question for all those experienced beach hunters

[TRIPLE-SSS]

I HAVE NOT BEEN DOING THIS VERY LONG,BUT FOR THE FEW TIMES THAT I HIT THE BEACH, I'VE HAD GOOD LUCK FINDING COINS AND OTHER UNWANTED ITEMS,ABOUT $5.00 DOLLAR AVERAGE FIND. 99 % OF WHAT I FIND IS ALL NEW. I'M SPEND ABOUT 2 TO 3 HOURS AVERAGE WHEN I HUNT.
I HAVE 2 QUESTIONS;
QUESTION 1--- IN YOUR EXPERIENCE, WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE ON YOUR FINDS ON THE DRY BEACH VS. IN THE WATER. I ONLY HIT THE DRY BEACH,
QUESTION 2--- WHAT ARE SOME OF THE FACTORS THAT CONTRIBUTE TO NOT BEING ABLE TO REALLY FIND THOSE OLD COINS THAT ARE SO ILLUSIVE. PEOPLE HAVE BENN USING THE BEACHES FOR DECADES , SO I AM REALLY PUZZLED. I DO HAVE SOME IDEAS BUT WOULD REALLY LIKE TO GET YOUR INPUT BECAUSE I'M REALLY NEW TO THIS HOBBY.
REALLY WOULD APPRECIATE SOME OF YOUR
IDEAS AND INPUT, ESPECIALLY THOSE OLD
TIMERS I'VE BEEN READING ABOUT.

THANKS
TRIPLE-SSS FROM TEXAS

 

[bdahunter]

Welcome to the Hobby and Find's Forum. Before I answer your questions I'll offer you a word of advice, please don't type your posts in all capital letters. It's the forum equivalent of yelling when you talk.
I've found well over 100 gold and silver rings over the past few years and only two of them came from the dry sand, both were silver and both were nitros. Around 90% of the other rings came from the water, mostly chest deep or better. A few were in the wet sand/surfs edge.
Old coins are hard to find especially in the dry sand because everyone with a metal detector or even just a keen pair of eyes have been picking up those coins since the first detectors hit the beaches decades ago, any land detector will work at least somewhat in the dry sand. A lot of people have been hunting the dry stuff for a lot of time before you got into the hobby so only old coins recently washed up by heavy surf or possibly deposited by replenishment will be available to you unless you can find a secluded beach that few have hunted up until now, say a private beach thats guarded by a rabid pit bull. Most of the loot out there is in the water as fewer people have underwater detectors and fewer detectorists stick it out in the water. Nice to surf pirate on a warm summer day with calm water but try it when the water is cooler, the waves are crashing and you're freezing your cahones off and risking your neck for a pull tab and see if you don't get fond memories of digging 4 inches in a shady park.
I think that hunting the water is the best part of the sport of metal detecting, it's full contact, it's challenging and if you get good at it, really rewarding. It's also not everybody's cup of tea.

Good hunting to you,

BDA

 

[blacksander]

Hi bda hunter that was a great post brilliant description .The surf is where its at.

 

[Cupajo]

I've spent my share of hours/days in the salt water and have had the pleasure of digging up 6 gold rings in a 3-4 hour time period twice in three years back in the early '80's. After a 20 year lapse of hunting activity I find that the "Glory Days" are gone!!! Not to say that there are no finds out there any more, but that they take a lot more effort and excellent equipment to find.

In the past 4 months or so that I have been "Back in the Game", I've found 10 gold rings and have had to work my buns off to find them using every bit of my hard earned knowledge too!!! They are almost all old (their condition and dates tell the tale) and small!!! Only one ring of real braggin size. I'm hunting the same ground where years ago I took out over 250 gold rings in a 3 year period!!! so I guess I'm partly to blame for the poor returns today.

As a newcomer to "The Hunt" welcome and I wish you happy hunting and plenty of great finds. In my experience most of my finds were within 50' of dry sand and that continues to be true. That doesn't mean that a hunter is wasting his time in deeper water, but if you watch a beach crowd's traffic patterns however, you'll notice as I have that most of the activity at most beaches is fairly close to shore. The nicest diamonds I've ever found were less than 6' feet from the waters edge at low tide!!! It follows that search effort is best used where there is heaviest traffic. I know hunters who rarely enter that zone and still do well. Too, many more hunters hit that zone hard, so perhaps deeper may produce better where hunting is heavy.

With experience you will certainly figure it out for yourself.

GL&HH Friend,

Cupajo

 

[TRIPLE-SSS]

Thanks for your info., that pretty much confirms my suspicions regarding my questions. I'll take your advice.

 

[dcat]

I would like to know this too
thanks

 

[Kyle in Sac]

I'm no expert but have been swinging a detector since about 2001 on and off. I used to have a Minelab explorer and a White's classic and found mostly clad coins a handful of silver coins and I only once found a ring to brag about. I wanted to try hunting beaches after seeing all the loot on this forum so I got a Minelab again (excal 800) because my explorer was a great machine and I haven't really been disappointed. I got 3 rings in the first couple of weeks hunting in the water. I still hit dry sand but the difference I see is that the water has less targets to dig and they are better usually. The dry sand has a bunch of targets and most are junk. That's just my experience with my area but I generally don't like to hit the dry stuff unless I'm cold from being in the water too long. At low tide early in the morning without a wet suit that happens.