I hunt approx. 40% private...60% public and hate door knocking but sometimes ya gotta do it. My experience has been the newer homes (40-50's) have less trash, coins aren't so deep, less chance of foundation re-do's, less old burn piles in yard and maybe more silver than the 100 yr old places. No consistancy from one place to another....some produce...some don't? Just gotta hunt them as best you can and keep your fingers crossed? I seem to gravitate towards where I "think" the virgin dirt is. Gotta be a detective...ask homeowner what he knows about any fill work, what they changed around the yard, info about previuos owners, any work on foundation, utility work, where the old clothes line was, any of that kinda stuff? I like to hunt where they park their car so sometimes the back yard is way better than the front depending on where they parked, etc. I prefer to hunt public but it only takes a couple good privates to up the silver count where in my area it seems the public spots are more of a grind....you just keep pounding away and grind out a coin but they slowly add up. My guess is half my silver comes from private (less hrs hunting) and the other half comes from public (more hrs hunting).....?????
Another thing I noticed about hunting privates in my experience....the juicier it looks, the less it produces? G4E made a comment about that and it went something like this "If it looked good to you...it probably looked good to someone else". I got soooo excited this past winter lining up 2 real JUICEY looking privates that I knew where really gonna produce and one had such a fancy lawn that I'm sure I lost 5-6 inches on sod alone and the other I "think" has had the piss hunted outta it and I tried 2 different machines, 3 different coils (etrac), gridding, etc. and got a few 5-6 wheaties crumbs and clad after 5 different hunts? TTF might unlock some goodies but I can't seem to warm up to TTF just yet....
Rained out today so maybe a trip to town for some door knocking might be in order.............????
