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  1. Interesting hunt with the AQ. First thing I find out in the water is that my gauntlets are leaking; oh well, not that cold; first time they have been used since this past February. Pulled a couple handfuls of lead, a couple nickles and what I'm pretty sure was a silver ring. The ring took a long time and many scoops to get up out of the bottom. Yesterday, I would have been well over my head in the water where the ring was. It had the kind of crusting that I see on silver rings in these waters. When I went to work with a dental pick to work the layer of crud off, the ring started to disintegrate. I did get some of it to stay together and it looks like what I'd expect from a silver ring in these waters. I've had some stay together and some break up. This little hole by itself has paid for every detector I've bought; but pickings have been thin this year. Time to branch out a bit more. Cheers, tvr
  2. Hey everybody, I'm wondering if anyone has had success in applying Bernoulli's principle to recover recent drops in shallow water on the beach? Something like this but scaled down: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airlift_(dredging_device I was thinking something simple like some pvc pipe and a submersible water pump could do the trick. The tesoro coils look like they would work well with this due to the hole in the center. Trying to save my aching joints from chasing those floaty pulltabs, pennies and nickles. Let me know what you think. Thanks!
  3. Yesterday 2.5 hours session,i am playing the advocatus diaboli,showing that if there isn't much well..............there isn't much and whatever machine you use nothing will comes out. But i like that beach because i found a medieval coin there with the 18" Detech mono coil and it has some strange targets.....not very popular nowadays but it is all sand and mudflap so easy to dig. Machine was behaving very well, dug a couple of Drink cans almost desintegrated i am still to find a precious ring with the MDT but i am pervering as i got a strong feeling that machine has a potential.I was using my Evolution scoop on the right on the picture and it was a pleasure to dig. Enjoy RR
  4. Despite the bad weather i headed to the storm just to test my newly purchase waterproof jacket.Wind ,rain ,sand flying like out of a sand blaster...... i had it all. But i was warm and dry ,Machine was acting a bit funny because i think of the too many ground mineralisation changes(as mentioned in a another post) i tried different setting but it was tough ,managed few targets nonetheless but a pretty poor ratio for 3hours of detecting ........beach is hunted daily so i am not faulting the machine. The pin was dug knowing it was iron 100% just for the fun Enjoy RR
  5. Hello to all went for a 2.30 hours sesh today on a quiet beach ,the road going to that beach is just getting worse soon or later cars won't be able to access 😅😁😆or shall i buy a 4x4............. Today i stayed focus on everything deep i left few dodgy signal a 60cm/2 feet my sand scoop didn't disappoint. The smallest shrapnell bit was at 30cm/1ft,one of the fishing weight was at 40cm if i am correct if not deeper but it may have moved.The large bit of brass was at 40cm Here is the result in 9khz ,i will change soon to see if my targets tally changes. RR
  6. 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!!!!!
  7. When I’m all in,... I’m all in!! A few nice finds and quiet days on the beach add to the All In recipé. This Covid-19 has turned tourists into pleasant members of the public that keep their distance. Just the way I like it on my days off. So I decided to update my setup and give my trusty pall the CTX a rest, I’m not selling just yet. It will sniff out the good stuff for sure. Dry sand and wet sand hunting: Equinox 800 V3 VLF 11”, XP MI4 pinpointer Wet sand excavation: Vallon VMH4-VS30/VS20 PI due in somewhere round half november. This evening I’m readíng up on the manuals,... lets get down to the nitty gritty!!
