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I'm pretty much a blind squirrel when it comes to the beach hunting thing. This trip totaled about 6 hours over the course of 3 days. Thanks to all you beach members, I've managed to pick up on a few things. I was in the dig it all mode, being not that confident in my sand skills. Did I mention that I hate bottle caps? They sound even better in the sand!!! I was mostly hunting the wet/dry edge and was just enjoying the early morning sunrise. This day I was on a tear of sinkers and caps. Still having fun being away from work though. At 9:00 am my wife came down and joined me for a before breakfast walk. She asked if I found anything good and answered with the usual, Nope just crap. We walked another 20 feet and I got a really nice strong soft tone. Thinking sinker, I started to dig with my homemade plastic scoop. Let me just say DO NOT have your wife with you when you find something really good, It never works out in your favor. In my scoop was a wonderful diamond ring (wasn't to sure at the time) After I rinsed it off a little and felt the weight I knew I had something good. Oh yes she promptly removed it from my death grip!!! After getting home from our trip I took it to a jeweler friend, who offered me $5500 for the diamonds, said I could keep the platinum. Turns out it was a vvs1 1.2 carrat main stone and 8 very nice 2mm stones. Lucky for me my wife said she would keep it (god help me) I haven't seen it since.

Sorry for the delay in putting my experiences on paper, I received my AQ 8-7-20. I have lived in Oregon now for the last three years. Coming from California I was use to un-ending tourists, vacationers, locals streaming to the beaches all year long. Here in Oregon I now have to live with the fact that many of my close, local beaches are just not popular with "In the water" type of beach goers. These beaches do not have the throngs of people lying a towel out and sunning themselves all day long. Most are lucky to get a few hours of towel sitting and then start looking for a wind break to hide behind. That being said, if I drive 50 to 250 miles north the populace does have access to a few more popular sunning beaches. My first outing was right down to my local beach, three miles away. Just wanted to see how the AQ acted on my black sand beach and to my water. I'll have to say it took me awhile to get it calmed down in and near water, even on wet sand. Ended up with the Frequency at 10.5, ATS at 9, Sensitivity at 6. This allowed me to run it with some faultsing during my swings. I just have to slow down my swings and it was more quiet. Second outing was to an inland fresh water reservoir (120 mile round trip) where they have been draining it for only four days. This is a huge reservoir and takes over a month to drain it down before storms hit. The beach areas had only about ten yards exposed to the mud bottom and no where near to the end of where people jump off the end of the dock. The mud was un-digable with a scoop. Like working in modeling clay. I'll have to wait until it gets a little more dried out and use a shovel. Will try and hit it next month. Anyway the AQ worked very well in freshwater at the presets. Third outing was to a beach south of me (80 mile round trip). Actually hit two beaches here same settings were needed to keep the AQ stable while swinging. These beaches were very clean of trash so I got a good three hours in with the AQ. I had the exact same experiences other owners reported with hair pins, bottle caps, wire bits, etc. Like every new owner, especially me, I dug all signals using the All Metal and Tone settings, switching back and forth before digging. Learning this machine will take me awhile but I like the sound of it. It reminds me of using my old Mine Lab 4000 gold machine. Similar in sound and especially reactions to hot rocks. Fourth outing was yesterday, a beach north of me (400 mile round trip). Actually I hit three beaches but stayed at the first one for a long time. Nice clean beach. I usually take my Nox 800 out on it first to test for trash and if it looks good go and get the Impulse. I got a lot of practice in yesterday. Digging almost everything and comparing sounds and switching between All Metal and Tone. I did not take any pictures of my trash or coins or toys found. Every body has enough pictures of the bad stuff. I will be staying with my settings for a while as they seem to be good for my beaches. I waited a long time to get this machine and I am not sorry I have it. You have to realize, and it's been written before. The AQ will not be for every beach hunter. It has to be used in conjunction with other machines. It's not a coin machine and will drive you crazy if you are wanting it for coins. My trips did not score any jewelry or gold. Not that I wasn't trying but because (I believe) my beaches are not in use as So. Cal. beaches are throughout the year. Lower numbers of people on the beach at shorter summer type weather will just not have the abundance of what I was used to finding in California. You will see a report when I do score gold!! Bottom line, I hope the AQ (re-worked model) is a monetary success for Fisher. I do see however people buying this machine and being very un-happy with it in the short term. Many new detectorists or seasoned ones either don't have the time to put in on the learning curve or just get frustrated with the limits this water machine has. Limits being it's not a coin machine (many detectorists will not remember this when purchasing the AQ). So I predict you will see lots of them for re-sale, maybe six months after the final version has been released. GaryC/Oregon Coast

