Compass

Try to find a mentor in your area to hunt with. If you can find an experienced and successful beach hunter to learn from you can save lots of time over learning on your own.

Wow....that's insane Seeker! Way to go. I especially like the gold religious pendants.

Definitely a keeper that covers parking and gas - congrats!

Not bad for a guy with one good knee! 🙂 Seriously though, well done - you earned every bit of it.

Thanks Joe, Yes, shortly after I took that picture I was hunting below that cut and got sucker punched a few times. You know it's bad when you glance around and say to yourself, "I hope nobody saw that!" Pretty scary at times but exciting as well! Thank you GhostLight, Yes, I think it's time to upgrade to a carbon fiber shaft - I certainly love the ones on my scoops. 🙂

Thanks Blackjack, I don't much about Tasmania but we loved Australia when we visited in 2016 and want to visit New Zealand next year. Thank you Cal, Exactly. but how much more competition would there be if it was always good? I think it's perfect the way it is! Thanks Joe D. and you are spot on about the small windows of opportunity....and the ibuprofen! Thanks Seeker, Of course I'm joking about the 300 golds in a year but I think I could hit 100 if thinks go right. My best is around 70, I think. I was a bit surprised that I didn't see more hunters out there. These are popular beaches, however, not easy to work. Thanks VL, Like I mentioned after my Hurricane Kay hunt 4 months ago, it all depends on when Mother Nature opens her purse. Did I mention I love my TDIBH despite her current issues? Thanks Strick, Yes, more big surf this Friday but the tides don't look very good. The 2 I like are the Stavr Evroexcavator (?) and Stealth 720i, both with carbon fiber shafts. Thank you school, I felt no pain when I found the gold that is for sure! Yes, it's ben years since I hunted this area but sometimes change is good.

Thanks F350, Yes, lots of digging and not shown are the lead sinkers, trash and zinc pennies. And people wonder why we need such good quality scoops!

Backaches, leg cramps, elbow pain, sore hands and stiff knees but when I saw the gold it was all worth it! 🙂 Thanks Abenson, I usually have the Holiday decorations taken down by now but the beach was calling. Thanks Matt, Yes, and seeing it emerge from the wet sand was an unforgettable experience. I agree JCR, At this pace I should have over 300 gold pieces by year's end! 😅 Thanks Jim, Some wonderful surprise finds for sure.

In all my time metal detecting I've never found so many nice things to start off a year. Starting New Years Day and ending with yesterday's hunt (8 hunts) I found 10 pieces of gold jewelry, over 20 pieces of silver and probably around one thousand coins. Of course, this was all made possible by the storm-driven surf that has been pounding the California coast this year and eroding select beaches. Yesterday I came back down to earth with no gold or silver. To add insult to injury, my TDI Beach Hunter's shaft snapped into 2 pieces and I noticed a considerable amount of condensation on the inside of the clear plastic control housing. Fortunately, one of my detecting friends, KOB, had parts and tools in his vehicle and I was able to continue with the hunt. The TDIBH condensation issue was a surprise to me but, apparently, well-documented on this forum and others. I've since read that a small amount of condensation was "normal" but this certainly doesn't inspire confidence.

Fantastic hunt Seeker - well done and that bungee cord use impressive!

Thanks Joe, Yes, I can check that one off my list of things I never expect to find at the beach. 😄

Another plus for the vibration feature is hunting in windy conditions. On Monday I hunted a beach with 30 mph gusts using my Beach Hunter and there were times when I could barely hear anything but the loudest signals. My friend recently bought a 900, his first detector, and we hunted a beach together yesterday. He called me over to check several targets with my PI and I was surprised at the depth that he was getting, especially as a novice detectorist, and he wasn't even using DP tones yet. He did struggle a bit with bouncing TIDs and chatter but I think he'll get better with more time on the machine. He did get a 14K white gold ring and 18K earring so he must be doing something right. The black sand seemed to bother him a bit but that was an issue with the 800 as well.

Thanks Geof, This link confirmed my suspicions that mine is not a Tiffany even though it looks very much the same. Mine is not as robust and does not have the right markings. When I found the ring T&Co was my first thought - maybe next time! You had a great hunt, especially, for soft sand conditions. The end of this week may even be better!

One good thing about a late start is that you probably didn't get beat up by the surf which was still pretty angry Monday morning. Beautiful and unique gold ring and silver finds Mitchel.