  8. I spent a couple hours after my chiropractor appointment yesterday hitting the wet sand with a dropping tide. I did dig a .925 loop earring and a copper wire ring with beads but these lobster trap pieces were driving me crazy. Especially the more rounded one that is an unbroken more or less circle. I would have almost bet OBN's YTD ring finds that it was a ring or at least anything but a piece of vinyl coated wire. Small nails can be rejected easily but these pieces of vinyl coated (hence lack of rust) lobster traps are a different animal. I tried for a while to get the correct Rejection for them but thought that since I was being so unsuccessful I would appeal to higher power. Yep, that means the folks on the forum that have years and years of experience with these deep, great sounding pieces of "...." trash! I at first thought I could just dig them and get them off the beach but they seem to multiply. Are they alive and reproducing? Geez Louise, I can't tell you how much I hate these things. Ok, my rant is over! Now for some suggestions on settings that might help ID these damn things. I am open for any suggestions for settings on my AQ to give me a hint that these time and energy consuming little devils are under my coil. I have been running mostly just the presets but have run the reject all the way up and down the scale along with the ATS, Sensitivity, and swing speed. I cannot seem to find a crack in the combination that gives me any type of a hint that there is a nuance to ID these little piece of ferrous garbage. Help!!! thanks, Joe
  9. Hey folks! I got into recreational prospecting a few years back and love it. One day YouTube decided to show me some metal detecting videos and now I love the idea of jewelry hunting on the beach. Planning to buy a Vanquish or Simplex and get into the game on some NorCal beaches. That leads me to a dumb question - when the ocean washes over a gold ring on the sand, given that it is so much denser than the surrounding sand why doesn't it sink so far that it's undetectable? In the Sierras I need to get down to bedrock to find decent gold. Is there a small recovery window to get gold jewelry prior to it going so deep that it can't be recovered? Is the ocean constantly pulling off layers of sand at a rate that's somewhat similar to the rate the gold falls? Trying to understand the basics so I can grasp where I would have the most luck on a beach in the wet areas.
  10. Had a nice week. Got to visit middle son; ate too much, got tanned and got some metal with the Excal. Four days of flat water, two of a little chop and one with chop that was tough to work. Did about half slope hunting and half in the water; left the dry to others. What a luxury to be able to clearly see the scoop when shoulder deep in the water! Not much jewelry; three pieces of silver (ring, earring and charm) and two gold looking stainless steel. Lots of change 37 Quarters, 34 dimes, 19 nickles and 171 pennies; no foreign coins on this trip. Next adventure is to find a spot on the local beach devoid of metal and start over with known targets to set up and learn the AQ. Cheers, tvr
  11. Last night I went to a beach that yielded a lot of targets. On my 6 hour hunt from 8 PM to 2 AM I got 51 quarters, 40 dimes and nickels, 54 pennies (one wheat), 2 silver rings and one 10k gold ring. There should have been more rings! The trash was another 50 pieces or so. When you figure it is 4-5 scoops per target (1000 total) then it adds up to a stiff back in the morning. I found the gold ring 2/3rds of the way through the session about the time the fog started rolling in which made for an enjoyable sight as it covered up the normal lights but there was still a mostly full moon above. I was using the 15 inch coil and when I started I was down a couple of notches from full power. I thought there would not be much on the beach but I was wrong and kept pushing along finding some high cuts. Near the end of the session the detector was nearly out of power and I could hear a lessening in my headphones. Something I've wanted to say about the 3.0 update is that it really makes the quarters crackle. I don't think I remember them like that before and I wish they would be a little more 'solid' but perhaps it is because of the sandwich metals.
  12. Having only recently started water hunting, I only recently had some success. My my first experience was at the beach at Monterey Bay. It was a low tide at about 10:30 P.M. The waves were crashing on the shore and the noise was so bad that I gave up and started detecting the dry sand. There were several people on the beach and I was separated from my friend and not comfortable with my surroundings. I did manage a nice silver Indian Chief. The Head dress is inlaid with mother of pearl. The next attempt was at a beach North of San Francisco, on the way there I looked at the National Weather Service for a forecast, said dangerous surf, don't go near the water. The tide was receding and my friend said we should be just fine. Shortly after we got there it started to rain and I was getting wet and cold. About forty five minutes into the hunt, I decided that I wasn't having any fun and started back to the vehicle. I broke the cardinal rule, I turned my back on the ocean. The tide was out about one hundred fifty yards. I was about thirty feet from the car in a paved parking lot when a rogue wave came in and knocked me down from behind. Now I was really wet and cold, this was December. I was using my CTX 3030 and I found that my WM 10 couldn't Swim. I tell myself I'm done with the ocean. I didn't try water