okara gold

Nice find and congratulations for not giving up when things got bad.

Nice detective work on the twins! 👯 My gold count has slowed down drastically since their arrival but today is another day. 

Nice score on the rings. I once tried a small suction dredge in a lake bottom that was covered with rocks to retrieve the target. I took the riffle section out and just had a floating screen on the end of the box. It worked perfectly for sucking up around the rocks.

I'll bet you were grinning from ear to ear after finding all those goodies. I see more in your future!

Nice assortment of finds! Looks like you covered a lot of the bases. Ever find any old bottles?

No problems with mine yet but I use mine mostly in the water so there isn't any dirt or grit on my fingers or gloves to wear or scratch anything. My Nox is one of the originals issued and has no signs of button wear.

I'm in the water constantly and the external speaker does not work anymore unless I remove the bung to the battery compartment to relieve / neutralize the pressure. On 2 occasions I was able to remove the 4 screws on the bottom and dump the water and that fixed the speaker problem, but that "fix" does not work anymore. I seldom use the external speaker and only do so when testing in my back yard. At this point I don't even bother trying to fix it so as not to take a chance with damaging the O-ring and potentially causing flooding into the battery compartment. 

What a stellar hunt! Congratulations on those great finds. I stepped on a Ray several years ago and have lots of respect for them. Good luck!

Looks like a lot of great potential on that site and a long time to be spent hunting it. Good luck and heal fast!

 There's nothing like hunting on virgin ground and finding a huge range of dates and interesting finds. Good luck and keep 'em coming!

That looks so inviting to hunt! Good luck!

Very nice-looking crucifix! And about the number of finds decreasing dramatically... Not too many years ago, maybe 8 at the most I would average one piece of gold for every 4 times out. Not even close anymore. Now it's 4 guys on the beach every time I go out. Keep the gold coming! 

5 minutes ago, Dan(NM) said:

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.

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.

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!

Here were a couple of methods I used to get into 2 small beaches once the gate was locked at the end of season. The year was 2011.

On 10/31/2023 at 9:09 PM, fishersari said:

 

 "perhaps possibly if we cross our fingers, hold our mouth in a certain position and stand on one leg we may see them next month." 😁

 

 

How long do I have to hold that position?

11 hours ago, TTT2866 said:

 

That is a good looking ring! It has some nice company next to it too! lol

Wow! That's incredible!

Big congratulations on all those excellent finds!

On 10/25/2023 at 1:12 PM, KDX said:

I haven't seen a video or article yet that advocates for using the auto ground tracking feature on the Manticore. Is manually setting the ground balance an ingrained habit for detectorists because that's always been the way to set up machines in years past, or does the feature not work very well?

This is on page 61 of the Manticore instruction manual.

Tracking Ground Balance is the default and recommended Ground Balance method for Beach Surf & Seawater mode and Goldfield General mode. It effectively manages the constantly changing conditions in saltwater and mineralised goldfield soils.

I have been playing around with the setting and when in the salt water it seems to smooth out the constant changing conditions of the sandy bottom. Sweep speed is very important.

As the manual states... it is the default and recommended GB method for Beach Surf & Seawater.

On 10/26/2023 at 12:47 AM, mn90403 said:

The Karma is still with me!  Now it has really come in with an epic hunt.  I have two all time bests in one hunt.

It started last night in a somewhat normal fashion.  I went to my local beach that I know so well and began using the 800/11.  The wave energy push had subsided so it was time to see if I had missed anything deeper.  After about 30 minutes I could tell that not much was on this beach.  A bit ahead of me I could see a couple of detectorists coming so it was time to leave.  I have to really thank them for coming along and pushing me off the beach before it got too late.

There was enough time to go to another beach about 10 miles away and try my Karma there.  It was with me but I almost didn't give it time.

I had been near this part of the beach a couple of nights before but I just ran out of time to hit this stretch.  When I got there the tide was still going out a bit and NO ONE had detected it.  It can produce under the right circumstances about 1 out of 10 times or so.  It was stingy at first with long stretches of nothing and just 4-5 coins in an area that could give up more.  I was trying to find a line, a patch ... a something.  I actually turned around with the idea that I was going to leave when I heard a low, deep, near negative hit.

When I got down 10 inches and could still hear it and the number was coming up closer to 15, I was getting disappointed because we all know that is a bottle cap.  This one was also chattering to me big time.  A couple of more scoops down in the hole and it was out.  Now it was in my scoop, and I was shining my light into the scoop, and it SPARKLED!

Shock and awwwwwwwwwwww!  I was ready to leave, and I got lucky and found this.  It is not marked but I have had it analyzed and it is 10K, 7.3 grams with 15 stones that are very white.  It fits me and is one of the best rings I've ever found.

I looked around and circled the area looking for more, but I thought, this must be it.  This is what I was meant to find.  Then I went back to my starting area and hunted the cuts and slopes a bit just trying to get a 'hook' into the beach and telling myself that I'm not done here.  I might be able to find another score ... maybe even better if I just don't go home yet.

I found a pattern with a few coins with long distances between, but it kept me at the beach.  I got another quarter hit and when I got it out it was my second ring of the night.

It is a silver 5.5 gram ring.  It kept me in the game saying that this might really be a jewelry beach after all.  Let me keep going.

A bit later I got a little hit and looked in my scoop and there was a little silver earring.  It is the one on the right.  The one on the left is one that I found a couple of nights before over 10 miles away!

Now I was really locked in and covering all of the ground in a parallel to the beach.  I could see a pattern between, above and below my dig holes.  I was going along and I heard a 2!  That is normally one of the round, plastic bottle caps or something.  I gave a couple of scoops and in the cloud lit beach I could see a chain.  I turned on my flashlight and BAM!  My session just went 'epic' if it was real.

I've never found a chain like this one.  It seemed a little bit light but I didn't know.  It is marked in two places as 14k but we've all seen fakes before.  I had to take it to be analyzed and I was told the chain is 14k and the crucifix read as 11k but they needed to scratch it to know for sure.  Since I'm not selling I said I was satisfied with what I was told.  It is 24 inches and over 33 grams, so I have just made the ouncer club with a piece of gold jewelry!

I was blown away but I wasn't quite done.  I found one more silver crucifix that weighs 6.2 grams before I finally had enough.

Here are the valuables on one sheet.

And here is everything including the trash.

I didn't get much sleep but I'm going to try it again!

Thanks for getting to the end of this post.

 

Your photos are really distinct. What are you using for a camera to get those close ups? Thanks

Wow! You really killed it out there with all that great jewelry. And the junk to jewelry ratio doesn't get much better than that!

8 hours ago, TampaBayBrad said:

That would probably sell real quick for more than melt to any "Nancy" that sees the photo!

For sure... I would never throw that one into the melt pile. There must be a Nancy out there somewhere that just has to have that ring. lol 

1 hour ago, Jim in ma said:

I am glad to see someone else has found a 333 

I don't feel alone any more.

 

That's perfect! I hereby declare that we are now the founding fathers of the 333 Club. Any other members out there? LOL

Nice looking ring!

Nice chunky piece! Congratulations! Now to break that record!!

7 hours ago, Joe Beechnut OBN said:

That's a nice gift from the surf gods!

Never found 8k, but I bought acid test kit for it several years ago off ebay. Came with 7/8/9k. I have found a couple oddball golds, 12k and 15k, the 12k was marked 500, than a few I hoped were gold ....testing with lower K acid kit but none made the cut..Only found 1 gold marked 9k that I can remember.

Thanks Joe.

I was wondering if you ever found a low karat. I have found only one 9k ring in all my years of doing this.