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Knowing When To Move On


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Being as I was once a professional pirate . I likes me treasarrrrrrrrrr !

Whatever form it takes .  Old pennies or gold or even just the view , Tis still treasarrrrrrr .

I try to hunt in places I also like to be.

So , I'll always want to go back. 

Now , if research leads me some place else,,

I might find a new place I like to be. !

Lots of good responses so farrrrrrrr , Outta likes so like like like like like ...especially any post mentioning hunting virgins.🤔😍

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I have a dozen or so patches that have played out, but its played out with my ML 4500 with various size coils I hit them with dozens of times. Do I feel like they are played out? HECK NO !! I am sure that with new tech..like a 2300 sdc or zed for that matter with the newer 6000 I would squeeze out a few more. I m fortunate to live in the middle of Gold country here in the Sierra foothills, Iam fortunate to  have access to large acreage ranches and live  minutes of these diggins. Do I go back and hunt these patches still, YES...at times I find another piece here and there. Would I go to these spots if I lived hoours away, probably not unless I had the new machines to detect these patches. No patch is hunted out...they are just more deeper and out of reach with the machine I have at the moment. Most of the comments above mine are true and new patches are hard to find but they are there if you take the time to find them. The gold is NOT played out, I would encourage newbies to keep on hunting. In fact a new large nugget find up in Norhern Cali recently, a solid 15.25  ouncer!!! Keep swinging and diggin...the next target could very well be a nice nugget. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Meant to reply much sooner than this but I found myself caught up with work and sick kiddos. But I wanted to say there has been some great points made. I would have to agree that a patch will most likely never actually run out of gold. Just keep digging deeper! lol   

Steve makes a good point that if you are still finding garbage, then there's a good chance there is still a piece or three left. 

Gerry, I guess I will have to buy the new GPZ from you when it comes out and go back to the old patches. 😁  The idea of frost pushing nuggets up is interesting. In the same way it can heave post or foundations. 

 

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The detector definitely matters as in "new" technology. Mother Nature is also a huge factor. I have detected patches where I think I have dug every target and come back to it a year later and targets have been replenished.... Normal erosion, sudden fast water flow in a normally dry wash, wind and humans/animals walking around and digging holes can definitely rejuvenate a patch. 

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We leave patches like a teenager running away from home..with abundance of confidence. Soon you come crawling back to the comforts of home. Doesn't take long after striking out searching for new ground. It takes so long to find these spots ..and once you know the ground has produced it's very tempting to return with new perspective. It's a balance for us that allows re energizing for both the prospects of new ground and the inspection of already inspected/detected ground. Kinda like drywashing for some gold after multiple strike outs on the detectors. There's a balance that keeps you energized.

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43 minutes ago, Ryan said:

We leave patches like a teenager running away from home..with abundance of confidence. Soon you come crawling back to the comforts of home. Doesn't take long after striking out searching for new ground. It takes so long to find these spots ..and once you know the ground has produced it's very tempting to return with new perspective. It's a balance for us that allows re energizing for both the prospects of new ground and the inspection of already inspected/detected ground. Kinda like drywashing for some gold after multiple strike outs on the detectors. There's a balance that keeps you energized.

How true.

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I think I`ve posted this before but tis time again for this thread the Irish have a saying "never leave a shaft til you`ve dug another foot", for us "never leave a patch til you`ve dug another nugget".....  yeah yeah I know I`ve got Irish in the blood.

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Lots of good ideas and this is one of those questions that has no 'best' answer.  It depends a lot upon the person.  Are you happy finding a few dinks each time or would you rather go for the gusto, realizing you'll strike out most of your times out in the field when searching for new ground?

There are so many parallels between the different forms (specifically target goals) of metal detecting.  Due to where I live I mostly detect parks and schools for old coins.  I realize those are easier to find that patches that yield.  Finding old coin sites that no one else has searched, or at least the skilled detectorists haven't searched much is a different matter.

I know I've left good targets behind because I've proved it on multiple occasions.  Just this year I decided to go back to a school I've detected a lot and went over a spot I could have sworn I'd been over at least twice, with both the Fisher F75 and ML Equinox.  I found a silver dime (Merc) less than 3" deep.  It was pretty much there in the open, not close to any trash -- loud and clear giving a high tone as it should.  Obviously I hadn't swung a coil over it in the past, regardless of what my memory told me.

I have a feeling most people think they cover ground better than they actually do.  I try to think "mow the lawn" but besides seeing your own footprints it's usually hard to know exactly where your coil has been.  On more than one occasion when I had a line-of-sight goal in the distance I was walking towards, when I looked back at my tracks it look like the classic drunkard's walk.  There are better ways to monitor path but you still have to get the coil over it all, and the deeper the target the more overlap is necessary since less then the full coil is sensitive as depth increases.  (All of this is well known, but that doesn't mean it's well applied....)

Do what makes you feel best and don't burn any bridges that lead back to those familiar patches.

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I have a feeling most people think they cover ground better than they actually do.  I try to think "mow the lawn" but besides seeing your own footprints it's usually hard to know exactly where your coil has been.  On more than one occasion when I had a line-of-sight goal in the distance I was walking towards, when I looked back at my tracks it look like the classic drunkard's walk.  There are better ways to monitor path but you still have to get the coil over it all, and the deeper the target the more overlap is necessary since less then the full coil is sensitive as depth increases.  (All of this is well known, but that doesn't mean it's well applied....)

Thats funny. I think the same thing about mowing the lawn when im detecting. 😆 I used to mow the parks and cemetery at my home town working for the city when I was in high school and by mid summer when the grass stops growing you had to kinda keep a mental map in your head of where you mowed. (I definitely missed areas still) This is one reason why its always good to go over the area different directions too 

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