detecting again until a few weeks ago. My friend Rob talked me into trying it again at Lake Tahoe. The water was full of people and with the Covid restrictions, I tried to maintain social distancing, that put me out in a depth that I was not comfortable with. The shoreline where people were getting in and out of the water was where the most targets seemed to be. My problem wit that was , the bottom had a steep slope and I was having a very hard time standing on it. Nothing to show for my efforts except some clad. Tahoe is such a beautiful place and the water wasn't cold, it just made for a wonderful day. Not being a person that gives up easily, we went back again. The next trip we went back to a different beach with a beautiful campground. Unfortunately the campground was closed due to the fire danger. That trip the water was still very pleasant. The wind was coming out of the South West and got a little stronger as the day went on. The entry point seemed to be where the targets were and that is where the waves were breaking. I did manage a silver Rosie and three Wheaties. As I mentioned the wind was blowing harder and the waves were getting larger to the point I was getting worried about getting knocked down. I changed my M. O. and borrowed Rob's waterproof headphones and tried it some more. Well I guess I got a little too comfortable, it happened again. The wave action knocked me down and started pulling me off shore. I managed to get back up with the help of Rob. By that time I was pretty beat up and decided to call it a day. I decided to try it one more time. We loaded our truck camper and headed back to Tahoe, the fire danger was not as bad and the campground was open. We managed to get a spot for two nights. It takes about 2 1/2 hours to get there, so there was only a few hours detecting the date of arrival. This trip I had a life preserver jacket and some chest waders. The lake was flat and the temperature was still very tolerable, just perfect for detecting. Lake Tahoe is an awesome place and one can only appreciate the beauty of the place by going there. I am absolutely disgusted at the way people trash the place. Well this trip was different, I got my first gold in the water! A 14k with "I Love You" inscribed in it. After we got home from a very nice trip, a very dear friend got a hold of me and asked if I would try to find her husband's wedding ring. He was one of my partners in a mining claim and he passed away from cancer about a year ago. She said that she had been working in her yard, cut a lot of shrubs, raked them up put them in a bag and hauled them to the dump. She had spent quite a bit of time looking for it and was almost certain that was forever gone. After the description she gave to me of the ring, it sounded just like the one that I had found at Tahoe. I told her that if I couldn't find it, I would gladly give her the Tahoe ring. It only took about ten minutes to find that ring, it had that "sweet fifteen low tone. That was a very emotional moment for both of us"
  13. The wet beach sand didn't produce much early this morning so I took a few swings around the dry sand on my way back to my parking place. I was using Park 1 at 20-21 and switching between multi and 4khz to know what I might be digging. I do think the multi is deeper and I found some clad in the same location with maximum depth of 8" I think. What is the little heart/star piece? I put the coins in my pouch and didn't know I had a silver until I checked them at home. I don't know exactly which hole I dug that resulted in the quarter (1946). The nickel is a 1936 Buffalo and the penny is 1952. I'll go back.
  14. Hello to all , Despite the dodgy weather went for a beach session yesterday on the UK Kent coast armed with my Nox ,beaches have moved a bit which is why i believe i found so much stuff. 4 hours non stop on not so popular beaches but still few coins despite the Covid restrictions,a silver and an copper bracelet and bit from another (made i believe to combat athirst and rheumatism )plus enough coin for parking and petrol(i was on a local beach ) a good work out for sure Enjoy RR
  15. It never ceases to amaze me at the things we dig up in the sand at the beach. I tend to call them "odd" unless I dig up another like it. That being said, I need one of you electronic specialist to ID my latest "oddity" that I dug yesterday while still looking for my first AG AU. I have attached 3 pictures and you can gage the size as I hold it in my fingers. It has 4 dip switches on one side and a 10 pin mail connector on the other. And it has a small antenna on it. This is a new one for me but by my own admission I am electronic connector challenged. Any good answers out there? RC, radio, drone? An inquiring mind wants to know. I am sure it is only a matter of time before I dig another as that seem to be the case on So Cal beaches. Thanks in advance. Joe
  16. Had the day to work a beach with the GPX and the AQ. I used the GPX for 5.5 hours and dug every target in the dry sand. I know there is deep silver at this particular beach, and it did not disappoint me today. The Standing Liberty quarter was measured at 18” and the Walking Liberty half was at 20” This is the maximum I have found silver with the GPX. You do not always get those depth, depending on EMI in the area. I can regularly get 15” on most coins. Another good target was a gold grill, probably 9 or 10K. You do not see those every day on the beach.😄 Partials sometimes, but grills never. It was nice to get out and dig like crazy. Beaches are very trashy, but I need the exercise, so I dig it all.
