Dan(NM)

40 minutes ago, rvpopeye said:

 

That's gotta be a new record for lead in one hunt !

You saved a lot of wildlife from lead poisoning ..👍

That's gotta be karma at least as good as a ring return !!

Nice little ring too ! 🤔

 Another hunt on that beach would be on my list. 

 

Thank you , I hope the fish appreciate it lol. It's unbelievable how much was concentrated in a relatively small area. Must be a hellava fishing hole.

4 hours ago, Valens Legacy said:

I am so glad that you are saving the fish from lead poisoning, please keep up the good  work and the fish will send you a few more rings and maybe a nice medal.

Good luck on you next hunt and stay safe out there.

Thank you, I'll go back and hopefully score a bit of gold for my troubles.

3 hours ago, Skull diver said:

At least an award for your patience, congratulations!

I would have been real butt hurt if I came home with nothing but lead LOL

14 minutes ago, midalake said:

Congrats on the gold. MAN, that is lots of diggin!! 

Thank you, 246 pieces of lead 🙂

4 minutes ago, F350Platinum said:

Nice hunt, Dan. 👍 I've heard when you start digging sinkers you're where the gold is, but that's a lot of sinkers! 😀 Good on ya for not getting tired of it. 

Thank you, I kept telling myself it would payoff eventually, but my lord, didn't know it would be  9lbs later lol.  Good thing the lead is worth something, otherwise I might have to reconsider what I'm doing here 🙂

32 minutes ago, okara gold said:

So... With all that lead, is it more popular as a fishing area? We had a storm here in Florida a couple months ago that moved a lot of sand off the beach. In one area I started finding sinker after sinker and I was thinking I am sure to walk away with multiple gold rings. Nothing came about in the gold department except loads of lead. And it was all in front of rental units. Ya just never know.

  There is a boat launch and an older park on either side of the exposed area I'm hunting. Earlier this year I cherry picked most of the coins, some silver and wheats . The lake level  is half of what it normally is, so I'm hunting the exposed ground.  There was a lot of clad and I was only digging zincs and above when I first started hunting. After the coin count fell off, I decided to see if there was any jewelry here as well. Holy moly, I had no idea there was sooooo much lead lol. I've found  2 gold rings, 4 or 5 silver rings and 6 or 7 junkers so far.

29 minutes ago, okara gold said:

I don't think I've ever seen so much lead in one hunt! No wonder you had to keep emptying your pouch! Congrats on the coin and jewelry count. Glad you got some gold for all the work!

Thanks okara, this has to be the most frustrating place I've ever hunted 🙂 I know the good stuff is there, but, I have to wade thru so much lead. I've been saving all the lead from this spot since the first of the year. I'll post a pic at the end of December of the total weight.

6 hours ago, Valens Legacy said:

That had to be a lot of work, but it came with a nice reward for you.

Great save and good luck on your next outing.

Thank you, thank goodness I'm not having to dig deep holes for the targets lol. Otherwise, this place would be a major PITA ;)

6 minutes ago, Joe Beechnut OBN said:

That's a Nice Gold!! Looks like it may have some age on it by the design...👍

 Thanks Joe. 

  The lake was formed in 1937, the park next to this spot opened in 1938. It looks like an older design to me too.

5 minutes ago, F350Platinum said:

Yikes! That is awesome. 👍 you are one of the few I admire for your spots and your skill.

I'm just starting to get the hang of it, at least I got a ring today too. I'll be happy to get a couple more gold ones before it's too cold to do it. 🙂 Got a new relic permission yesterday, but it's not completely clear yet.

I was strictly a dirt guy until I started pulling gold and silver jewelry from around the watering holes, I'm hooked lol.   I used to only chase copper and silver coins, now I'm digging every piece of junk known to mankind 🙂

9 minutes ago, F350Platinum said:

Thanks Dan,

Wasn't going to post this until I discovered I did better than I expected to. 😀 the last digs were 5 of the 8 dimes in one rocky spot, then my 9" coil gave up, apparently it wasn't fully charged. Scoop kept bouncing off the rocks.

I'm just really starting water hunting, something to do until my relic fields are done. This is more a chronicle for those who may be on the fence about trying this, but I can see now that if you really want the goods they are in the water. 🤔 

I've been hunting around the rivers and lake since I moved back to Texas in 2019 and have done extremely well  in the jewelry dept. The water levels have been dropping ever since and I do occasionally get into the water.  The swimming areas have been exposed and I hunt the dry beaches and use my pick to scrape the sand away. Very few targets are deep because of a layer of clay just under the surface. I took 106 rings in 1 season from 3 swimming spots in 2020  🙂

Nice job on the recover of the charm, it saved the day, congrats!!

I hit a lake 20 minutes from my house today for about 3 hours. The water level is about 1/2 of what it was 2 yrs ago, so, I'm hunting the dry areas. The spot where I took the picture would have been under 3-4 ft of water normally. We've been in a severe drought situation since 2021. I was using the D2 in a modified General mode and was digging everything from 28 and up with the 9" coil. Nothing is very deep and I'm able to recover the targets by simply scraping an inch or 2 of sand and rocks off the hardpan.  I ended up digging a lot of trash, but, that's just the way it is at these spots. I ended up with 3 rings, 1 10K 1.3 grammer, 2 junkers and a silver earring. The weather in Central Texas is perfect for hunting right now. Thanks for looking.

