My First Relic Hunt With The Deus II

[ColonelDan]

As most of you may already know, I’m 99.9% a Florida beach hunter but that’s about to change this week.  My daughter bought a house on 12 acres of Tennessee in an area that saw Civil War activity….no battles that we know of but definite activity.  There was also supposedly a slave quarters on that property…acreage that’s never been hunted by the way!!!
I’ll be there for several days and looking forward to detecting as much as I can.

I want to open up the D2 at first so I can maybe find areas of habitation/activity so I’ll be looking for and digging iron as well as non ferrous.  
 If some of you seasoned relic hunters have any advice for this “beach bum” regarding favorite relic programs and settings you would use on a piece of virgin ground, I’d appreciate your thoughts and advice.  Thanks. 🙂

[F350Platinum]

Hello Colonel, we'll all be right down to show you in person. 😏 🤣

Few questions, field or wooded (probably both), dry, marsh, clay, loam, rocky or sandy?

If you haven't read my tutorials on boning up for a historic area, now might be a good time:

Seeing as your time is going to be limited, a bit of research is the key to major success. Maybe even Colonel success. 😁

I'd strongly suggest perusing Historic Aerials and LiDar maps, OnX Hunt is free but worth every penny if you do pay for it, its location and marking capabilities are incredible. 12 acres is pretty big, and if you keep your eye out for other property owners they also might be interested in knowing what treasure lies beneath their ground. Be friendly and listen carefully to them. 🙂

An arsenal of Deus 2 programs developed lately may help, I know we have shared a few. Silver Slayer has its use, you might want to grab that one if you haven't already.

If it's a farm I have been trying to find the time to post some helpful info regarding my experience, but I'll save that until you reply. 🙂 I'll throw a Reader's Digest version at you. 

[ColonelDan]

F350,  Thank you!  The land is mostly wooded with some cleared areas around my daughters house.  The ground is Tennessee so it's rocky.  I expect that I'm in for some hard digging in places but so be it.  I have your Reaper program loaded and ready to go.  My plan is to switch between a variety of programs and see what works best in that area.

I will definitely check our those links you provided and I have scanned some aerial shots of the area.  Since this will be my first time at her place, I look on this as a "get acquainted" visit.  I expect to learn as I go knowing that I won't be able to cover the entire 12 acres on this initial visit.

I'll send you an in progress report....the hunt will be Thursday, Friday and Saturday weather and other visiting activities permitting.

Thanks again

[F350Platinum]

My pleasure. 🙂 I should have prefaced by writing that settings aren't the key as much as research. 

OnX Hunt is definitely worth checking out, even for free.

Hope you have a pipe hittin' root shovel, you're going to need it in those wooded areas, probably in there the 9" coil is going to be your buddy. I'm not a big fan of woods hunting but there are lots of great finds for the less timid. Some targets under roots are going to drive you nuts, be prepared with tools.

In Historic Aerials make sure you overlay roads, and look at the oldest topographic maps. Some times the roads are clearly marked other times they are dashes. Here's an example:

This road is gone but the stuff is still there. 😀 The square dots are houses and other structures.

Mark locations in OnX using the waypoints, and you can literally track your destination. Let Historic Aerials have your location when using the site and it will get you close. Look at the oldest aerials too, you'd be surprised what you might find. You'll have to compare them to newer ones to get your waypoints right. LiDar will give you evidence of cellar holes and disturbed ground.

If you suddenly start hearing a lot of iron ("all metal" settings are critical), you're in a hot spot, but the woods have greater challenges in that a lot of it may be big. People throw stuff in the woods at you'll see.

Good luck, and I'll be following this thread with great interest. 🙂

[Chase Goldman]

Dan

You also need to know how mineralized the ground is and the D2 gives you that information utilizing the mineralization bargraph (see inset in pic below - it is displaying mineralization about half way up the scale indicating moderate minerslization which peaks (gives a true mineralization reading) while pumping/sweeping the coil).