  17. We've all seen, heard of or found coin spills...particularly if you primarily hunt beaches. However, throughout all the years I've been walking our Florida beaches this is the first Sinker Spill of this size that I've ever found. These sinkers came from the same 3x10ft area of Bicentenial Park beach and it wouldn't surprise me if I didn't find all that was there! 😁
  18. Hello all, Everything seemed to be in alignment yesterday morning, when i woke up about 4 A.M., and couldn't go back to sleep after looking at the tides and weather! Had some issues that prevented me from getting out the last few weeks, so i was itching to go! The wind was ripping pretty good, and i had a spot in mind that had been renurished and ruined for quite a while, that should be showing signs of huntability again! Also, it's a spot that you can "dual hunt", meaning ocean beach and water, than a short walk away, intercoastal beach and shallow water!! I got there before sunrise to beat the heat, and low tide hit at around 7:15; perfect! Did a quick peek, and liked what i saw! Geared up; and within a few minutes, i found a decent coin line running North from the rocks, to open beach, about midway between the cliff and water! All the coins and other objects were on the harder shell layer, under about 6-8 inches of soft eroded sand! I followed it till it petered out, than backtracked a different line back to the rocks! I was hitting a few targets in the rocks, and got to finally put my new PulseDive to the test! It worked great! A few times, i had to put my detector and scoop above the surf, and hand dig, and test over and over for a few tough targets that were locked in crevices and rock holes! Cool, but a little time intensive! I was hoping for a sliver, or long lost gold item, but ended up with some 70's and 80's coins instead! All good though! After about 2 hours, the incoming tide was beating me back from the good area, so i took a break, than switched over to the calm intercoastal side for about another 2 hours of relaxed hunting; mostly in the water! Overall, i was happy with what i recovered, even though no gold or silver today! Now i know that i can return, as the erosion progresses hopefully! If not, i know the other side has some jewlery waiting for me! 👍👍
  19. I looked at my Equinox 800 screen when I heard it. This Sound had potential. It was not like the familiar sounds of pennies, quarters and even the nickels. The screen read 9 and that had Potential too. I swung over it in a couple of directions and it still had a solid 9. Then you dig. Still a 9 and a good sound as you go down 3-4-5 inches to the patch layer. Then it is in the scoop and you look down in the dim light and you don't see a coin. You can see a shape and the wire mesh too! That is real POtential. I turn on my light and voila it's a ring and its yellow! POTENTIAL! When I got home I looked it over. It is not the best ring that I've ever found but it was the BEST and only ring I found last night. It is 10k/RL/CZ/BOUVIA. Potential realized. Now, this is the rest of the story as Paul Harvey used to say. Last night was a hunt pattern that I have repeated before. It is a normal beach detecting pattern for me. I put my son to sleep about 8 PM and when he is sleeping a couple of hours I get up and detect the beaches for 4 hours or so. The beginning was the same with parking and beach entry. After walking about half a mile I could see a detectorist light up ahead working the beach. I could not tell which direction they were working but I knew this spot. It could be good but I was going to let them have it. I walked off the wet sand into the dry and avoided the spot for quite a distance and then I dropped back down to the beach. Someone had been to this portion of beach before me but they were gone or it had been the detectorist I avoided. I could not see them any more and no one was in front of me so I relaxed and looked for the clues. Pretty soon I found a coin. I circled and found another. I saw some recent (within 2 hours) unfilled dig holes and I included those in my pattern and then in my grid. The picture emerged and I could see the beginning and finally the end of the patch. It was a small patch this time but I'll take it. No one came across me while I was working this patch. There were no seagulls. I hope this happens for you on your patches.
