Went Out On The Beach Yesterday

[KDX]

I went out on a freshwater beach yesterday and tried a bunch of different modes. I ended up using Beach Low Conductors with a recovery speed of 5 (at the end). After spending a few hours digging junk it was getting late and I was feeling less than happy with my results. I detected along the waters edge on my way back to the parking lot and ended up digging these pennies. The dime was my lone treasure find in the dry sand. The signals I was getting on these pennies didn't give me any solid indication they were lurking under the sand. I would get a faint high tone, a tiny smear in the upper 90's and see a high 90's number, but then it would be gone in a flash and there would be numbers jumping all over the 50's and 60's with a smear on the screen from the upper ferrous into the middle of the screen. I would hardly ever see the 90's number again. Sometimes I would be getting the 00 number with the blue wave underneath it. Most of the junk I dug I knew with a pretty good degree of certainty what it would be before hand based on my previous trip to this beach and digging junk. But I still dug it anyway just to confirm. I should have taken a few pics of just how black the sand was near the water. One pic of what the beach edge looked like where I found the pennies. Any tips for cleaning these?

[JCR]

That sure is a pretty location. Any particular reason you were using Beach mode? Is the water brackish ? Did you try any of the land based programs?  Still not a bad tally on coins.

[KDX]

The water is clear in this lake. I briefly tried All Terrain General but then thought if they made a beach mode option, it's likely what I should be using. The kicker is that I wasted several hours digging junk and found those in a half hour to forty five minutes or so. I'm guessing other people have detected that beach prior to me getting there.

[TripleT]

I find that if a beach is hunted hard there are next to no pennies left.

[UT Dave]

With the age on those pennies, I think I'd tend to agree with @TripleT I don't think that spot has been hit hard.

Curious how deep those pennies were @KDX and maybe what sensitivity you were running with that much ID splatter?

- Dave

[KDX]

The area I found these pennies was not on the beach. This was an area that usually has docks (brought in now for winter) and isn't used in the way a normal beach is. The weeds are grown in (you can see the bottom right in the one pic) and it's just a narrow strip of sand along the waters edge. This is a pic of the main part that I spent hours on. The pennies were between 6 and 9 inches I'm guessing. There is a layer of normal sand about 2-3 inches and then the black sand in this area. I had the sensitivity about 19 or so if I remember right. I had used the check mark to bring in some numbers on my test garden so maybe that skewed the readings on the ID. I did a factory reset today and will not mess with anything for a while.

[TampaBayBrad]

Good looking beach....I'd hunt it. Beach modes are designed for salt water beaches. From the manual:

"Beach Modes are for saltwater beaches including dry sand, wet sand, surf and underwater conditions. Beach modes are designed to minimise the noise generated by the presence of conductive saltwater for a smooth, quiet detecting experience in these conditions"

Not that you can't try it at a freshwater beach. But keep in mind you can try the other modes if you wish to experiment.

[KDX]

I think I'll be using ATG next time I go out there and see how it goes.

[Yatahaze323]

Is that magnetic black sand?  If so that will make it more difficult to detect deeper targets.

Bring some coins with you and bury them that way you can test out each mode with a known target and figure out which mode/setting works best at that beach.  It will also give you a better idea how deep you will actually be able to detect a target there.