1830-1900's GHOST TOWN, Deep Iffy signals

[DirtDean]

I was at an old ghost town site today for a few hours. I was lucky enough to get permission from land owner after hours of reasearch and driving around. There's basically nothing left, no landmarks, everyone seems to have different ideas as to where original buildings were...etc. very difficult site to pin down. mostly woods, thickets, brambles and tall grassland. anyway, so i was on this persons property which is in sight of the old cemetary, right next to a natural spring, and maybe a hundred yards or more from where the first official building is said to have been in town. This site has known civil war activity, indian annuities being paid in gold coins, a stage stop, and some other interesting activities going on back then. You can imagine how excited i was to actually get permission to go detecting on this site and really see what the e-trac could do. The property i was on covers several acres and is all mowed down by cows grazing and was super easy digging in most places, almost like really fine sand. Ran in manual mostly from 26 to MAX with very little falsing. Started out swinging down to the spring and made my way towards a gigantic tree. upon circling the tree i got a deeep signal. Fe #'s were bouncing like crazy, but the Co #'s would stay around 44-48....sounded sweet back and forth, turned ninety degrees and signal would just clip both ways. piinpointed and dug a plug, eeeaaassy diggin. got down to about eight inches and scanned the hole...no signal. so i scanned the pile of dirt...no signal. scanned the surrounding area..nothing. reluctantly filled the huge hole i made and moved on. overall, there was very few signals, but when i would get one it was reall iffy. any pointers out there for deep iffys, cause i'm going back with a minisharpshooter and hope fully don't get ran off for the size of holes i'll be diggin. Only recovered two items...a brass sprinkler attachment for a garden hose(2 inches deep) and a old ring pulltab under some great big trees in the clearing (4inches deep) I know this site has potential for an experienced detectorist. any tips or advice for deep iffy signals is greatly appreciated. DEAN

 

[holey dollar]

DirtDean,
First off i am from the Tesoro Site, Anyway those targets you talked about are quite common, they could be deep iffy targets like you stated or you could have the Halo effect, You dig down for any target and its gone, no target no nothing, this is most likely old rusted iron in the ground as you dig the target it breaks up more often into dust, and you loose the target, no signal nothing.Makes things worse when you get a good loud hit on the target then its gone.
Upside of this is sounds like your maybe in an old spot, i love the old convict depot sites in West Australia, i would go back time and time again to where you got those signals, sweep your foot over the ground before you dig,small crap like shotgun pellets can be lost that way before you start to dig,

Good Luck
Dave..............

 

[DirtDean]

I'm just glad other people have experienced this phenomenon, thought i was goin crazy or my machine was. WHEW! Thanks for the tip and yes it is a fairly old site for this part of the country. The first people began to arrive there in early 1820's, so the good stuff will be deep. Goodluck on all your diggs. DEAN

 

[bradley]

hey dean if theres not alot of trash i would hunt with no disc and when you do get a signal you should be able to tell by how high the fe numbers are if it is iron good luck sounds like a nice place to go

 

[rbholt80]

The few ghost towns that I have hunted had loads of iron in them. If your in a spot that should be a town then there should be plenty of iron. I look for iron and nails. Once i find the old iron I know that im in the place that the activity of actual living took place.
So to have homes and a town they had to use nails and iron. Wagons had iron, horses had iron shoes and nails to hold them on and many things were made from iron. If your not getting iron in every sweep or other sweep of the coil then your probably not in a place that had the activity. Move around till you find the site.

Another trick I use is to look for plants or trees that are not like the others in the area. Those odd plants and trees had to be put there by someone. I look for trees planted in straight rows even in the woods. Lillis were popular back in the old days and they come back every year even if the land was clear cut once for logging. Fruit trees are blooming around this time of year so theres something to look for also.

With a creek near by then i would walk the banks and try to find evidence of the old town and start from there if I could. The creek would be a perfect place to dump things and they probably would have dumped down stream from town at least an acre. And the pore folks would have used the creek to baith in so they probly lost stuff wile hanging there clothes on limbs near the creek.

those are some of the things I use to find old populated places I hope this helps you out. Dont get upset and give up. Keeps investigating and you will find the virgin ghost town.

PS look for old topo maps of near by towns or areas and one may just have some info that will help you.

 

[DirtDean]

First day at the site wasn't very productive in terms of coins...in fact the only thing i found which appears to be of anything close to monetary value is a piece of two different spoons which appear to be silver...found some iron, lead bullets(smashed), and a chunk of pure copper the size of a pancake! Can't wait to get back out there, and see what i dig up next time. All in All there were very few targets at all, so i ran mostly wide open screen and sens with little falsing, sometimes i would lower to 27-28, but soon it would be back to max. Surprisingly enough for such an old place, the deepest thing i dug was the chunk of copper at about six inches. Am working on getting permission for a place next door too. I just wish it wasn't a forty minute drive one-way to get there. Good thing i got a 4 banger! HH DEAN

 

[alton]

For whatever reason, it seems that my finds diminish whenever I hunt an area where cattle are. I'm not sure exactly why. I've always felt like they might trample the finds down a little deeper or their manure may change the mineral content of the ground enough to make a difference. This is especially true when cattle are currently still there.

 

[DirtDean]

Very interesting you should say that.(about the cows) I was wondering along those lines, Also just about every shovelful of dirt i pulled out had earthworms in it. I was wondering if the worms can work targets deeper into the ground? Most of the land is ultra soft, loamy even. I barely had to step on my shovel, which was also a contributing factor i think. went back today and found some bullet casings and bullets. Through research, trial and error, and help from here i believe i am beginning to narrow down a few potential hotspots. Though i'm pretty sure the obvious spots have been hit before, i bet they didn't have an etrac for the iron which is aplenty!

 

[fireball10x]

Do you have a pinpointer?I've had signals like that and found i moved the coin and lost the halo so i couldn't get a signal when i rechecked it then i scooped a little more out of the hole and there was the coin,I've been using pinpointers for the last 5 years so I don't have that problem any more..I also had where something rusted to nothing and detected the halo and after i dug and destroyed the halo it was gone and I also seen where you get a reflection or shadow from a peice of iron and your detecting it.But if the ground is that soft the targets may be beyond the detectors depth. hope this helps Ron

 

[DirtDean]

I definitely need to invest in a pinpointer. I can see where one would make my life a heck of alot easier