This past weekend I participated in my first outing with the Southwestern Prospectors & Miners Association (SPMA) club. We met at a gas station off I-8 and headed to one of their large claims in the Cargo Muchacho Mountains west of Yuma on the California side of the Colorado River. It took just under an hour on desert dirt roads to get there but the drive was not bad. There were six other guys and we all bonded well. After discussing the area we split up with half trying their hand at dry washing and the other half metal detecting. I suited up with my GPZ and tool belt and headed out. The rugged terrain with 104 degree temperatures was challenging but felt great. I have not been able to get out much this year. I got lucky. On a moderate slope about four inches down in a crevice of schist I found a 2.1 gram nugget. Yahoo! My best and one of my few nuggets for the year. The history of the area is interesting (from westernmininghistory.com): “Mining was first done in this region by Spaniards as early as 1780-81, when placers in Jackson Gulch and oxidized ores in Madre Valley were worked. This is believed to have been the first gold mined in California. Later, mining was resumed under Mexican rule. The district received its name of Cargo Muchacho, or Loaded Boy, when two young Mexican boys came into camp one evening with their shirts loaded with gold. American miners became interested in this district soon after the end of the Mexican War in 1848. Mining became firmly established in 1877 with the completion of the Southern Pacific Railroad to Yuma. Large-scale mining continued from around 1890 until 1916 and again from 1932 until 1941, with intermittent activity since World War II.” Happy Hunting!

I add that if you set the impulse most sensitive = all metals maximum sensitivity Minimum ATS the slightest impact or scraping with the sand will make some noise! to fetch the whispers / in perfect silence you have to be closest to the sand = without touching it == therefore no wear ..... + of course, it's different in the water

Thanks for your frank and thoughtful report. A nice blend of expectations vs. experience. Actually getting this kind of data was the assignment Fisher gave me - a sort of “Public Beta” - with the difference that you have to buy your “ticket”. I’m pretty sure that on this forum anyway, the fact that this thing was designed narrowly to find gold jewelry at the beach was clearly explained. If your beaches hold no gold, then a VLF IB machine is the tool you need for coin recovery and whatever else you might come across. For example. my own air tests showed better depth on a man’s gold wedding band than a silver dollar. Hopefully you will find a use for it that fits your circumstances or “jobs to be done” - If not, I expect that there are lots of folks who would be happy to purchase it for what you paid (or if they are in a hurry) a bit more.

Sorry I did not speak up earlier. I made a verbal agreement not to speak of the 8 inch coil with anyone except one person at Fisher Labs. The 8 inch coil does not float...Stays on the bottom perfectly without effort if your cuffed to the shaft. Letting go of the detector, not cuffed in, it has a slight, very slow lift. In my words it is "Perfect". No effort is needed to keep it on the bottom while hunting. Moves thru the water like any other small 8 inch coil, very smooth....

