Best Tips for Finding Jewelry at Parks and Beaches?

[getawaycar]

Hi all,
I’m fairly new to metal detecting and really interested in focusing on jewelry hunting, especially in local parks and beach areas. I’ve had a few small finds—some modern rings and the occasional earring—but I’m hoping to improve my technique and learn from the more experienced folks here.

A few questions I’d love to get some input on:

What kind of settings or modes do you usually use when targeting jewelry (especially gold)?

Do you notice better success at dry sand, wet sand, or just outside high traffic areas?

Happy hunting!

[TampaBayBrad]

Best tip for finding jewelry? Stay away from the Tampa Bay beaches. 

Go early morning and work the towel line before people start setting up all over it. I find most of my jewelry in the water, but if your just going to work the sand, I'd say the best place is the towel line. Work the wet sand at the water's edge at low tide. Go early a.m. to busy beaches where the most people congregate.

Detector settings depend on what model detector you have. When beach hunting, use a larger foot operated sand scoop to move a lot of sand at once. Small hand scoops are only good for fresh drop near surface targets.

I'm not a park hunter, but go where the people go. Think about where the people congregate and hunt there. I'll let the park guys give advice on that.

Most of all, learn you're detector. Put the time in digging targets and remembering what the detector told you about each one.  Learn what is trash so you don't waste time digging it. Maybe in a park you can use a "dig it all" approach, but not on an aluminum riddled beach such as mine here in the bay area. As you get more familiar with your detector, it will get easier and you won't be digging as much trash.

[cjc]

Most gold is  found within ten feet of the water's edge on either side. Learn to work the edge and focus on low conductive signals.   Barring that look for activity centers like sports areas.  Go  to where that activity is concentrated like in front of the soccer net, or vollyball net. Ground cover is also  key--sand or long grass help. Always be observing what people in parks or at the beach do and  focus on main routes, or areas where transitioning takes  place--clothes changing, getting beach kits into the car...also areas where messy food is  eaten can  be good.  That should give  you some ideas. 

Good luck, 

clive

 

[midalake]

5 hours ago, getawaycar said:

but I’m hoping to improve my technique and learn from the more experienced folks here.

TIME on the machine>>>>LOTS of it.  

[Joe Beechnut OBN]

As far as beach hunting, where are you located? For me many factors play a part in finding gold, location is the controlling factor which will determine if you find gold .

Every location is different and requires a different attack plan. Like Clive said "Most gold is found within ten feet of the water's edge on either side" ......Which I know is true when I hunt the ocean........99.9% of the gold I find now is waist to chin deep in the water.

 

So we need more details..

[Compass]

Location is very important but so too are environmental conditions. One day there may be hardly any targets in the wet sand and the next day on the same spot you could be digging good targets with every step because of sand movement due to the right combination of tides and swell. As was mentioned, gold is a relatively low conductor and there are some hunters here, including myself, who will (depending on the situation) ignore the high conductor targets (such as clad coins and silver) and focus on digging only low to mid conductor signals. 

[geof_junk]

Go where people have gone and limit your time where detectorist have gone unless you find easy target there till you get very experienced.

[cjc]

19 hours ago, Joe Beechnut OBN said:

As far as beach hunting, where are you located? For me many factors play a part in finding gold, location is the controlling factor which will determine if you find gold .

Every location is different and requires a different attack plan. Like Clive said "Most gold is found within ten feet of the water's edge on either side" ......Which I know is true when I hunt the ocean........99.9% of the gold I find now is waist to chin deep in the water.

 

So we need more details..

A  buddy of mine calls it "the football zone." Well said. 

cjc

[cjc]

8 hours ago, Compass said:

Location is very important but so too are environmental conditions. One day there may be hardly any targets in the wet sand and the next day on the same spot you could be digging good targets with every step because of sand movement due to the right combination of tides and swell. As was mentioned, gold is a relatively low conductor and there are some hunters here, including myself, who will (depending on the situation) ignore the high conductor targets (such as clad coins and silver) and focus on digging only low to mid conductor signals. 

This is what I did with the NOX--I put in a reject block at around "27" so that anything coming into contact with it had very little chance of being gold..  Then learning how to hear how bottlecaps dropped  into the iron range and learning a few obvious juk items ie. small oval  tab 13/14 allowed me to have this laser low  range focus and clean up in the high trash areas that others avoided. Its about using everything your machine offers--audio  and  some discrimination when it will help you avoid the obvious  junk.

cjc