Manticore 8” Coil Paid Off On The First Hunt

[TTT2866]

Back at it again. I bought the m8 coil on Monday specifically for this spot. I’ve found rings here before with the deus & 11” coil, it’s a major swimming enclosure on our town beach which is always extremely weedy and well done by another detectorist.

There’s usually 3-4ft of thick weeds all throughout the enclosure and it’s full of rays and very difficult to stand in or detect. I was fortunate enough to spot it a few days ago and realise that a heap of weed had washed in to shore, meaning it was pretty thin out in the water. 

I got up at 5:40am and got there at 5:50 just on sunrise. A nice low tide was there to greet me, along with no wind and no swimmers! The weed was only max 4-8” tall and very thin. The max depth was just over 6ft so I was easily able to duck dive before the drop off. 

I quickly got in the water with the snorkel gear, armed with the xp mi4, manticore and m8 coil. After the heatwave last week I was expecting a few junkers and coins at least. 

The second target I got was the stainless ring/ear stretcher thing; nice. After about 20 minutes, boom! A massive 9ct ring weighing a whopping 10.something grams!!! right in no-mans-land (in the weeds between the shore and pontoon) Nice and shallow in the top section of weed. Followed by a silver ring. I wondered around for a bit longer, weaving in and out of the weeds in the deep end right before the drop off and dive board.

Thankfully there was only 1 small ray out and about, breeding season must be near? Not sure. The enclosure has small jail-like bars limiting large rays or sharks getting through. Unfortunately I can only spend a limited amount of time per square meter as it’s so silty and muddy that you simply can not see anything after digging a small hole in the clay.

Plus, there’s lots of sea urchins about, so I’m not too keen on putting my knees and hands where I can’t see. I’ll generally get a target and jam the pinpointer right down in the mud, then I’ve got about 30 seconds to find the target before I can no longer see anything. The water was very still, so the silt cloud was staying in the area each target was, which was good. After it settled, it looked like a thick fog in the weeds which was cool to see. 

just as I was about to finish, I did 1 more lap around where I found the 9k ring and got a beautiful shallow, solid low tone. Similar to the Australian 5c coin signal, right in the middle line (about a 10 TID I think). Boom! Another platinum ring!! My third one ever, and all in the last few weeks! This one is a ripper too. It’s got a serial number and a beautiful little diamond. Shame it’s not my size lol. 
So many foreigners here it’s hard to return most items, but not from lack of trying.

the gold ring was worth about $30 more in scrap than I paid for the coil (slightly discounted tho) which is awesome. I’ll polish it up and maybe sell it privately, as there’s no unique markings and the tarnish tells me it’s been there a while. It was dark gray when I found it, but ended up being white gold. 

the platinum ring is hard to put a value on. If I can’t return it, maybe another $300-500? It’s about 8-9 grams.

I went back the next day and got another silver ring and a fresh-ish 925 sterling chain. Also a plethora of sunglasses and swimming goggles. I found 2 dive masks too but had to leave them as they were too awkward to carry around and had urchins living in them. 
the mrs claimed the Rayban sunglasses which cleaned up great in the ultrasonic. Nothing special about the other ones. 

I'm still hoping to find a GoPro or phone by the end of this summer lol. Unfortunately I’ve got no underwater footage as I lost my GoPro on the coast a few months ago. All in all, I spent just over 3 hours in the water over 2 mornings. Not a bad payday. 

[Valens Legacy]

Very nice hunting with some great finds.

Thanks for sharing the journey of the hunt and the pictures.

Good luck on your next hunt.

[okara gold]

What a stellar hunt! Congratulations on those great finds. I stepped on a Ray several years ago and have lots of respect for them. Good luck!

[rvpopeye]

Good timing pays off !  

[CPT_GhostLight]

Sweet finds, triple-T, congrats on the gold, platinum, & silver! Awesome hunts, congrats!

[TampaBayBrad]

16 hours ago, TTT2866 said:

There’s usually 3-4ft of thick weeds all throughout the enclosure and it’s full of rays and very difficult to stand in

Plus, there’s lots of sea urchins about

And this is a major swimming enclosure?!? 😬 😄

Great hunt! That's one of those I would remember for a long time. Good hunting skills sir....

[mn90403]

Ah ... what a feeling!  You anticipated and it paid off.  WTG

[TTT2866]

On 11/14/2023 at 12:15 PM, TTT2866 said:

I'm still hoping to find a GoPro or phone by the end of this summer lol

Jinxed it!! Just found my iphone for the year hahaha. Scored a iPhone 11 last night - Not a recovery, just by pure chance. Actually belongs to a fellow prospector and customer. Will do a post on it next week with my other finds.