This machine grows on you. I guess people's expectations are that you are going to find gold right away. It doesn't work that way. You still have to think where would it be most effective? Those that stick with the machine will find a place and time to use it. This would be a killer dive unit if they made it into one. Short shaft and waterproof to at least 30 ft and I bet you would see some great videos (or maybe people would just keep their mouth shut) 😄

To all members I wish to thank all of you at this site Detector prospector.com and also some of my old friends at The old Compass Forum, sven7, Joe D, And Paul (CA) plus all of the new friends I’ve met on this forum are some of the greatest guys I’ve met in along time. In 2014 I started this road of doctors and hospital stays. I always thought when I retired I would enjoy my life and take trips and detect some and spend time with my wife. But it’s not in the Lords will for me to have that, I can except his way and I trust him with my life. But I’m on this soap box to tell you believe in the kindness of man and lady’s that there is still people who care for you and want to help when you don’t know what to do or where to go and some friends new and old pick you up and brush you off and point in the right direction and say it’s fine we get it done. I have to tell you Joe D talked to Paul (ca) now he’s putting one together and shipping it to me. I told my wife when I’ve pasted ship it back to him. I will leave a note in it before I past to let him know I will meet him in paradise. I will me a lot of my friends that’s left one was on national news today his name was Sargent Jumper he worked for the Greenville South Carolina Sheriff office you may have seen it on the news. I work with him for 20 years. He was kill by out of state drug runners, I told him to get out or that department many times. Now my friend has gone leaving a wife and one teenage girl never to come home. I think about these things and I know we will have a joyous day with no tears. My bone cancer will not be healed with chemo. It just keeps me ahead of it and then I must decide to try to live or let my time come. Jesus Christ will come and let me how we will go. My wife wants me to fight but with all my other problems I don’t know if it will God help me do the right thing. Thanks Friends I’m very tired so good night and thanks for all your kind words and actions HH Jimmy Huff

The GPX used for most of the hunt today on a beach where the coins are deep. All these coins seem to be dropped from the same time frame. The 2 Buffalo nickels and the Standing Liberty Quarter all have no dates. The rest of the coins are from the 40's to the early 50's. It's safe to assume the dateless coins were dropped in that time frame too. Why do I care? Because these coins were from 15" to 20" deep. I can barely get some of that layer. There is plenty of sand below them. That is where the earlier coins rest. Beaches are not empty, we just skim the surface of them. I'm too tired from digging to post all the junk and the more modern coins found. I'm just glad that I could get that many good hits, with all the beach people that were there getting in my way I want the temps to drop so they will stay home and keep warm!!!!!

I'm using A Detech 12.5 DD coil. Our beaches may be different from your beaches. This beach is not directly exposed, so it doesn't take direct hits. Long Island provides some indirect protection. So most of the beach remains intact unless a huge storm pulls some sand down. These coins have been there from the time they were lost, and have seen little water over the years. That is why the silver comes out bright, not black, the Buffalo nickles are dark and not corroded. Even the wheat pennies look good, but suffered the worst of it with cement like, green corrosion forming on some of them. If they were coins that were pulled out to sea and redeposited, over and over again, they would look very different. Not all beaches here produce silver coins, but 2 in particular have been very good to me.

Yes, Joe has the only one “in the wild”. It may or may not be identical to the production version, but I suspect it’s buoyancy will be the same. P.S. Thanks for the well wishes. It was a minor but uncomfortable procedure and as of today - I am pretty much back to normal.

⁉️ Which one is better? Has anyone done a comparison test between the two coils for a jewelry hunt in the water? (freshwater or land) Both are able to use the same frequency. 28 kHz is very good for detecting gold. When I hunt in the water it is a very useful feature of target ID normalization. On the of LF coil, this was a big advantage. I set the gold range, so I only dug out the signals that belong to it. The HF 9" coil is great, but when I increase the frequency the VDI changes, getting higher and higher. The upper range will become narrower. This makes it difficult to decide whether to dig or not. Let's look at an example. A 1.5 g 14K wedding ring is the test object. HF 9 "coil at 14 kHz = ID 50, 28 kHz = ID 65, 56 kHz = ID 79. X35 11 "coil 11.3 kHz = ID 54, 16.4 kHz = ID 54, 25.4 kHz = ID 54! If I use frequency offset these numbers will change a bit. The general opinion of many people is that the HF coil is the best. I'm not so sure about that. I looked at this idea in terms of the gold jewelry hunt.

