What's The Best Advice You Can Give A New Beach Detectorist To Find Good Targets?

[Gary985112]

Hi Everyone,

What is the best advice/tips that you can give to a beach detectorist to find jewelry or other valuable targets? Just curious because I know that years of experience beats all in most cases.

Have a great day!

[matt]

I'm new to beach detecting (but have countless hours and success detecting gold nuggets) and the best advise I can give you is to dig every target that sounds off on your detector. Pay attention to the sounds each target gives. A couple weeks ago when I was in Maui I figured for another bottle cap and it turned out to be a white gold with diamonds ring. You never know unless you dig it up.

Get out and start digging targets!

[blackjack]

Phrunt's advice is to detect less popular locations or to be more precise locations that haven't been detected by others. Good advice, but what I can't figure is how come I only ever find ring pulls bottle tops and foil, are you bastards leaving that stuff on the beach !

[Off Grid]

It's an enduring mystery to me why anyone in their right mind would take jewelry to the beach in the first place.

[F350Platinum]

Hey Gary,

It appears to me from your posts you are very eager to instantly become a successful beach hunter, almost like you want to do it as a profession.

I pray that is not the case. 🙂 If you're looking for the magic settings that will get you gold from the get-go you will be disappointed to know that no one can give you that information for a few reasons. The most important factors are Location, Tides, Time of year in some places as there may be no one at the beach during the cold months, Sanded in or out, and the existence/lack of conductive sand like black sand. There is a lot more than that.

First, no one knows your general location. Every single strip of beach in the world is going to be different. Even going a hundred feet can change things. Sometimes 10 feet.

Second, wind, waves and tides vary as well, if you show up at a beach at high tide your hunting strategy is different than at low tide, and different at all the variations time of day throws at you.

If you live in a colder climate you can pretty much count on your local beach having nothing but junk due to being hunted out in the warmer months. Other more experienced detectorists will certainly leave junk for you!

Sanded in or out means that a storm or wind conditions either moved the sand in or out, sanded in is difficult because most good targets will be deeper under the sand. When you are lucky enough to find a beach that has been eroded, what will be there is only the result of what others have not found.

One good thing is that beaches are replenished yearly, relic sites are pretty much done when done. No ghost from 1790 is gonna drop another coin or ring for ya. 😏

I really, really hope you are coming at detecting as a hobby, not a profession. You may get lucky your first time out but more likely until you master your machine, learn the seasonal patterns, and become familiar with conditions of all types, you're pretty much going to come home with junk jewelry, bottle caps, tent stakes, can slaw, foil bottle seals, beer cans and pull tabs. If the best detectorists don't post their trash they make it look easy, but even they get that stuff, and sometimes that's all they get. Seriously. The best, most expensive detector in the world will not find any more than the cheapest one if you don't get your coil over something good.

My first suggestion to you is to lower your expectations.

Next, yes, ask questions here, but get some reading material regarding beach hunting either online or in print. You need to know where to look on a beach as much as you know what to look for. Keep in mind that the most experienced people here are not going to answer you if you don't ask questions that seem to be backed up by experience.

Next, set your detector up in a default configuration, Beach 1 for dry sand, Beach 2 for wet and submerged. Tweaking settings at this early a stage is confusing. Luckily your 800 can be reset with a push of a button. If you don't system reset now and again you can really mess yourself up.

Next, go to your beaches and dig it all. After a while you'll assimilate experience as to what is good to dig and what is not, and still you'll find you're wrong. 😀 As I've told you I didn't find gold for a long time. All the above is the reason, and more, but I relic hunt more than beach hunt.

Rinse your stuff off at the end of the day, and repeat. 🙂 Take care of your equipment and it will take care of you.

It has become painfully apparent to me after over 2 years of detecting that no one jumps in hot and finds really great stuff, because I didn't have high expectations, it's always been a blast. I also don't do it for income.

Good luck as always. 🍀

[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.

[Skate]

Pick one or two beaches and learn to read the sand. Go to them often at various times and tides and watch how the sand moves. Dedicate yourself to becoming the expert at these one to two beaches as to how the wind, waves and storms change the sand structure and you will become a successful beach hunter. 

Anyone can hunt the dry sand as it takes no particular skillset to find stuff. The true beach hunters know their beaches inside and out when it comes to the wet sand. Learning is a process so really take the time to view your areas under as many conditions as possible and you will eventually come out on top.  

[GaryC/Oregon Coast]

I hope you are not married.  You are going to be away from home many, many, many, many, many hours.  Good Luck!  GaryC/Oregon Coast

[ColonelDan]

I  live on Florida's east coast and have been hunting our beaches for a number of years.  In that time, I've learned a thing or two about our beach characteristics and hunting them.  Do I know it all?  I've yet to meet the detectorist who does...and that goes in spades for me.  The advice you have received hits the 10 ring.  Take it to heart....especially the part of not deluding yourself as to exaggerated expectations.

The only advice I would add is a repeat of that above.  Learn your detector, study the beaches you intend to hit, learn how to read the ever changing conditions and the habits of those depositors that populate those beaches. 

Detecting is a game of odds.  The more you learn about a few key things, the more you increase those odds in your favor.  But nothing can sway those odds in your favor more than time spent on the beach with your detector.  You'll learn some little thing every time you go out...you'll learn from mistakes, good choices and the simple luck factor.  

Soldier on.... 

[PI-Man]

Number one in my book:  Time = Treasure.  

Put in the time learning to read the beach/conditions/learning what your detector is telling you and you shall be rewarded.   Be a sponge for knowledge.

Just as everyone has posted above.  

Bunch of books out there to help you get started on learning to how to read the beach.  Heck some of the authors are on this forum.  

Ask lots of questions that’s how everyone learns.