cleanup around here. Still some iffy spots but those don't have any grassy areas to dig anyways. Few years back I wanted to detect an area that was an old RR station that was since torn down only to find a homeless camp in the area. Had to be on guard.

I lived in the Northeast (New England) most of my life, in cities and suburbs. No stranger to the danger! 😀 Guess it's worse now 🤔 I went rural in the 90s, never regretted it or looked back. I'm still in a rural area, the only thing I have to watch out for here is wildlife and loose dogs. Most of the dogs are friendly. Our county laws are specific, your life is the most important. It's a great place to live so far.

My takeaway from New England was 'eyes in the back of my head'. 😀 I do miss Brimfield Flea market tho.

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   That's when it's especially nice to have a few detecting buddy's to hunt those old but questionable areas with! 

   Unfortunately for now, my dependable buddy is Mr. Colt, or his friends Smith & Wesson! 

   I've seen the Brimfield Flea Market on tv; looks amazing!! My wife and I love to hunt around those types of markets! But our closest one is in Mt. Dora once a year, as I recall! North of Orlando!👍👍

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