General metal detecting question regarding floods

[OregonMike]

Hi,

Research has led me to several areas that should be pretty good for detecting, but I recently learned that they had been flooded two feet deep way back about 70 years ago.

My guess would be that flooding pretty much ruins the prospects for detecting because either all kinds of silt and mud get laid down on top of the ground, burying the targets too deep to detect, or, the ground gets scrubbed and the targets get scattered downriver.

Does that make sense? I decided to try it anyway, but my first efforts, (6 hours) have been pretty fruitless, and I was just wondering if anyone out there had studied the impact of flooding on metal detecting.

Thanks,

Mike

 

[Southwind]

Our city park sits along side the Arkansas River which used to flood on average every 30-40 years. Chances are this isn't the first flood your area has seen either. Each flood left behind from 3-6" of mud making the older stuff really deep. This is a 131 year old park. For some 20 years we hunted this park and never found anything but the occasional wheat that was a more recent drop. In 1991 I bought the first detector that could reliably get below 6" and it changed that park completely. In the next few years I pulled over 2000 old coins out of a fairly small main area that we had thought was void of old coins. The old coins in this park are very deep. Some as deep as 24" or more. It took the right detector to open that park up and it has taken high end detectors to keep it producing.

We found another park in a small town a few miles away that is the same way. It sits along side the river and had been flooded many time as well. The coins in that park are also very deep and out of the range of most detectors.

 

[Rick(ND)]

I have a couple of old Parks in Fargo, ND that is next to the river and they flood every year and over the years we have picked out a lot of coins both new and old. Both are considered worked out by many and so many don't even try it while some do and get the new coins that are recent drops. Now in 1997 I got a Minelab Sovereign and learned it well and decided to try it and the first time there I got a 1876 seated dime and a few IH pennies. Next i tried the other park on a challenge from a guy saying if the Sovereign was so good he wanted me to find one old coin he missed with his detector in a area he worked every which way. I got around 15 new coins and 71 old coins in 18 hours total with some at 4 inches deep and some as deep as 12 inches. The reason I feel is many were nails close to the coins which or detectors average the signal as trash, the deeper ones were only a tone change on both the Sovereign and the Explorers.
Several thing I feel why is the newer coins and the loud signals were gone so you could go slow and listen closely, trash beside the coins and knowing your detector well and know what it is telling you, plus you do have to have patience.
I went back to one of the parks with 2 other guy using other detectors and got a weak one with my Explorer and neither one could get it even in all metal and said nothing there, but did a lot of digging after I pinpointed it and after I was down around 12 inches I popped out a silver dime size coin and figured it had to be seated or barber, but it was a silver Rosie yet about 3 feet away got a 1889 IH penny at 6 inches, so it is kind of odd to see the difference in depth.

Rick

 

[jim tn]

I know the two old parks Rick is talking about, each get flooded about annually by the Red River. I have hunted them on occasion over the year's on trips up there. I found mostly new coins, but one outing with a regular F 75 did get 1 barber dimes and a couple of wheat cents, if I remember correctly. Neither were all that deep, 4 and maybe 7", but trash was nearby each. I have hunted a few other flooded spots and some areas do seem to collect silt and others not so much. Good luck! HH jim tn

 

[OregonMike]

Thanks to those who have responded. I'm out in a field where supposedly there was a lot of activity in the 1940's. However, there was a flood there in 1946. I haven't found anything yet from before 1960.
I'm wondering which of these might be true:

1--Someone has already hunted it.
2--My research is wrong and nothing really happened there.
3--There is a house nearby, maybe the ground was disturbed when the house was built and everything got moved.
4--The flood of 1946 laid a bunch of new dirt over the top of it, burying the "treasures" too deep for me to detect.
5--The flood scrubbed the land and took the "treasures" with it, leaving them spread haphazardly in other places.

The only one that gives me any hope at all is #4, and that's only if I get a bigger coil. I should probably have one anyway. But that will open a whole new line of questions...like how big and which one...?

Any other thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks,

Mike

 

[jim tn]

One other thought. Money was mighty tight for everyone in the 40's and particularly farmers. They may not have had much to loose. HH jim tn

 

[Elton]

Fast moving floods move soil. Slow moving on the low end deposits dirt and debris .......So you have to try it and see what you find..

