. Now analysis and Statistics tell us there has to be some gold in this field as hundreds of people are on this field from September until November and again April thru September again. I am approaching 30 .925 rings but no gold.
Makes me think......
Would I be better off with a second detector better designed to detect gold?
Thoughts?
Numbers and statistics are fine but if you believe in them 100% you are sure to be disappointed...as you seem to be now.
Maybe there SHOULD be gold hiding there at that site with the history but that doesn't mean there actually IS gold hiding there, although in that site with that history I would assume the same.
Second, would you be better off using another detector thinking it will find gold better...definitely no.
I see you are on a quest for gold and that I understand because in 2013, after finding 3 gold rings in the dirt in parks by March I made the insane goal to find 12 for that year...and I did exactly that.
Also I am nowhere a dig it all hunter, I got tired of doing that long ago, what I am is a dig it all
solid signal hunter which means I avoid about 80-85% of all the signals I get out there and mostly just go after the solid, repeating ones no matter where they are...and every one of my golden targets came in super solid over the years no matter which detector I used at the time.
I see what you stated you dug so far to find that gold, was every target a solid one like coins usually are or are you digging just everything in the areas I showed in those pics?
Digging a ton of trash will definitely frustrate you which is why I dig the least trash possible and learned how to do it that way...over time.
Not saying you or anyone else should do it this way but that is the way I choose to do this hobby.
This quest will drive you crazy if you let it and it takes awhile for you to find that first piece of gold, and gold fever gets much more intense AFTER you find your first one, BTW.
Let me try to help of at least explain my point of view about this whole, searching for gold, thing.
The three things you need to actually find gold out there are this...
A site where gold is actually hiding
A competent tool to find it and that means not only the ability to find it but you spending time learning that tool so well if you do ever roll over some you will actually feel inspired to dig it despite it being a trash signal...which most of my gold targets have been.
And three, luck, which you can never discount in this hobby.
Let me explain that luck thing.
You are lucky if you pick a site that has some gold hiding.
You are lucky if you happen to roll your coil over some which if you are into statistics dig this...a gold ring takes up about one square inch in the ground.
Look at the size of your site, any site for that matter and do the math.
To get a small coil over any good target, jewelry or coins, in areas that are bigger than just a few square feet it is remarkable that we can do that at all.
Sure, even a blind squirrel can find a nut here and there but in reality so much can affect the signals we aquire, how we perceive them and how they behave in ways that trigger us to dig them which brings me to that third lucky thing you need to find gold successfully..
You need luck on that day and that moment that you not only roll over it but you came at it from the exact right direction, speed and angle that triggered you to dig it and had decent ground conditions that let you do all that.
Masking issues are huge out there, more than you might realize, and just the littlest piece of foil, aluminum, iron or any other junk in the vicinity can change any signal in one of two ways...for better or worse.
Targets might be different in dry soil vs wet, they can behave differently in mineralized dirt vs clean.
Also shape and condition of the target can change things, smashed rings don't come in like fully formed rings, rings with broken or even just cracked bands can be completely different signals than rings that aren't damaged...and so on.
I say all this because I tend to hunt the same sites over and over and over and I can tell you for sure that at some sites I had hunted and scoured and dug all solid signals as per my rules I still found gold not on my first hunt, second, third of many more but it took closer to 8,9 or 10 or more trips before I happened to find gold.
Oh that day on that hunt I just happened to but that gold target from the exact right way, speed and direction.
My skills didn't change during each hunt, most times I used the same detector and even the same coil but that lucky day it all happened to come together for me to find that precious metal.
This experience was not unique, either, it has happened to me many times over and that is one reason I go back to the same sites and the exact same areas time and time again and a big reason I don't believe any site is ever completely hunted out.
This 22k ring illustrates this point.
This was a small area in front of a picnic pavilion, it is actually a small hill that is perfect for sitting and looking at the lake and I hit it way more than a dozen times and found many coins including about 6 Mexican coins I never found before so over time I targeted this area and hit it hard and dug every solid signal I came across from many directions with more than one detector and type of coil every time I came to this huge park...which was a lot.
Then, one day after a long winter, the sun came out and I came back to this site just to get out and dig after the winter layoff.
The ground was frozen, I could hardly chip out any coins from another area I was at so I came back to hunt this bill because kept was sitting in the sun for awhile so I figured it would be thawed out a tiny bit down to an inch or two, anyway, and I was correct.
I was happy digging anything, coins were great but even foil and tabs were dug, (as long as they were solid), because it was just great to dig anything after sitting it out for weeks.
At this site, on this hill that I had gone over time and time and time again I came across a solid beaver tail tab signal...classic in numbers and tone except it was super solid and repeated from more than one direction.
I should have dug this before considering how many times I had run a coil over this hill but I never did because I guess never got this exact signal before this visit...don't ask me why but if I got this signal before, even from just one direction, I assure you I would have dug it.
Again, luck showed up and on this day on that exact spot on that hill I aquired a signal that was well within my strict digging rules and from no more than 2" deep this ring popped up.
My only 22k ring I ever found and one that I definitely missed so many times before but on this hunt luck was with me.
Now there are sites where I do literally dig it all but that is only because I have been so shockingly successful doing that.
These aren't huge sites at all, these sites are on the sidelines of volleyball but especially basketball courts.
Again, sometimes I find the good stuff on one of my first hunts and sometimes I find it after many hunts but these kinds of sites are so trashy that you can easily miss something so, over time and with repeated visits, I dig the solid stuff first and eventually even the iffy stuff to get it out of the way to see if masks something better.
At one site like this, a very tiny area between two courts that had been hunted tons of times by a club member that lived in the area and also by myself and another club member friend where he found a very nice silver ring on his first hunt.
After that happened I vowed to go back with a sniper coil on my F2 and target this tiny area and dig it all.
The first hunt with the sniper I found a gold ring with a diamond that I liked so much I had it resized so I could wear it myself.
On the very next hunt I was lucky enough to find 2 more gold rings including another with more diamonds...none of these were anything but trash area targets and all were missed by myself and others for years but in this case digging it all in this tiny but high percentage type of site paid off...big time.
So basically what I am saying is you need to calm down and not make yourself so crazy.
The area you are hunting is big so take your time and examine the solid signals you get carefully from more than one direction and dig those for sure.
Gold is actually a rare item to find, there are people that have done this hobby for decades and never found any despite wanting to for all those years so making yourself crazy because you hunted an area once or even a few times and still didn't find any is just a fools errand, in my opinion, a big, frustrating waste of time.
Dig solid foil, nickel and tab areas for sure and have patience, lots more patience, because if your experience is going to be anything like my gold hunting experience gold will show up when you least expect it and never when you demand it show up despite how good you think the site you are hunting is.
To paraphrase... "Relax, pay attention and gold will come...eventually".
You have a great tool that can easily find gold and I know this because most of the targets in those pics were found by kept Fisher detectors.
When yours does it can definitely tell you it has...so let it.