  20. Thanks to the good people on this forum I returned to one of my lakes with the intention of digging less than 100 bottle caps as I did last time. I found about 20 but I dug many that I had anticipated would be bottle caps but I just wanted to be sure. I hunted in "Park 2" and 40 khz for the start of the hunt and switched to my user profile (4khz) on suspected cap targets and the cap TID's almost always jumped up to "36-40" range. Eventually, I just left the detector at 4 khz because it was so smooth and quiet and I wouldn't have to keep switching back and forth. Targets really stood out when the coil passed over them and it made hunting so much more relaxing.. I was concerned that I might miss some low conductor targets at 4khz but I did still get 2 of them maybe because of their depth or size. I plan on doing more bench testing today to see if there are any drawbacks to hunting in 4khz. Fortunately, I got my GoPro camera to work and I captured a couple of exciting moments that I am able to now share. GL&HH!
  21. I got a chance to go out on a couple of hunts this week and the best things I found were this little 10K/1.28 g Gold Ring, a 4 g Silver Ring and this 4 oz Lure. I think the lure is the most expensive! The little ring was a challenge as it was down about 5 inches and I had forgotten I had my F2 on at 5 from an experiment. With that setting the quarters sounded funny and I was about ready to do a factory reset when I discovered the 'problem.' I was using the 15" coil so I consider it a good get for the small target that read 6. Mitchel
  22. Here we go again, when autumn approaches, the evaluation of the most suitable vehicle means to prepare anything to face the peace of the beaches that will gradually begins empty ... Unfortunately for me, no more dinghy this year and considering the terrible weight of all the ballast I'm forced to bring downthere, plus another tool I'm planning in these hours, this time I'm in real troubles. At least 150kg, to be carried by hand and never on my back again, possibly. I tried to build two different trolleys with solid wheels, but with all the weight, I only managed to sink into the first meters of sand and to get into the water it was a nightmare. if any of you use special wheels or have built a personal cart and want to share pictures to get an idea for a project, that would be really great ...
  23. I am an avid metal detector user and I like always being at it. Just because there is no gold prospecting for me in a given time frame is no reason to not go metal detecting for gold. There are a lot more ways to find gold than prospecting, and so jewelry detecting is very high on my list. If you like finding a gold nugget, I do not see how you could not also be excited about digging up a gold ring. Jewelry detecting and nugget detecting share many common traits, not least being the hunt for gold. Both also require a high tolerance for digging trash items, and both are best done with detectors made for the purpose. It just so happens that the detectors best used for nugget detecting are often the best to use for jewelry detecting. In other words, a lot of you guys are already outfitted for this! There are two general ways to hunt for jewelry - on dry land, or in and around water. Let's leave the dry land for another article and focus on the water detecting for now, since I am gearing up for a water hunt myself right now. Almost any detector, with the remarkable exception of the most expensive one you can buy, comes with waterproof coils and can be submerged to the control box. Minelab PI stock coils are not warranted waterproof but only water resistant so it takes aftermarket coils to get them up to speed. But they are a poor choice for wading as there is probably no machine I would like dropping in the water less than a Minelab GPX 5000 with high amp battery attached. Detectors that can be hip or chest mounted offer even more flexibility for wading applications. Few nugget detectors are fully submersible, but there are some, most notably the Garrett AT Gold, Infinium and ATX, all waterproof models. Jan 2019 note: see also Makro Gold Kruzer and Equinox 800. Water detecting can be broken down into fresh water and salt water detecting. Fresh water detecting is pretty straight forward since fresh water is invisible to your detector. The tuning and operation of the detector is similar to what you do on dry land. All you have to worry about is keeping the electronics dry, and recovering targets underwater. Fresh water swimming holes are great for jewelry detecting, and there are many fresh water stream and river opportunities for gold prospectors. Any good gold prospecting detector also works well for freshwater beach hunting. The Garrett AT Gold has an obvious edge for being waterproof. The Tesoro Lobo gets special mention for being convertible to hip or chest mount. In fresh water VLF detectors usually have an edge due to large amounts of trash often being present but PI detectors do have their place in fresh water detecting. The only way to know is to just give it a go and see how much trash there is. The nice thing about beaches though is the digging is easy compared to what nugget hunters often face. Salt water adds a whole new dimension. Salt water is conductive, and therefore a hot metal