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Gold Bug 2 for Micro Jewelry Hunting

N

NEBeachcomber

Member
I just had a thought about a new detector I'm thinking about purchasing for the upcoming beach hunting season...

If I were to purchase a Fisher Gold Bug 2 for micro-jewelry hunting in the dry sand on the beaches... would I want to buy the detector with a 6" or 10" search coil? :confused:

If you can think of any other pros / cons in my thinking please feel free to speak up.

-Rick
 
I think I would get the 6" coil simply because the dry sand tends to have much more trash, at least on the beaches I hunt. I read an article about using this detector in the dry sand a few years ago in Fisher's magazine. I thought about doing it but never did. If you do it how about keeping us up to date on how you're doing with it. I may have to re-think doing this as well.
Jerry
 
Tried that a couple years ago. Only small iron discrimination and you will find "ALL" other metal items. I never knew there was so much small shreds of foil on the beach. Don't even turn toward the wet as it goes bonkers. Found a few rings and a plated chain, guess I just never went over the good stuff. Sold it as the Elite and GT sure gave a far greater return in the good finds department. Good luck with your decision. John
 
I would recommend that you stay away from the Gold Bug unless you are detecting small gold nuggets in the desert. I have a better machine for small gold and coins, Tesoro LOBO ST. It has good discrimination for iron targets, waterproof coil, and can handle black sand and salt water beaches much better than a Gold Bug which I have used previously. I have found alot of very small gold and coins with the Lobo Super Trac and it is a great machine with fairly good depth. Still, I prefer the Minelabs as the Excals are much better beach machines. If you dont hunt beaches all the time the Lobo ST is great everywhere and is easy to use and has auto ground balance so it wont go out of whack quickly like the GB2. Really any good gold nugget detector will out preform a beach machine in the low end IMO. But you cant beat a Minelab period. If you could afford one of those GP4000s that would be the ultimate gold detecting machine with INCREDIBLE depth. They can detect the tiniest of gold superdeep but the discrimination sucks. Bob
 
I have tried gold machines on freshwater beaches. They are indeed sensitive to fine gold, but also to very very small bits of foil. You will dig and dig and dig for all those little foil pieces. I find it far better to have something a little less sensitive to small gold and small foil. Earring backs are not very valuable and the foil you have to dig to get them is incredible. The Gold Bug I had drove me crazy chasing foil and I had both large elliptical and smaller coils.

I also hunt with an Excalibur which works very well on the beach and in the water. I have a CZ-20 which works pretty well too, can be hip mounted easily and cherry picks a little better when you are in a hurry, but does not cover as well or as deep as the Excalibur with the DD coil.
 
Rick,like the others I tried a Gold bug ll for coin hunting and it just doesn't work.I understand its a great gold machine but for your intended use I would go to another detector.
 
A big Thank You to all who have responded to my question. I had just about convinced myself that using a Gold Bug 2 would be the perfect solution for finding all of that small gold jewelry in the dry ocean sand. While I do have other detectors for use in the wet sand and in the water... I had been preparing myself to lay out my hard earn cash to buy a Gold Bug 2. Judging by the response of the forum members... I'm quite pleased that I posted the question first! :happy:

-Rick
 
NE...I think the Tesoro brands ( Lobo, Tejon, Vaquero, Cibola ) with their higher frequency, work great in dry sand. I put the small, 5.75 coil on my Tejon and it finds small gold and bits of foil like crazy. It may take a while to traverse the beach with the small coil, but it goes DEEP and finds LOTS of small stuff.

And it's a multi use detector...for relics, coins and jewelry. I just can't use it in the wet sand, but I have other detectors for that. The Tesoros are light and easy to use.

Another option is to find a used Troy X3 or X5. Multi use detector as well and with the small coil, can find small stuff deep.
 
As I recall, Fisher had an article on their website about hunting micro-jewelry or some such. It was how I initially came to get a GoldBug and give it a try. Not for me, that kind of metal detecting. Way too much digging for tiny foil and low value targets. Also not for me is the higher frequency detectors which are also so sensitive to small foil that too much time is spent digging low value targets. You really have no idea just how many small bits of foil are down there till you take a GoldBug to the beach. There is a reason you don't see many of them out there. Save that detector for the goldfield where it was designed to operate.

For my money, it is the Excalibur in the water and an Explorer or E-Trac for the sand. You will spend more time digging good targets. Just my opinion, your mileage may vary.
 
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