Finally - Broke Into The "found Gold At The Beach" Club

[rod-pa]

Most years, my family heads to Ocean City, NJ for a week in the summer.  Due to father/husband duties, i usually get 2 or 3 mornings from about 5 to 7 am to try to morph from a dirt hunter to a beach hunter.  I have had great success at finding modern coins and lead fishing weights, and the occasional junk jewelry item, but never had any luck in getting real gold.  I have never gone into the water much, as most of my detectors haven't been waterproof.  I took the equinox this year, and was determined to hunt in the shallows in front of the break line.  

First hurdle appeared before i even went out.  I did a reset so that I could sync the wireless phones to it.  I never use them for dirt, but i didnt want to damage my good headphones.....sigh...the button on the Equinox to pair them doesnt work.  I almost always have had the little wireless box paired to it with my good headphones for dirt hunting. The button has always given me trouble from date of purchase, but usually 2 or 3 times, and it would work.  I tried for an hour.  no dice.  So i hooked up the wireless phones with the 1/8th inch cable.  I guess i will contact Minelab and see if they can repair the button now that I am home.

Second hurdle...the screws for the handle for my scoop went missing, so it would just be harder to use...oh well.

I only got out twice this trip. First time out, it was only 3 hours to high tide.  I went as close to the breaks as i could, and it is a real challenge to me to swing the coil in that swirling water.  I stuck to good signals only.  I hunted for about 2.5 hours, and managed a stainless anxiety ring, and two sterling earrings, so not too bad.  

Second trip, I took my son along to help handle the scoop, and we got out right at low tide at 6am.  Targets were extremely sparse, and the first was a junk mood ring.  The second was really jumpy, but kept going high, and pulled the little portion of silver links..i think it is part of an earring.  the third was the little silver heart earring.  I was thinking we needed to push a little further out into the rougher water, so we really had to fight the waves a bit.  It was only about 50 feet at this depth, and what a sweet signal.  I found out that i really stink using a scoop right there.  Took me at least 10 tries to get it in the scoop.  I told Eli to just carry it up to the wet sand slope and we would figure out what it was up there.  Really nice 22k men's wedding band.  It's been a week now and i still smile.  I now feel way better about all you folks who dig gold on the beach all the time, and am not quite so jealous 🙂

We searched for just a couple more minutes, but nothing else showed up, so we ended on a pretty high note.

If anyone recognizes the makers mark that would be awesome, but I will start looking through marks soon.

Happy hunting, All

 

 

 

[midalake]

Nice looking finds!!! Congrats! 

[Againstmywill]

Awesome hunt! Love the color of 22K. I also turf hunt, even though I only live about 8 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. I have found so little when hunting at the beach that I would rather dig holes in dirt. Add to that getting all sandy, paying for parking, digging junk, knowing that replenished sand deeply covers the good stuff; I'll stick to the turf almost exclusively. 

[Valens Legacy]

Very nice hunt with something to be proud of at the end of the day.

Good luck on your next outing and stay safe.

[F350Platinum]

Great job Rod! 👍 I'll tell ya I looked through hundreds of makers' marks and couldn't find that one, albeit familiar 🤔

Nice ring, serious gold. 

[strick]

Nice ring rod...now your addicted...show us another one soon 

strick 

[Rick N. MI]

Great story and great hunt. Plus a nice haul on jewelry! Can't beat finding a nice gold ring.

[rod-pa]

On 8/19/2022 at 5:46 AM, strick said:

Nice ring rod...now your addicted...show us another one soon 

strick 

yes sir, Strick, but I am almost 2 hrs from the beach...not going to be going there much.  I do want to find some swimming holes once I get the nox back from repairs though.

[Steve Herschbach]

Congratulations Rod!

[rvpopeye]

Nice pile of finds ! 👍