detector can actually get a signal from salt water or wet salt sand. Many prospectors already know the issues surrounding salt and alkali flats. Detectors that are used in salt water need some way to tune out the salt signal. The problem is even worse on beaches that have mineral content, classic black sand beaches. A white beach composed of broken down coral and shells is no problem at all, but add volcanic material and the issues compound. Most prospectors would not be surprised to hear that pulse induction (PI) detectors have an edge in dealing with salt water scenarios. There is an unsolvable conundrum however. The signal for salt water and small gold items, like post earrings or thin gold chains, actually overlaps. When you tune out the salt water, you tune out these items also. There is no solution to this problem with existing metal detectors because of the way they work. It is possible to find these items at the beach using a hot detector, like a White’s Goldmaster or Fisher Gold Bug 2, but you must be on bone dry sand. Any attempt to get near wet salt sand with these units will result in the sand acting like one giant target. Most mid-frequency gold machines handle salt water beaches to varying degrees. They will generally have no problem until you get on sand currently seeing wave action or actually in the water. The higher the frequency, the less able to handle wet salt sand. The Fisher Gold Bug Pro at 19 kHz and Garrett AT Gold at 18 kHz are not happy on wet salt sand. They can be made to function but only by losing a lot of depth. The Tesoro Lobo has an alkali setting and White’s MX Sport a salt setting specifically designed to handle wet salt sand. In general though these detectors will all work better higher on the beach and have an edge on small rings, earrings, and chains that other beach hunting machines tend to miss. The Minelab Eureka Gold and X-Terra 705 have low frequency options that make them well suited for beach hunting. The Eureka can be hip or chest mounted, but be aware the stock coil is another that Minelab does not warranty as waterproof. The PI detectors fare better, the Garrett Infinium and new ATX having an edge again for being waterproof designs. The White’s TDI and Minelab series do well but must be kept dry. The TDI models except the TDI SL have an advantage in being convertible to hip or chest mount. Be aware that turning off or not using a ground balance system can often add extra depth with a PI on white sand beaches. The TDI and GPX 5000 can turn off the ground balance setting, and the factory default on the ATX before ground balancing offer possibilities on low mineral beaches. For 2019 see the new White's TDI BeachHunter. For serious salt water beach detecting hunters turn to detectors not normally used for prospecting. Ironically, this is because the general lack of sensitivity that makes prospectors eschew these models makes them ideal for salt water. Multi-frequency VLF detectors are not very good prospecting machines but they excel in salt water. Two detectors that vie neck and neck in the salt water VLF market are the Fisher CZ-21 and Minelab Excalibur. On the PI side the Garrett Sea Hunter, Tesoro Sand Shark and White’s Surf PI are the three popular models. Minelab Excalibur II waterproof metal detector There are lots of options but if you ever want a specialized waterproof detector for both fresh and salt water and want to make a safe choice, get a Minelab Excalibur. It is probably the most popular water detector made and for good reason. It gets the job done with minimum fuss and will work well anywhere. I am a PI guy myself however. I have used the Garrett Infinium extensively trying to deal with salt water and volcanic sand and hot rock conditions in Hawaii. I have had success with the model but it is difficult to deal with, suffering from an inability to ground balance into the salt range and susceptibility to EMI interference. Huge numbers of posts exist on how to try and get an Infinium to behave in salt water. The new ATX has taken steps to address these issues but the jury is out there yet. I will be giving the ATX a good go in Hawaii soon. My latest water detector is a White's Surf PI Dual Field to back up the ATX. I have had good luck in the past with the White's Surf PI models and recommend them for people interested in a waterproof beach PI. Again, a simple unit that gets the job done, and at a bargain price. Where to hunt can fill a book, but really boils down to two things. The first is that the best finds will be made where people who wear quality jewelry congregate and engage in some kind of physical activity. On fresh water beaches where items get dropped is generally where they stay. The second item comes into play more often on salt water beaches. The waves and seasons concentrate items on layers, much like placer deposits. They sometimes bury the items too deep to find, and at other times expose them for easy recovery. Beach watching can teach you a lot. There is the towel line, where people set up shop for the day. Lots of items get lost here. Then there are the places where people tend to play beach sports, like Frisbee or volleyball. Best of all, are areas in the water where people congregate, with areas where people can actually stand on the bottom being best. Items