How Much Time Do You Spend At A Site

[RickUK]

For me i have 2 main types of detecting scenario's,if i am on say my own permissions i will keep plodding away with a detector in some cases my local ones they are still producing finds even after many years this could be due to me changing different coil and detector combinations,but while still produces finds i will still detect them,i start out with a small coil combination and then clear what i call the 1st layer and gradually increase coil size and start getting down to the real deep desirable stuff.But these sites are done methodically and slowly because i dont have a clock as such ticking away and i take my time.

The 2nd different approach is if i am on say someone else's permission,a club dig or even a rally,then i may only have one hit on that site of say 8-10 hours so then i use a medium size coil to try and cover the ground as quickly as possible within that days time frame,must admit its not my favourite scenario as i prefer to do the slow and methodically option.Of course this is only how i mainly detect here in the UK.

[Rattlehead]

35 minutes ago, stateguy said:

A single hunt. How much time do you devote checking a new spot. 
An old spot that hasn’t produced anything in a long time how much time 

My bad. I misunderstood the question. In that case, I usually spend at least a couple of hours at a new site even if it’s not producing. Just to make sure I’m not overlooking a property that has a few hot spots that are spread out. On older spots that dried up for the most part, sometimes I’ll still hunt all day just because it’s familiar and I’m too lazy to drive somewhere else.

[CPT_GhostLight]

Time hunting is only dictated by the weather and the site conditions. On some sites, if the weather is good and the hunting is good, I'll go all day until I or the sun run out of juice. If the weather is bad or the hunting is bad, I may cut it short, but typically I never hunt shorter than 4 hours and rarely more than 8 hours.

[Valens Legacy]

When I do get a chance to hunt I stay as long as I can if I am finding anything. It is only about a few hours long and then I have to get back home to get some more work done.

[stateguy]

Thanks everyone 

[deathray]

Sunup to sundown is the norm for me, if possible. But often times, during summer, 3-4 hours after work, till dark

[glacialgold]

13 hours ago, The_Stalker said:

With all the demands of life currently between children, elderly struggling parents and work, time detecting is hard to find.  When

Same boat on the kid front -- we have twin boys in elementary school and they have A LOT of activities. Factor in both adults having FT+ jobs, needing to keep the house in order, etc., and I find myself squeezing in 1 hour hunts once or twice a week, weather permitting. Later in spring and in early fall I'll cash in some PTO time and do some half-day hunts, but that's about all I can budget for.

[GB_Amateur]

I do research to find sites that have potential.  I also don't like to waste fuel by driving around from one place to another.  Both of these cause me to stay put, and the first brings me back.  A decent sized park or school that I feel has the goods (old coins) I'll go back repeatedly.  I try to figure out what areas are old&untouched vs. those that have been re-graded/repurposed with overburden.  But I don't always get thoat right.  In fact, just this past week I hit a spot I was pretty sure was reworked and found an oldie not all that deep.  100+ hours detecting a single site isn't uncommon for me.

There can be limits, though.  When I travel West I like to stop (after reasearch) at places along the way.  Since I have a time budget on how far I want to travel in a day (often set by hotel reservations) I usually only get to spend a couple hours at one of those.  I've also had permissions where I didn't think I should come back so had just one day to detect.

[phrunt]

I've been going to my local field for a couple of years now, it's not like it was at the start pulling masses of coins every day but it's still producing, and the great thing is I get to try new technology as it comes out and see if I find stuff I've missed and work out to myself why I missed it, if it was the detector on me becoming better on my detectors. 

It was found with the T2, then the Nox did some heavy lifting and got a bulk of the targets, the Vanquish come into the picture and did remarkably well considering the Nox had already done the business and then the CTX came along to my collection and proved to me it's deeper than the Nox, possibly due to the 17x13" coil but I think there is more to it than that, and now the Manticore is having a go, while the Manticore hasn't been able to shine yet over the CTX it has the disadvantage at the moment of only having a 11" coil and I've not made my way to the junky area near the clubhouse yet and when I do I expect the Manticore may shine, although I've already done the best of my ability in that area with the T2 and 5" coil, Gold Bug Pro with Nel Snake 6.5x3.5" coil and the Nox and 6" coil so I may have to wait for the Manticores smaller coil to see.

I may even take the XP Deus into the junky area seeing I have one now with all of its coils, the small HF coil may do OK, It's more of a dig it all detector though, I've found its target ID's pitiful so I may struggle, I've got a lot of learning to do with the Deus and I likely won't bother, I may just stick to using it for small nugget detecting then I don't need to care about its bad target ID performance, I've found it not even remotely a deep detector too, even with its bigger coils, but maybe thats my lack of ability using it.

It's been interesting to see the differences between detectors and their strong points in the area, even the trusty old Ace 300 has done well on some of the small deep silvers, some I know I missed with the Nox that the Ace got, the low frequency and the 13x12" Nel Tornado coil I guess or just chance no way to really know but I certainly was surprised by how well it's done.

For gold prospecting I tend to be a 9am to 5pm or 9am to dark depending on location, mainly due to the fact I have to drive an hour or two to get to prospecting areas which explains the 9am start, as I leave home at about 7ish, for coin hunting I tend to do the 9am until lunch time or whenever I know there will be no other people at the spots.  9am is usually a good start time as the kids are all at school and away from the park type areas.

I only beach detect on bad weather days or at night when it cools off, in summer we don't get dark until very late at night so I have many hours after dinner time I can detect with few people around as the air temp cools off.  Between lunch and dinner seems to be peak beach time for visitors, so that's the no go time for me.  I hate people around when I'm detecting.

[TJ Jeepguy]

I never really broke it down before, but I guess I spend a couple hours per acre on initial searches to get an idea of what’s there.  If I find anything of interest, I stay till my wife calls and says it’s time to go home.