Testing Gear Today River Beach Hunting

[F350Platinum]

If you're not interested in Deus 2 stuff, and not interested in beach scoops, I'll give you a pass 😀 

Yesterday I saw it was going to be 80 today here in VA, not the best for field hunting, but great for river hunting. The water is cold, but I have 1600 Thinsulate waders. Love them, I've had them for a few years now and no leaks. I also did not feel the cold water at all.

Packed up the D2 and WS6 Master, grabbed my new Titanium beach scoop and other water hunting gear, and drove to my small beach where I found 2 gold rings last year. The beach was really sanded in but I thought the water might have less sand and I might find some older stuff.

Used the Deus 2 with the 13" coil for most of the hunt, got out to waist deep (the tide was .5' lower than normal), it performed flawlessly. Most targets were retrieved in 1-3 scoops, the new scoop is light and easy to lift. Well worth the ~$400 I paid for it. I'm totally confident with it.

I've cleaned this place out so anything new jumps out. I dug junk as deep as 2' here in an effort to have this result.

Got two fishing rigs that I left behind conspicuously for fishermen that might want them, and this is all the trash I got otherwise:

Apparently someone had a pocket full of pennies, and seeded the upper beach with them. Got 11, including a 1954D wheat, I doubt that one was in the pocket, it may have been on edge for years. It was the deepest object I dug today.

When I got tired (water detecting is slow and difficult) I put my D2 away and got out the WS6 Master that I modified with a piece of coax, I wanted to see how deep I could go with it without dunking it. The wind had come up and I was getting waves over a foot so I was careful.

It worked great in depths almost all the way to the grip handle. I was pleased.

On the way home I picked up a new permission:

This beautiful Greek Revival mansion that used to be a plantation house circa 1850. It so happens the owner was my old veterinarian now retired. He said the place has been heavily detected, but I was welcome to try and I can dig anywhere. I'm hoping they just cherry picked the place and I get some cool relics. 😀

[rvpopeye]

I hereby place my vote for permission king.🍀

[F350Platinum]

37 minutes ago, rvpopeye said:

I hereby place my vote for permission king.🍀

Thanks RVP. 😀 I've been eyeing this place for a while, knowing who owned it. I had a feeling he might let me, he didn't remember me as a customer but I think he is almost 90, and he's seen a lot of people. A great vet.

I knocked on the front door a couple times, noticed the back door was open to the screen. Walked around the house and met him on a path to a really nice Victorian garden. The property was a huge plantation but he only owns a couple acres of it. He also told me to call his son and ask if I could hunt a 100 acre property they own near the beach. 🙂 Hope he lets me!

[rvpopeye]

I rest my case.🖖

[rvpopeye]

I did get permission to detect the fairgrounds, And while you had a day at the beach @80* .  I dug a few holes here @45* last night before it turned back to East Coast Alaska around midnight. 17* ~8" of white with a nice serving of sleet and freezing rain ,,,so far.

96 days till 6/1 .......

 

 

[F350Platinum]

27 minutes ago, rvpopeye said:

I dug a few holes here @45* last night before it turned back to East Coast Alaska around midnight.

Been there done that! 😵 It isn't Florida, but it's milder than New England. Sorry man. 😬

[rvpopeye]

Naaahhhh , don't have to feel sorry. Doing it for mom.

Besides,  my old Cap is in Smithfield rubbing that heat in with daily texts ! LOL I heard about that 80* this morning at 8:30 . They were going over the bridge headed for the beach.  Karma will show him though , the whole family is transferring to Omaha in  3 weeks.  Oh my Goshk !

 I wasn't complaining about the cold . It's actually been one of , if not the mildest winter I can remember up here . It's more a comment that I'm amazed that I was able to dig like it was summer yesterday ! The only time I ever did that in February uptah camp was in a snow pile looking for a diamond engagement ring for a friend . She knew where it was . My old Radio Shack detector got me close and because it was a blizzard it was found by shoveling all the snow under the coil into a plastic tub and putting it in front of a torpedo heater.  The winter detectorist's secret pinpointing weapon.  😎  

I grew up here . The older I get , the less I like it but do know how to live in it.  Been living on wheels since '82 just to add a degree of difficulty....and I still haven't learned any better . But those wheels did get me a warm southern winter for a dozen years or so...which was awesome but makes it worse here now knowing what I'm missing  ! 😍

Oh yeah PS it's 79* in the camper right now.  Probably feels a lot like that beach did today........

 

 

[strick]

I like that floaty thing been wanting to make one for a while now . Vets are nice guys but their memory is terrible lol. What did you dig 2 feet deep? I dug a hot wheel this morning at a beach I usually hunt in the summer I’d swear it was 2 feet deep but would not tell anyone as they might think i was crazy. Was sure it was going to be a big piece of iron. What program you using in the water?

strick

[F350Platinum]

No need to make it but I did buy this and modified it with ballistic nylon screen cloth:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0749P51QM

I bought this stuff to replace the way too wide wire screen:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B06Y3QK95Y

Fun project.

Don't want to lose those diamond earrings. 🤪 These are great but kind of a PITA, they always seem to drift in front of you. Shorten the tether with a couple loop knots, one for making a shoulder sling.

I saw it in a in Hoover Boys video a couple years ago, they do a lot of chest deep river hunting up in Maryland. I knew I was going to be doing it, found out since I dislike river hunting because in the warm months here the rivers are full of Jellyfish, and technically if you want to river hunt in Virginia you have to get a permit from DCR to hunt anything more than 10' out at low tide. 😡 I've written them for one but I get the law thrown at me instead of a permit, as if I didn't know the law existed. 🙄 Bureaucrats.

The nice thing is that here you step off the beach in the Potomac you're in another state that doesn't have that law. 😀 Don't try it in a State Park tho.

I dug all the big iron and squashed beer cans that were insanely deep on this beach, it's only about 100 yards long and maybe 30 feet wide. Anything that even peeped.

I am using a modified Beach sensitive program, 0 Disc, full tones square because I use the BH-01 bone phones, sensitivity about 95, salt sense 1 because it's brackish, audio level 8, recovery 1.5, iron volume 3, magnetic reject on. I didn't modify notch.

I'll edit if there's anything I forgot so you might have to revisit 🤣 or I'll just send you a list. 😁

For those of you who hate the bone phones, try putting the damn wire behind your head rather than in front. 😎 I love the situational awareness and the tones in the center of my brain. Even when the waves got noisy I could still hear the tones. Of course if the waves get higher than a foot, you should probably get out.

With this program I've hit dimes and pennies at a foot or more, I'm sure it will whack larger coins more easily that deep. 🙂 Hot Wheels sound great, and yes, them too. For some reason kids like to really bury them. I get high tones tho... 🤔 Maybe mine haven't been that deep.

[F350Platinum]

7 hours ago, rvpopeye said:

my old Cap is in Smithfield rubbing that heat in with daily texts !

Haha, at least he has to drive a long way then. I used to stop in Smithfield on the way South camping, it's smack in the middle of... Nothing. 🤣 They have a really nice campground there off 95.