dropped in sand obviously sink over time, but hard sand will resist this longest and keep the targets close to the surface longer. Extremely soft sand swallows items quickly and is not a good place to hunt. Areas where the sand tapers into a hard rock or coral bottom can be very good when the overlying sand is shallow enough to reach that hard layer with a detector. Beach detecting is very popular, but beach hunters have on tremendous advantage over prospectors. The finds are being constantly replenished. There is no beach, no matter how heavily hunted, that does not have the potential for finds. The more activity there is the more items are lost in a given period of time. The finds made by beach hunters can rival the best made by prospectors, as not many gold nuggets come with diamonds attached. I know for many prospectors it is about getting out into the middle of nowhere and away from the crowds. Beach hunting is not for everyone. But you can hunt early in the morning or even on rainy days, when people are few and far between. As more and more areas accessible to prospectors get hunted out, it is possible other places are near to you where gold may be easier to find. If you have a detector already you certainly have nothing to lose by giving it a go. Hopefully this post has at least made you consider the possibility. As always, volumes more information can be found just by Googling “beach detecting forum”. Here is an example of a hunt at White's Surf PI Pro and Platinum Rings in Hawaii I got four platinum and three gold rings over a couple week period. One of the gold rings is white gold so it looks like only two gold. All fairly plain men's bands reflecting the rough surf area I was hunting. There is a picture of everything I dug at the link including the junk. All the platinum I have ever found was rings, and when platinum peaked at over $2000 an ounce I cashed in over two ounces of platinum. Another very successful hunt was Detecting Gold in Hawaii with the Garrett Infinium Please note that unlike my prospecting outings I do not spend every hour of every day in Hawaii detecting. These finds are being made hunting on an average of two or three hours a day. I am not one to just sit around so detecting keeps me busy. And a good vacation can be paid for in finds or at least subsidized with some hard work and a little bit of luck. Waterproof VLF Detector Comparison Guide Some gold and platinum finds made by Steve in Hawaii
  24. Sometimes targets are deep. That is the 15" coil and I had 6-7 more inches from the top of the sand to the half can target. And then there are targets not so deep. That is the silver ring there with a green heart stone. It was down 8-9 inches. A nice sunrise ... and all of the finds.
  25. I just posted a topic about finally finding some gold after several times to the beach. I found more than that this time. Just after I found the only ring of the session I looked up and saw an awful sight. The beach area I was now in is an 'all night' area and someone had been there through the night. They had also been there with some Stella Green Bottles which was not unusual on an alcohol free beach. What was shocking about it was that they had played target practice with their bottles and sharp, broken glass was all over the beach. I wish I had taken a picture when I saw it but you'll have to use your imagination. Glass bottoms, tops and hundreds of pieces were laying everywhere and people had already walked through it in the dark. I could see the footprints. There were at least 4 broken bottles with the sharp bottom pieces sticking up. The necks were strewn over a 50+ft area and fine glass that could stick you was in several different piles. The beach groomers were just showing up and I wanted to call them over but what could they do? I had to do it before someone got hurt. It was time to give back to the beach that has given me so much over the years. I laid down my detector and scooped up the first pile with my scoop and put it in the empty box. That was just a small dent. It seemed to be everywhere. I was hoping for help but no one stopped out of about 10 people. This had to be cleaned up before the kids and families showed up. I worked like a coin spill. haha I went over it again and again in different directions as the sun was coming up enough to see the little and big shards. Some of it was still glued to the label and other pieces had landed a fair distance away after the impact. When I was nearly done I decided to take a few pictures. The glass started near my detector and went all the way up to my feet near the scoop. It had happened after high tide and was not spread by the small waves. The box was empty when I started and I wanted to keep detecting but I knew it was up to me to make the beach safer. That really is more important sometimes than a few trinkets. The bottoms were the most dangerous as they stuck up with sharp points. Joggers had missed them in the early dawn. It is not a regular occurrence and that can make it worse because it is unexpected. Anyway, I got it done and only found a couple of quarters after the pickup. By the time I left there were 4 more guys detecting. I hope they would have done the same as me if they saw the glass first.
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