I modded the "Sand Scorcher" this afternoon i can carry all kinds of gamatte and spade its light foldable and fun and i can carry LeJAg when he ll be too tired to dig shrapnells on our beaches😀😀😀😀

I think that luck is always a factor but I also love the saying, "the more I hunt, the luckier I get" so take some credit on putting yourself in a position to succeed!

Joe, buddy, you are just to darn famous...... expect more NDAs. Sooooo are you allowed to spill the beans on what that additional 15% power consumption gets us?

Amen to that! Nice report and some very true words..Thanks for sharing...

The latest..... Man Damages Yellowstone Cemetery Hunting for Forrest Fenn Treasure “A Utah man accused of digging in Yellowstone National Park while looking for the Forrest Fenn treasure faces two federal charges, prosecutors said. The treasure, a chest containing jewelry and gems, was hidden by an art collector a decade ago, with seekers trying to decipher clues left in a book he wrote before it was found in June.”

Clive..... as a full time water hunter....we know you need a good machine that first can tell you theres a deep target down there other machines miss.... or that you just didnt realize it was a target. Then all i need to know is ........ is it iron. I do NOT dig every target, nor does anyone else no matter what they say, we pass (or guess) on some targets we think we know....... like very shallow ones..... bottle caps and pull tabs. We all know the gold range on VLFs....... so many a day i just dont dig iron or high conductors like coins and.... yes even silver/copper. Two tones work......the less the machine has to process the better. I dont mind digging a little iron...... if the window includes all the gold on the disc mode. We do that now........deep bottle caps are a good example.

I would not be surprised to see a fine gold chain ring up as a 1 . Recently i found a 40 cm coarse gold chain at the 4 to 5 inch mark on a saltwater beach . It was nearly straight in the sand , not bunched up , no clasp etc . Gave a fairly consistent 2 .

I found this fragment of fuze on Monday. It's scary-sharp! Jersey, Channel Islands

Call them what you will- Mountain Lion, Big Cat, Cougar, Deese' Ven, Puma..... Until you encounter one real close you cannot comprehend the size and awesome power of these man-eating beasts. Sourdough Scott had such an encounter. I gave him fair warning. As we drove down a steep, narrow trail to our destination I ask him if mountain lions made him nervous while detecting. He said "Not at all. My dog will let me know if anything is amiss." His dog "Rooster" is one of the best detecting dogs Ive ever been with so I didn't worry. When we arrived at our destination the first thing we noticed were it's tracks. They were huge! The pads were bigger than any cougar tracks I have ever seen. Sourdough grabbed his detecting gear and head off while I was looking for my pick (and headphones and battery). When I caught up with Sourdough, there he was, within the clutches of a Big Cat! When it comes to heroic bravery I am one of the the bravest among mortals and I also posses uncommon wisdom. Which told me to run like hell, so I did. When I got back to the mining rig I got to thinking "this isn't right to just abandon my prospecting partner to a painful death. So I scrounged around in my backpack until I found my Kodak Instamatic camera. I know that gruesome and disgusting photos of human misfortune are all the rage these days so I figured a few photos could be worth thousands. When I returned to what I thought would be the scene of a tragedy, there was Sourdough Scott grinning like a conquering Gingus Kan and the Big Cat lay torn to pieces. Boy was I disappointed. There went my thousands. We continued on our detecting trip with beautiful scenery and perfect fall weather and found enough gold to justify a return trip before winter sets in. A good time was had by all.

Super easy using in AM on the beach no problem at all..........no sub menu which for me is a plus

I modded the "Sand Scorcher" this afternoon i can carry all kinds of gamatte and spade its light foldable and fun and i can carry LeJAg when he ll be too tired to dig shrapnells on our beaches😀😀😀😀

It creates such a strong magnetic field, you can ride it like a magic carpet!🧞‍♂️ 👍👍

Great find sounds like you deserved it, cool thing is the memory every time you see it on your wifes hand.