Using someone else's program that works great in "no bar" dirt may not work out so well in "full bar" or even "half scale" mineralized dirt, or it may do just fine.  Bob is going to give his Relic Reaper program and I am giving my custom Relic mode program a test in some red clay this weekend at a site we went to last year that is a far cry from his northern neck paradise zero bar dirt.  We may or may not come away with some tweaks to our respective favorite relic programs as a result, so stay tuned.

[ColonelDan]

Chase,  Yep, Same with beaches none are one size fits all.  As I always say, Predetermined programs only serve to get you in the ballpark.  It's up to you to then pick the best seat! 😉

I'm ready to adjust based on mineralization.  I have no idea what that ground is like right now...haven't been there yet.  That's why I anticipate some, if not a lot of, adjusting on the fly at first.

Thanks

[ColonelDan]

F350,  I sent my son-in-law a heavy duty Predator root shovel several weeks ago for just those reasons you mentioned....that way too I don't have to pack mine.😀

[JCR]

Sounds like my kind of an adventure. Good hunting & please report back.

[CPT_GhostLight]

I'm no relic expert, but I have been doing a lot of experimenting in that arena. My ground goes from medium to wildly mineralized, so keep that in mind for reference. Two of the setups I use for finding target areas and for working in iron infested sites are based on the Fast program.

Fast Full Tones in PWM with Sens 94, Disc -2.0, Notch 00-00, Silencer & B-Caps 0, Reactivity 1.5, Audio Response 5.

Fast Pitch Tones in PWM with Sens 94, Disc 6.8, Notch 10-30, Silencer 2, B-Caps 3, Reativity 2, Audio Response 5.

I also like F350's Relic Reaper to help verify iron falsing.

I generally start out with Fast-Full Tones to get a feel for an area and to hear differences in target conductivities. If the area has few targets, I go to Fast-Pitch Tones to find any viable targets and work my way to target rich areas and then switch to Fast-Full Tones to sift for good targets.

Trust the sounds more than the TID. The visual ID can be all over the place, specially for commingled targets, but the audio will be more accurate. I generally dig anything that sounds good. Iron falsing will usually reveal itself with a 90° turn and sweep on a target, but be prepared to dig iron. Of course some good relics are made of iron.

You have a golden opportunity, Colonel, and I wish you all the best on your new relic site. 😎

[ColonelDan]

17 minutes ago, CPT_GhostLight said:

I'm no relic expert, but I have been doing a lot of experimenting in that arena. My ground goes from medium to wildly mineralized, so keep that in mind for reference. Two of the setups I use for finding target areas and for working in iron infested sites are based on the Fast program.

Fast Full Tones in PWM with Sens 94, Disc -2.0, Notch 00-00, Silencer & B-Caps 0, Reactivity 1.5, Audio Response 5.

Fast Pitch Tones in PWM with Sens 94, Disc 6.8, Notch 10-30, Silencer 2, B-Caps 3, Reativity 2, Audio Response 5.

I also like F350's Relic Reaper to help verify iron falsing.

I generally start out with Fast-Full Tones to get a feel for an area and to hear differences in target conductivities. If the area has few targets, I go to Fast-Pitch Tones to find any viable targets and work my way to target rich areas and then switch to Fast-Full Tones to sift for good targets.

Trust the sounds more than the TID. The visual ID can be all over the place, specially for commingled targets, but the audio will be more accurate. I generally dig anything that sounds good. Iron falsing will usually reveal itself with a 90° turn and sweep on a target, but be prepared to dig iron. Of course some good relics are made of iron.

You have a golden opportunity, Colonel, and I wish you all the best on your new relic site. 😎

Thank you for that in-depth piece of advice!

I have every intention of taking full advantage of this opportunity.  Long range rain forecast tells me my time might be limited to Thursday and Saturday PM.  Nonetheless, I’ll be out as much as I can and report accordingly.  I may not find anything but then again……..😉