I've been wanting to do a chest-mount Etrac since my first Explorer set-up. I got a on a deal on an Etrac and decided it was time to go for it.  My shoulder has been slowly going downhill over this past year hopefully this will take some of the strain off of it.   I'm using a 11.1V 2000 mah battery for the power source and will be using earbuds for my audio. I'll be cleaning up the battery wires as soon as my new power leads arrive. The shaft is a Steve's Detector Rods EX Deus 2 shaft and the coil fits like it was made for it. And of course, our weather calls for a cold front with rain for the next 3 days.

47 minutes ago, Sinclair said:

Well done! 
That were a lot of targets.. but you have to dig everything to get the goodies 🫡

Thank you. I definitely have to be in the right state of mind to do it for hours lol.

20 hours ago, Compass said:

Well done and not a bad trash to treasure ratio. It's a great feeling to be first in line but if someone else is just looking for coins that's okay by me as well.

Thank you. Firstest is bestest lol. Clad is a nuisance, but, it does add up.

2 hours ago, F350Platinum said:

Now that's what I've been on about all this time 😀👍love that coil but it's a bear to swing in the water. It hit mine swinging above 4" of water and the ring was not on top of the sand. Took at least 2 scoops to get it. 

I haven't tried the 11x13 in the water, but, I will next year. You helped push me over the cliff when it came to getting the coil.  Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the coil in your posts.

29 minutes ago, CPT_GhostLight said:

Way to go, Dan(NM), and congrats on the silver & gold rings! Well Done! 

 You and F350 are making me want to hunt water again! 😎

You definitely put in the work so I'm glad it paid off. Those sinkers are such stinkers and sound so good. At least pull tabs will give themselves away. And I'm also finding there is something special about that 24 kHz max frequency too. 😏

Thank you very much. I did some testing on a small gold ring after I found it . 24 khz hit just as good as 40. I found with 40 khz I was digging stuff so small my pin pointer wouldn't pick it up. After a half a dozen of those signals I decided to see how 24 worked. Anytime I'm jewelry hunting that's my go-to-max frequency. Even at that I still dig some mighty small stuff with 11x13 coil.

What a coincidence that we both found a golden "47"  14k  ring that weighs almost the same.  Congratulations on a very nice water hunt!!

17 minutes ago, midalake said:

Wow, with the scrap you dug.....you deserve the gold!!!  

That's exactly how I felt about it 🙂 That's a common dig around these lakes here. Most guys go in and cherry pick the clad, which is fine with me!

12 minutes ago, F350Platinum said:

Nice hunt Dan!

Looks like we both got a 47 today, guess all the planets are aligned just right or something. 😎 Always good to jump on an opportunity!

Thank you.  This spot is right next to the road with a sign that says " Public Swimming Area" lol.

Hit a lake an hour from home this morning. I was here in Feb and hit 6 rings, 1 gold and 3 silvers. Since the summer here in Texas was so dry, I figured the water level would be down.  Sure enough it was and new ground was exposed. I was running the D2 in a modified General program with a max frequency of 24 Khz with the 11x13 coil.  I dug everything from 32 and up and there was plenty to dig 🙂 The  smaller band hit at 47 and the larger one at 55. The silver ring locked on at 97 solid every pass.   The gold is small, but, I'll take what I can get. I had to pay my dues today as you can see from the amount of targets I dug in 6.5 hrs of hunting. Apparently I got there first which surprised me because it such an obvious place to hunt.

It's toast, time to get Minelab involved and have them replace the pod. I had 2 flood, 1 power button failure and 1 battery failure. All the problems happened within 3 years, thankfully. 

4 hours ago, EL NINO77 said:

ETRAC and CTX 3030 are detectors where by using a larger coil/13"/ you can increase the depth range on coin targets... let's say from the size of 13-14 mm in most types to large coins compared to a 11" standard coil...

...I did a depth test of the CTX 3030 with a large coil with a modified coin program on my test field.. I modified the coin program,,, not only with regard to the good depth of detection, but also to the maximum stability of the ID on deep targets.. The CTX 3030 detector was set to a manual sensitivity of 23... tested targets are: 1. small ..14 mm silver earring at a depth of 20 cm.. 2. small.. 14mm -0.50 gram silver hammered coin at a depth of 23cm.. 3. the deepest target is a 50 euro cent coin at a depth of 37 cm.. ...one thing is also clear... and that... that the big 13x17" coil... brings a depth advantage compared to the standard 11" coil... even on small coins.. Sure, I will continue to work on further improving the CTX setting for deep targets..

 

....I did a depth test of the CTX 3030 with a large coil with a modified coin program on my test field.. I modified the coin program,,, not only with regard to the good depth of detection, but also to the maximum stability of the ID on deep targets... in this test, I set the sensitivity to the lowest limit -/19/..at which the CTX 3030 with a large coil... still reliably detects the deepest target - 50 euro cents at a depth of 37 cm...

If I were looking for very small targets..around 5-mm, I would use a standard 11" coil..and also focus on choosing the correct most sensitive CTX channel for such targets..from my tests it is channel 11..

 

 

Thank you for the reply. I'll keep the coil and give it run.