Hey Jimmy, Thank's for the kind words! It was my pleasure to help facilitate your interaction with Paul, and his fantastic Compass collection! I'm so happy that he is able to put together one from his stable! I'm glad that you remember him from the old Compass forum! Life is definitely a circle, and i believe all thing's happen for a reason; both good and bad! I'm not giving up on your defeating your cancer! I think the power of the mind can do wonders, and any pastime that helps keep you occupied is a good thing! I can't wait to see the detector Paul set's up for you, and some finds with it!! Hang in there, you still have much to explore!🙏👍👍

Persistence, Patience, Perserverence!!! Doesn't matter what equipment you have! BINGO! Gary/C Oregon Coast

Sorry to the next 50 on the waiting list( I know the pain), will not be letting this one go too soon. Gary/C Oregon Coast

WOW, what an awesome find- congrats! Well, at least you got some great pictures of the ring before your wife claimed it! 😉

The new Apex is in the same price range and is water resistant, might be worth a look. Also there is the Vanquish series and Simplex. Garrrett has awesome service, they did a great job on my AT Pro so you should be back up and running with the Infinium. Welcome to the forum.

I have the last Vaughan Garrets's Favorite finds booklet , I like it, lots of nice finds from USA and other countries very interesting .. . Yes you dont need an expensive detector to do well, and even sometimes it does not take a long time to do ( very ) well ... 🙂 In the booklet there is the story of the "Stirling hoard" UK treasure , the guy found 5 gold Iron age torcs with an Ace 250 , he was only five days into learning his brand new detector !! ... See pic below . Detecting is also a matter of chance , a lot of incredible finds have been done by entry level detectors , this is true for Garrett but also for other detector brands ...

Vallon VMH4 has arrived, read the manual and headed out to the backyard. Totally different animal than the Nox. Sens has to be dialed back in order to hunt. And even then you have to really focus in order to single out a target. Silent search with a slow recovery VCO. With the VS30 coil easily hits ring size targets at depth. I’m digging big plugs, scanning with pinpointer, rescan the hole with the machine, digging little bit deeper, getting target signal with pinpointer, out pops the target. WOW! And it just hates your digger, really needs to be kept out of the way. Very, very solid and tactile build. Every adjustment you make reports back to the user with a positive feedback. An excavator!! Need some beach time!!

With gold Joe, don't rely on others. YOU make sure YOU are legal.

I don't know how it happened but it looks as though my post "Sourdough Scott Survives Encounter With Big Cat" seems to have been mistakenly read as having something to do with wild animals. Perhaps this photo will provide needed clarification. This beast was a Deese' Ven.

with a little experience we can remove surface targets only dig (in all metals) the weakest sounds and who seems the most perfect (chhh whispers) with Impulse, its allows you to search for targets that the others will not hear and often there is a good one (or more) in the heap

the length of the sound / should make the difference to tie one of his iron loops on a string do the same with a gold ring put them in the sand and listen to the difference repeat the test at different depth a gold ring = always gives a very pure sound (unless the ring is broken / open ...)

