Do you guys hunt with discrimination?

[Tristan]

Hey all, this is my first post here. I am 15 years old and live in socal. I recently aquired a Minelab Explorer XS a couple months ago, and have had good success. Gotten some rosies, mercs, 2 silver quarter and lots of wheats. My question for all you expierienced Explorer hunters is do u guys hunt with dicrimination. When i first started i was in all metal with iron mask at about -10. But i guess i started to try my disc pattern with all notched but zinc and higher, and nickles. I have noticed that my depth has been decreased and i cant seem to get anything really below 7" as ive done this, but everytime i go to try it back in allmetal, the swarm of tones everywhere just turns me off and i go back to my disc pattern. Do u guys have any tips that i can do to try and get all the swarming tones down to a minimum, or anything else that i could try, or will it just take some getting used to and practicing? Thanx in advance, and sorry for the long post.

HH Tristan

 

[Ray(MaconGA)]

Hey Tristan, I usually only use minimal discrimination, usually IM @ -15, w/ ferrous tone,deep on and fast off, after awhile you just seem to tone out all of the noise (Iron) and you get used to it. HH
Ray

 

[Mike (Virginia Beach)]

...I do that in my head. As for the machine, no.

I usually run IM -16, so that as Ray says, I can hear everything. I switch back and forth between Smartfind and Digital modes to see what's what. I want to see what they both say. I run Ferrous sound. Based on all 3 factors (but the tone and numbers mostly) I will decide whether or not to dig. But the reason for running no disc on the machine is that if you're in an iron-rich area (or an area with a lot of the items you have discriminated out) then the detector will be "nulling" a lot. And during that null cycle, it won't be picking up that Barber dime or that button, bullet, ring...whatever that's next to the junk. If you listen to the junk it'll let you hear the good stuff that's nearby too.

Yes, it's a little more difficult to mentally process what you're hearing. But I'm fast learning that the folks who do the awesome things with the Explorers that has given them their reputation are the ones that have learned to listen to everything and dig what sounds good. Of course you have to dig a lot of the junk too until you get to know what "good" sounds like. But to me it's worth the effort because it's paying off.