3 Hunts In One

[F350Platinum]

8 hours ago, kac said:

House looks younger than the 60's, maybe 70's? Bet the land it is on was farmed so probably good mix of newer top soil piled on. If the trash or target density isn't too high then you may want to toss the bigger coil on and listen for any faint deeper targets. Most top soil is added is 6" or so. Often just enough to put the smaller coil at a disadvantage.

Then again the 12" mark there could be just nothing either.

I hunt an area here that was built in 1870's, hunted hell since the detector was invented and there is 12" of top soil added. There is deep stuff there but very very hard to get to or hear. Lots of iron bits don't help Managed to squeak out a thin gold ring in the hard pack and a v nickel. Makes for challenging hunting especially when there is lots of top targets to try to hear past.

One of the first things I do is try to see how deep the clay line is to get an idea what I am in for in a new area.

Thanks kac, the house was there in some form back to the 40s. I think it was rebuilt or remodeled. The coins were all in the 1-6" depth range. At least 4 spills, one produced 5 pennies and a quarter.

I did try putting the 11" back on at one point but found nothing deeper, however I'm still learning. Every now and again I will hear faint iron tones but get no ID or find nothing.

I will try that again and dig everything some day soon. Right now it's like shooting fish in a barrel.

The clay line (clay mix with sand like beach sand) is only about 4" deep here. A foot down it becomes mostly sand.

[GB_Amateur]

9 hours ago, kac said:

One of the first things I do is try to see how deep the clay line is to get an idea what I am in for in a new area.

Does most of the East Coast east of the Appalachians (obviously not Florida) have clay below the topsoil, within detecting depth?

Unfortunately, here when they backfill it's done with clay.  Sometimes they even remove the topsoil to sell and replace with clay!  Greedy %^*)@$&*!   At my recently discovered park where I've been finding Wheats, the other day I dug down 11" through clay to find a vertical nail or wire (stuck too tight to remove and identify).

One positive result of their sloppy relandscaping -- grass doesn't grow as easily in clay so the ground cover is mostly weeds.  I don't feel as guilty when my recovery methods during dry season end up resulting in dead weeds.

[kac]

1 hour ago, GB_Amateur said:

Does most of the East Coast east of the Appalachians (obviously not Florida) have clay below the topsoil, within detecting depth?

Unfortunately, here when they backfill it's done with clay.  Sometimes they even remove the topsoil to sell and replace with clay!  Greedy %^*)@$&*!   At my recently discovered park where I've been finding Wheats, the other day I dug down 11" through clay to find a vertical nail or wire (stuck too tight to remove and identify).

One positive result of their sloppy relandscaping -- grass doesn't grow as easily in clay so the ground cover is mostly weeds.  I don't feel as guilty when my recovery methods during dry season end up resulting in dead weeds.

I check for clay line on areas that I don't believe were backfilled, looking for more of the natural clay line. With that being said many of the old farms here the clay is 12-16" or so and much of the finds are within detectable range. Iron and trash do a good job at protecting the finds from detectorists 🙂

There are spots that have much more dirt, probably pushed around. Wooded ares the clay line is much shallower which works out to our favor as we can use smaller coils.

[locator]

Wow. That looks like a nice digging time. Sunny weather, great environment, bunch of finds, .... what else to get?

Congrats. Good Luck & Happy Hunting