On New Years Day I drove to 6 beach spots hoping to find a productive one. I didn't even take the detector out of the car at most locations because it looked like the big surf was not doing much sand moving. However, I saw some small cuts at the last stop and started finding targets pretty regularly. The larger ring is 14K yellow gold and weighs 6.6 grams. The smaller ring is rose gold and is stamped "18K 0.39". I assume that the 0.39 is the total carats of the small diamonds encircling the ring. At first I feared that the ring was one of those ubiquitous, gold-plated, silver, Pandora rings that look so good but aren't too valuable but it weighs 3.3 grams and passed the acid test. It's a beautiful little ring but it is missing a couple of the stones on the bottom. Very late in the hunt I scooped out the silver bar (see earlier post) and I think I said to myself, "You've got to be kidding me!". This hobby has provided so many surprising moments over the years. It was the perfect way to end a hunt and start a new year.

Thanks RVP, I'm sure that more beach hunters have found Rolex watches than 1 ounce silver bars so I got the difficult one out of the way. 🙂 My wife also noticed the prospector and said, "how appropriate!"

Looks like they're in Winchester, IN: https://www.silvertowne.com/ I imagine the ID number is pretty high. I found it with my TDI pulse detector. Thanks Rick, No date but they still sell the exact same bar so I don't think it's that old. Thanks Matt, Yes, crazy and I wonder what else people out there carry around? Thanks Mitchel, We'll probably never know. I did go back to see if there were more but no such luck! Thanks Kac, Now for the gold bar! 😄 Thanks CPT, So unexpected - certainly was not on my bucket list. 😄

Thanks for the link 350 and good catch on that ring! Heading back out in a bit to see if there are any more surprises out there.

Later I will make a more detailed report about a recent beach hunt but I just had to share this one most unusual find. When I scooped it out onto the beach from the wet sand it looked a little bit like a dog tag but when I picked it up I thought, "no way!". Sure enough it was a 1 ounce, .999, silver bar. Maybe someone carried it in their pocket for good luck? I searched around to see if there were more to no avail. Being almost pure silver I thought that it would clean up easily but it took a couple zaps of electrolysis to lift the black off.

Thanks Strick, From what I'm hearing we might need it this week. One surf forecast I saw yesterday said possible 20 foot + surf in So. Cal Jan.6th! 😮 Even half that height with the good tide cycle those days should really shake things up. Fingers crossed!

I thought of a couple more but maybe they fall under other items on your list: Experience - coil control, target retrieval, reading a beach and so much more can really make a difference. Weather/Environmental conditions: As a beach hunter, primarily, this actually might be the most important variable to me. When the big surf is moving sand around, I start getting excited! Strategy - Choices become very important - which beach do I go to? When do I go?(high tide, low tide, night, day) What part of the beach do I hunt?(under the cut, low on the slope, in the water) Which detector do I use? (pulse, discriminating detector) Do I dig it all or do I go after specific targets? (high conductors, low conductors) If I'm finding some targets do I stay or go to another location in the hopes of doing better?

This is timely and interesting. I can't say that I fully understand all that he is saying but here is my take. I have used "Gold" mode when hunting lakes and parks with the 800 because I like the audio and how the detector hits "hard" on small and deep targets. With the 900 it looks like you can get that same audio response in "Park 1" mode while still getting a low tone on iron targets. Looking forward to learning more about this "dp" setting.

Today we hunted several hours in a park, with my friend using the Nox 900 and me using the 800. The good news is that all the buttons on the 900 seem to be working as they should. My friend is a novice detectorist so this fact along with him trying to learn a new detector made it challenging to get much meaningful feedback. He did say that he dug deeper holes than he did when he was using my 800 the past month but he acknowledged that this might be due to him getting better at target recovery. I'm sure that I found quite a few more coins than he did but I also have 50 years more experience and the 800 is still a very capable machine despite all the other new detectors available. No silver for either one of us but he got a couple of Wheaties and I dug 3 that were about "3 bars" down. We hope to get down to the beach during the next week to see how the 900 handles the salt environment and black sand.

Tomorrow I'm meeting a friend for a hunt. We'll have a Nox 800 and 900 (1st time out) with us. Now, in addition to focusing on finding targets we'll have to hope that all the buttons work.

That is an impressive amount of targets - well done! There have been many, many detectors out there but the area is so big and the winds and rain will cover and uncover targets periodically. And, yes, the improved technology of the new detectors should help in some of the many trashy areas that are masking the good targets. Getting stuck in the sand out there is a great way to waste precious detecting time - how do I know this? 😞 I think it's great that your wife metal detects! Mine does not but at least she is very supportive of me and my hobbies.