The Ocean Is A Thief (Updated)

[F350Platinum]

Going to summarize the last 3 hunts here in Florida, finds are drying up with all the people out here hunting on the East Coast. With daytime temps in mid Florida in the 50s and high wind, it isn't exactly "fresh drops" weather, and doesn't look to be for the rest of the trip.

I'm posting this only because I want the less experienced detectorists on this forum to see how sometimes it's not all jewelry, karma and glory - eventually persistence will pay off tho. 🤞

Saturday was absolutely brutal, the wind was blowing from the north 35mph because of the Nor'easter that trashed the Outer Banks, 53 was the high here. I thought it would be warm enough to go out because the ocean is around 60°, but it wasn't. At least the sun warmed me up when I got out of the wind. Should have brought a sweatshirt or something. 🫤

Oddly enough the waves weren't too bad, but I hit the beach at low tide, went out in the wet, and now and again a wave would ride in on another, and while I was digging either make the target disappear, or wash it away before I could get it in the scoop. 

Here's what I got the first day after the storm: 

Nothing but crap. The waves took the only good signal I heard in 4 hours. 

What is interesting is the coral sand here is very sticky, if you keep it in your scoop too long it gets hard to dump. If you dump it in the wrong place, expect the wash to put it back in the hole.

I thought maybe my karma ran out so I gave a homeless person $10 because overnight it was gonna be 28 degrees. 🤔 Saw her a couple days later.

Next day was a little better, both weather and temperature. I went South on the same beach I was on the previous day.

The sky was clear so it wasn't too cold.

Only had 4 hours again, I can only go out in the afternoon until it warms up here. The low tides are afternoon anyway 🤷‍♂️

The trash was more summer-like, even got a crusty hot wheel, but again it was barely worth it: 

$.06 and a completely shot through penny. 

Gotta say the Manticore isn't the problem, it's the zillions of people out here golf swinging their detectors and running all over the place. I feel bad for the better detectorists, they are also complaining about the dearth of targets on their blogs. I don't care, I'm glad to be detecting. My driveway back home is still 4" of ice. 😵

I switched to the M9 and lowered Recovery Speed from 6 to 4. I also noticed that I had to do a noise cancel despite not hearing anything, and that started me on my next days' finds:

Possibly hidden EMI? 🤔

I got a lot more coins than the previous 2 hunts: 

It was a perfect day, low wind and sunny, got up to 70.

I went further south to a beach I heard about. Only saw one detectorist out there! With my changed settings I was getting "greenies" at a foot down or more, and the 9" pinpoints so well retrieval was fast. However, the last two days the waves were 7-10 feet, and the double and triple washes stole at least 5 good targets from me, I think one was a chain. The slope is pretty steep so I couldn't chase it to the trough.

Tomorrow we go to another hotel that is on the beach, we booked that a year ago for my birthday week, hopefully things will improve. 🙏🤞

Al E. Gator was back:

A very brave Blue heron in the alligator pond: 

And something I've never seen before, a 9-armed Sea Star.

🍀

 

[mn90403]

Nice long report and I know the beach conditions well as I grew up there as a kid a bit north of where you are.

A 'wash' technique I use on occasions that I'm willing to get wet (I wear knee high fishing boots) is to leave the target in the hole as long as possible.  After a wave you hope it is still there and when you get down to it and you don't hear it any more to carry it and dump it out of the water of course.  If you missed it you can still go back but if it is too small for your scoop then sometimes you just can't get them all.

Cold air, high waves, strong winds and random targets is only 'fun' for the experience but as you say doesn't produce the goodies you would like.

[F350Platinum]

2 minutes ago, mn90403 said:

Nice long report and I know the beach conditions well as I grew up there as a kid a bit north of where you are.

A 'wash' technique I use on occasions that I'm willing to get wet (I wear knee high fishing boots) is to leave the target in the hole as long as possible.  After a wave you hope it is still there and when you get down to it and you don't hear it any more to carry it and dump it out of the water of course.  If you missed it you can still go back but if it is too small for your scoop then sometimes you just can't get them all.

Cold air, high waves, strong winds and random targets is only 'fun' for the experience but as you say doesn't produce the goodies you would like.

