Divine Intervention With Equinox E600

[Tiftaaft]

I was invited to a permission by my hunting partner and friend Flysar yesterday... a turn of the century Rodeo Grounds and Picnic area.  He has hunted this location a few times previously, and has found a Barber Quarter, a Barber Dime and a Buffalo, but warned me that the targets are sparse and the ground is loaded with iron.  We were both very curious about what the Equinox could do in this environment. 

There were three of us hunting, I had the E600, he had his Deus and the third was swinging an AT Max.  We started by marking a few targets.. I set out in Park 1, 50 tone, Recovery 3 and Iron Bias 0.  I marked 6 targets and he marked about the same with his deus.  As I mentioned in another thread, the Equinox was deadly on deep rusty iron.  In a few cases, it was even giving me id's in the high 20's-low 30's and never bouncing up to high 30's.  The Deus on the other hand, marked 6 or 7 old rusty bottle caps (a few of which the Equinox showed in the zinc range... 18-21).   I will say, when comparing the marked targets between the three machines... we usually ended up with 1 "I would dig it" (and usually from the machine that marked the target), and 2 "I wouldn't dig it" by the other two machines.  So, with the testing results ending inconclusive, we decided to break off and hunt.  Over all we spent a solid 3 hours around the entrance and stadium of the rodeo grounds and other than Flysar finding a wheat, no old coins were found, only a few pennies, a clad dime and a clad quarter between the three of us.  We decided to call it a day... mostly discouraged.

As my friends drove away, I decided to take one more pass on the outside edge of the grounds, near the horse trailer entrance next to a large pasture.  My first target was the penny with a cross stamped out in the middle.  I thought to myself... "well that is a good sign".  Within 30 minutes, in an area about 20 yards square... the other 5 targets in the picture along with the cross penny were in my pocket.  I had spent all morning chasing iffy and sometimes repeatable high tones, digging all manner of iron bits (one square nail, which I was happy to find), working hard to try and make good targets out of the clicks and wheezes... and boom! these targets came in with roundness of tone and clarity.  No doubt they were diggable.  The three silver dimes all presented at 26-28, the war nickel was 13-14, the wheat was 24-26 and was the deepest at about 5".  The other targets were 3-4".  Interestingly enough, the ground in this area was dense and hard packed, but not dry... it had plenty of moisture, but it nearly took a digger to break the plug.  All three dimes hid inside the plug from my Carrot on '3' with not response.  I had to break open the plugs to find them with the pinpointer, and only after standing up to re-sweep the hole and plug with the 600 to find out where the target had gone. 

My takeaway is to never give up on a site, especially that has old ground.  The targets are out there. 

Thanks to Flysar for inviting me along and giving me my best silver day to date.  Tim.

 

[steveg]

Wow, REALLY good stuff, Tim!  Glad you "stuck around" and tried something just a little different!  You were REWARDED!!

Steve

[Vez]

Awesome keepers!  I too had a hard time trusting my machine at the start chasing deep iffy signals to only find iron.  Trust the machine m8 and you will save your back!

[Jackpine]

A great silver day Congrats!

[Guest Tnsharpshooter]

Nice finds and reporting as well.

Another Nox success story.

[Chase Goldman]

Great report.  Especially liked the discussion of target marking and comparison between the detectors.  Wonder how those marks might have sounded in various Equinox modes.  Just really illustrates the point that you need to hit a site with different detectors or at least different modes.  Diversity of tools is key.  Also, liked how you didn't give up and followed one last hunch and it paid off.

[Mark Gillespie]

Awesome, awesome ................. recoveries

[Tiftaaft]

2 hours ago, Chase Goldman said:

Great report.  Especially liked the discussion of target marking and comparison between the detectors.  Wonder how those marks might have sounded in various Equinox modes.  Just really illustrates the point that you need to hit a site with different detectors or at least different modes.  Diversity of tools is key.  Also, liked how you didn't give up and followed one last hunch and it paid off.

That is a good comment Chase (as always).  I keep saying I am swinging several machines in one housing.. I should have done some intra-Equinox comparisons to prove it.  I will do that next time.  

[bado1]

Congratulations on your excellent finds.

What Vez said, " trust your machine". This, of course takes some time on the machine and learning it's language.

I've got maybe 70 hours on the 800 and am growing more trusting of what it is telling me. I've yet to be surprised by an iffy signal being something good. This is gonna sound obvious, but the good targets sound good. The bad targets usually have a " tell" . They just don't sound solid. Yes, I get fooled...but I would rather get fooled then to miss a keeper. I've noticed my trash finds to good finds ratio getting closer. Am I leaving a good target behind? Probably. But I don't feel like I've missed any really good ones. I use the VDI numbers as just a rough guide relying more on the sound of the tones. Which is what I guess we all do as we get to know the machine better (any machine). I don't think I will truely be one with the machine until well in to the 100+ hours mark. I sure have dug more coins with the Nox in the short time I've had it than any other. It really likes round shapes. Round shapes sound really good regardless of their composition. Anyway, I'm rambling. Great work!

Dean

[Tiftaaft]

18 minutes ago, bado1 said:

Anyway, I'm rambling.

Ramble on Dean :)  

Thank you!  Great reminders..