Some very good input and answers by a variety of seasoned/new detectorists. Yes most certainly with the price increase of gold around $2000 US, the Security is essential. We hear so many stories now of vehicles getting broken into, just to steal the detecting gear. Luckily we don't hear as many stories of actual houses getting broken into and their gold being stolen, but I know it happens. One of my NV buddies who was loved by many and a wealth of Northern Nevada knowledge had the most beautiful custom made bar in his house and the bar was designed to have built in display cases. I have pics of the bar as it was so impressive. He had his house broken into and of course the cleaned out his 50+ yrs of collecting history/gold. Pictures and video are amazing and I still like doing it, but I have learned from my mistakes about what not to show. Sometimes a ridge in the background could be a dead giveaway to your new patch. I don't know if the tax man keeps track of all the big finds that are shared on forums, but if so...I have never found anything worth a dime, but my 25+ yrs of customers have me share their pics and videos all the time. Luckily I don't keep track of where the customers live as I'm just the middle man. OK, I did find a small nugget one time, but lost it when I went to take a picture.😏 Having your truck spotted in NV is a dead giveaway to a potential gold site, so now I must drive down in my truck, park it at the trashiest bullet ridden site I know of and then jump in someone else rig and sneak off to the real gold patch. Many yrs ago before Lunk started working with me, I heard he was on a patch (over a pound of gold pulled from it) and anyway, I was down there one Spring with my brother and we were hiking over a few ridges and guess who I spotted down the ravine a mile below me. Lunk's truck was hidden behind a small hill. I sat on the ridgetop for an hour watching him methodically grid (with cones) the area. He sure didn't leave much for me... I myself feel it's important for a good % of people to share so we have something to dream about. But, be sure not to give away to much details, especially if it's a site you were invited by a friend. My 1st article for a treasure magazine had the below pic. and it was amazing the amount of people who I ran into out there that was trying to align the angel of the specimen with the mountains in the background. I was even chatting with a guy one time, standing on that exact spot the pic was taken and he is showing me the article...not even knowing it was me the guy who found and wrote it, that was standing there talking to him. I learned quite a bit from that 1st magazine article. BTW, a magazine was a like a mini newspaper dedicated to certain topics. We don't see magazines much anymore as some of the old time great authors have passed away, just like the magazine is doing. Smart phones and internet is taking over. Be safe, share a smile of success and keep it simple.

One of my customers recently found a stunning: near 4 pound quartz boulder with just under 11 ozt of gold with his GPX-5000. Just goes to show you those multi thousand dollar treasures are still out there being dug up. Yes this came from the lower 48 states. Good luck everyone.

Expanding my gold horizons During the last few months, I’ve been looking for gold beyond the horizons of Magnetic Island. It’s not that the island’s gold diggings have failed to live up to expectation (far from it, the pleasure of exploring them is worth its weight in gold), but rather my son has now really caught the prospecting bug and he’s got his heart set on finding a gold nugget (no matter what size). He laughs at me mucking about on beaches looking for coins or rings, he’s after the real thing. So much so that we’ve invested in a couple of sluices, pans, sieves and an Equinox 800 (backed up by a Nox 600 and a Chinese Gold Bug Pro). First, we spend a few weeks exploring old gold mine sites in rainforest country along the Barron River, Closhey River, Musgrave River and Davies Creek. I would usually go ahead with the Nox 800 and try to get some good readings (mainly on the side of hills and along the bedrock of little creeks flowing into these rivers) and then we’d run the soil from any likely patch through a sluice. Following local knowledge, we didn’t expect any nuggets but it’s always a bit sad when you need a strong magnifying glass to see the yellow stuff. Still, our efforts yielded 2 tiny little flakes in the upper Barron River which my son got in the pan, unfortunately we lost them on the way home (my fault). Over the last few weeks, we’ve been going much further west. Dry country full of flies and wild cattle, following unmarked dirt tracks to get to old gold mines. In these places the evidence of gold fever is everywhere; huge scars in the ground, enormous tailings piles and mining machinery. It’s hard to describe just how good it feels to be in these places, not just because of their history but mainly their geology and seeing the landscapes that produce gold. It’s pretty bloody mind-blowing at times. So far, we’ve concentrated on the hills and gullies surrounding the mine sites. This strategy hasn’t been successful and we’ve come to realize that because of the huge amount of rubbish in the ground (especially bullet castings and pellets), that we’re much better off in country further afield but where the geology is the same. Unfortunately, this only dawned on us when we got back home from our last trip but we’re planning to hit these areas next. I know that in this sort of country we’re a bit out of our depth without a PI detector. The ground is very hot (I thought it was hot on the island but more fool me) and even the mighty Equinox 800 with a 6’’ coil (yet alone the Chinese knock-off) doesn’t make much of a dent. As much as I would like a GPX of any description, I’ll settle for a QED. I keep hearing very good gossip about these detectors (including a favourable comparison to the GPX 5000) and I like the fact that they work with many other coils. If anyone knows of one for sale please let me know, I’d be mighty keen. I’ve included a few pictures below of some of the places I’ve mentioned. Is the last one of a smelter?