Thanks mn,

I'm definitely no stranger to the "magic disappearing target", I'll keep digging, carrying the scoop of sand higher on the beach even if I don't hear anything, then go back to the hole and check again. That has happened a lot too. 😅 Got a few of those! 

Sometimes I'll just scoop like a madman if the water stays away for a bit.

What's really sad is to see the wash carry the target to the trough, it's pretty deep here and I'm not prepared for deeper water hunting. 😬

No matter, I'm in Sunny Florida instead of Frozen Virginia. 🤣

[Lodge Scent]

The scenery, fresh air and exercise compensated for the dearth of good finds F350. Still over a foot of snow on the ground here and temps well below freezing for the 3rd consecutive week. I am getting withdrawal symptoms from not getting my detecting fix! The only good news is that I got an email today saying my stereo headphones will arrive tomorrow. I'll have something to tinker with anyway while waiting for the snow to melt.

Interesting sea star! 

 

Lodge

[F350Platinum]

6 hours ago, Lodge Scent said:

The scenery, fresh air and exercise compensated for the dearth of good finds F350. Still over a foot of snow on the ground here and temps well below freezing for the 3rd consecutive week. I am getting withdrawal symptoms from not getting my detecting fix! The only good news is that I got an email today saying my stereo headphones will arrive tomorrow. I'll have something to tinker with anyway while waiting for the snow to melt.

Interesting sea star! 

 

Lodge

Thanks Lodge, 

Yeah, never seen one of them before but they're quite common here, as are alligators. 😬 Luckily no "salties" on the beach anyway so far... There have been reports of iguanas dropping from trees during the cold snap (24°) I'm too far north for that. 🤔

Air isn't as fresh here as it is back home, my rural area doesn't smell of diesel and other exhaust products, even the water and food is an "adjustment".

But I'm toughing it out... 😏 

BTW i ordered one pair of WSA-ST headphones and then got another immediately from another place. I have 2 RC's, so that's cool, but they are either on mail hold or UPS hold until I get back 🫤

[The_Stalker]

One thing I do when I am losing targets on the beach is switch to the Tarsacci.  It is not as deep as the Deus 2 and the tones are not as descriptive as the Deus 2, but it pin points very well on the beach.  I have a problem pin pointing with the Deus 2 sometime and when I know I only have a couple of scoops before the target is gone, I prefer a great pin pointing machine over a deep machine.  If you can only get a few scoops before the target is gone, the deepest machine is not always the best machine.  I know this doesn't help you on this trip, but I hope it helps in the future.

[F350Platinum]

4 hours ago, The_Stalker said:

One thing I do when I am losing targets on the beach is switch to the Tarsacci.  It is not as deep as the Deus 2 and the tones are not as descriptive as the Deus 2, but it pin points very well on the beach.  I have a problem pin pointing with the Deus 2 sometime and when I know I only have a couple of scoops before the target is gone, I prefer a great pin pointing machine over a deep machine.  If you can only get a few scoops before the target is gone, the deepest machine is not always the best machine.  I know this doesn't help you on this trip, but I hope it helps in the future.

Thanks!

I've considered getting an Algoforce or something PI related but never having experience on a PI puts me on another tack that I'm not sure I want to go. 🤔 I'm digging deep enough for me already, and my right hip is starting to go from all that scoop torque. 😅 Started last year with all these beach hunting trips... 😬

The Manticore is ridiculously good at pinpoint, I agree the Deus isn't, but all the same I love them both, I've said over and over they compliment each other like your D2 and Tarsacci.

Gotta say I really haven't found anything with the Manticore that I haven't with the Deus 2, categorically, but I'll give the Mcore a nod on small/thin gold, pending the new updates to the D2 and using the HF2.

The M15 isn't as good as the M9 for pinpointing, but it's worlds better than the D2 with any coil. 🙂 The 9" coils on both are best in the water, and I find the large ellipticals false less on junk in the dry than the rounds.

Much respect for your advice. 👍

🍀

[Joe Beechnut OBN]

All I can say is stay another week. Cold front coming thru late Friday to Monday late. If all holds, Tuesday... snow is going to start melting and temps are going to be like summer.. up to 40F. 

Hoping with all of these super cold days there is going to be some frost heaving of targets.

 

Be Safe and continue having fun. 🏴‍☠️

 

[stupot]

Just beautiful photos!