 

[Rick(ND)]

I agree with Jim as those farm sites around here are mostly bad, but once in a while you do find one that has a little stuff that was lost. If a person can find one of the bigger farmer from years ago where they had many hired men working for them and living in a bunk house on the farm. These there were no TVs to watch, so most sat outside in the evening and may dink a few beers under a big tree. I have also seen one from the late 1800- early 1900 that had several hired men and also have a few kids in the 40s and 50s live on this site. It just took me a while to hit some coins, but you have to have patience. I did find a little silver, quite a few Wheaties and 6 or 7 IH pennies plus some old toy cars and a few pins that fell off of lady's dresses. Most it seems people never had any money or had no reason to carry it while on the farm working as it was kept inside for when they went to town.
First thing I look for is other trash and if I see a lot of rusty nuts and bolts I know I am in the shop area and not much is lost there, If i am picking up some pieces of toys like little cars I know this is probably where the kids played while finding some metal off of cloths pins I know I am the cloth line which is good and work that area along with kids play at. I find you got to work area where many people have been and for us the farm fields we see and read about are not good at all unless you had a ball Field in it where many ball game were played.

 

[fowlercharles]

Hi Mike, I think your thoughts about the flooding is right on! I hunt several river ferry crossings and have found the low areas that are prone to yearly flooding are covered over with deep layers of silt and have never found anything other than beer cans etc. most always at pretty good depths. Unless your river runs through hard bottomed rock I would say there is not much going to be found in the lower flood prone areas because of the silt that moves in every year. At crossings the goods will be found on the high ground where folks camped waiting for the high water to go down. However,,, if your "areas" only got flooded the one time 70 years ago, and not yearly, ever since, it might be worth a second look. Chances are though that there will be some of those areas that do get high water nearer the river itself so there will be the silting for sure. HH ,Charlie

 

[Dancer]

Ore. Mike. What machine are you using? And about how long have you been hunting? Just wondering. Can't worry too much if a place has been hunted.Once your there you just got to give it a good going over. Than decide should you go back.

 

[OregonMike]

Ore. Mike. What machine are you using? And about how long have you been hunting? Just wondering. Can't worry too much if a place has been hunted.Once your there you just got to give it a good going over. Than decide should you go back.

Hi, Dancer,

I have an etrac and a v3i. I've been hunting for 9 years. On this particular spot, it was once on the property of a picnic grounds, although on this particular place I don't know if it was ever used for that. That's one thing I'm trying to learn. This place was shut down in 1944 or so and sold to private landowners. In 1953 a house was built on it, but there's still a lot of open field. I just got permission there a few weeks ago as new people are moving in and haven't occupied the property yet. I hunted 6 hours and found nothing older than 1960. Then I learned from another source about how there was a dam that was filling up too fast, so the folks in charge had to make the call whether to let water out or to see if the dam would hold. They reluctantly decided to release water which flooded the area up to two feet deep. This took place in 1946, and we don't know if it's ever been flooded since then. So maybe it was just never used for much, maybe it has already been hunted, or maybe the flood covered up everything that could have been found there. Hard to say. I'll probably go back once we get some rain. Even a wheatie would give me some hope, but so far, no luck.

Mike

 

[jabbo]

The river floods every year where I live. The small towns along the river here go back to the 1700's. There has to be 1700's coins in the woods/fields but I think flooding buried them too deep. Modern soda cans are covered with a good 4 inches of soil, I dug plenty of them. I did dig a small coin spill at least 6 inches deep ( 2 seated dimes, a nickel 3 cent piece and a IH penny). I dug only 3 individual coins in that flood area (Merc, Barber dime, Jeff nickel). The deep soda cans tells me the old coins are too deep to detect.

 

[OregonMike]

The river floods every year where I live. The small towns along the river here go back to the 1700's. There has to be 1700's coins in the woods/fields but I think flooding buried them too deep. Modern soda cans are covered with a good 4 inches of soil, I dug plenty of them. I did dig a small coin spill at least 6 inches deep ( 2 seated dimes, a nickel 3 cent piece and a IH penny). I dug only 3 individual coins in that flood area (Merc, Barber dime, Jeff nickel). The deep soda cans tells me the old coins are too deep to detect.

Hey, Jabbo,

Wow, what you did find was great!

We have a long history of floods here in western Oregon, so if you never went where there had been a flood, you would probably just never go anywhere. It's a miracle we find very many older coins at all.

So is the answer a bigger coil? And if so, do you have a preference? I'm currently debating between a 13 inch and a 15 inch for my e-trac.

Mike

 

[jabbo]

Mike, I don't know what the answer is as far as coils go. My biggest coil is 9.5 inches. I stay away from the river because of the frequent flooding and the tall weeds. Maybe that's the best answer. Jabbo