Here is a White's TDI Signal Chart that Reg Sniff made that may answer your question: TDI Signal Chart

That is awesome news.

Well, with news like that I broke out my Garrett hat to start wearing again!

That's incredible to save the detectors and see what Garrett can do with it.

Very exciting news! Coming on the heels of Apex, it is obvious we are about to see a reinvigorated and newly aggressive Garrett. Very smart move on Garrett's part, and a good fit I think.

Wow, this self-proclaimed expert knows about as much about the Fenn Treasure as my cats. He rips Fenn for publishing a book he makes money off of, and then rips him for not making money off of revealing the location. I guess Steve Lehto is an expert on making money. So maybe those criticisms hold up. This argument that goes like "all they have to do to prove the treasure existed is ______________" doesn't hold water. No matter how you fill in the blank, there are people who won't accept it. They'll want more, and more, and more, and....

Hi, I haven't seen your sister in a while but we do get to hunt together sometimes. She can find the gold jewelry too!!!!! I keep my Nox 800 charged up and ready to go for special occasions like gold prospecting and relic hunting. My Nox 600 does all of the daily grunt work but it sure does find jewelry!!!!!! In the Denver area along with my awesome metal detecting, goose poop eating dog, I use an 8" long flat head screwdriver that I keep very sharp, a homemade 10" ice pick type probe (with a golfball handgrip) and a Teknetics Tek Point pinpointer set to maximum sensitivity which usually gets down about 3.5" here. If possible I do coin popping by cutting a 4" long slit in the grass/turf. I pry it apart and excavate from there unless the target is shallow in which case I don't even dig. I just pop it out with my probe. With the Nox, I use every tool available on it, especially the horseshoe button, the on board pinpointer for sizing and exactly locating targets and the depth meter. I have to be very precise and can't afford to just use the coil tip approximate pinpointing method when I'm digging with a screwdriver. Sometimes soil conditions are bad and the slit turns into a very small plug............. I do my absolute best to leave no trace however. I know most of the park workers and rangers at the 30 or so parks I go to and they often are very interested in what I find and have never given me any trouble since I pick up a lot more trash than I dig and they are well aware of that. I also help them find wayward sprinkler heads and stuff they have lost either at a park, at their maintenance facility or once even at one of their homes. thanks for the questions, Jeff

It is no secret I have a huge dislike for most people in general. The more nosey they are, the bigger my dislike of them. I figure I mind my business, and they should mind theirs. But that is often the opposite of what most do. One day I had a crazy idea and the even crazier part is, that it works, and works extremely well. I have an old park close to my house that I like to detect, but it is popular with snobby people that walk/job the walkways around the park. They will give you the stink eye big time. The crazy idea was...I had noticed the local city workers usually wear a hi vis safety vest when they are working, and nobody even seemed to pay them any mind or attention. So I bought one and gave it a try while detecting. It works so well I will never go hunt a public area without it. I guess people just assume you are doing cleanup work or some kind of maintenance and leave you alone.

I will never use a shovel in a park, legal or not. In my opinion the optics are all wrong. I have never had an issue detecting in a park yet as I always follow three simple rules: 1. Never excavate when people are watching. 2. Hunt early mornings or in the rain, whenever people are not around. 3. If people show up, move away or go somewhere else completely. There is always another day or another park. Discretion rules, and I am as close to being an invisible detectorist as you will ever find. Know the local rules - baseball infields for example, are strictly off limits in Reno. Jewelry detecting I am a “pop shallow targets with screwdriver” type. If my pinpointer can’t find it I move to the next target. For old deep coins however you have to plug. Always use a drop cloth so all dirt goes back in the hole. If bone dry don’t plug, wait for wetter conditions. I take great pride in the fact that unless you see exactly where I make a plug it will be almost impossible for you to find where I made one.