REVIER
Well-known member
In a spot I have gone over a million times not only dedicated hunting but it is in an area I walk by most times as I enter and leave this park always swinging I find this thing yesterday.
After lots of decent rain recently and a few days of dry weather the conditions were perfect.
Soil had just the exact amount of moisture, digging plugs that stayed together was as easy as it gets around here, I had all kinds of good sounding sharp signals although most was iron or other trash.
It just doesn't get any better in this rough soil so I have to take advantage while it lasts.
I switched back to the big DD coil a couple of hunts back for better coverage, the sniper was mounted for weeks but I felt like a change was due.
On this short hunt I spent most of my time in the entrance to this park where I have found lots of great masked targets but not much left that are good signals to dig now so I am now down to digging almost any jumpy signal that isn't in iron...and even some iron signals that I usually wouldn't dig because there are too many drops to iron from those high tone falsing I get from rusted iron.
You just never know and I would rather dig something and maybe have a chance if being surprised than just walk around swinging the coil.
Like I said everything was unusually super easy to dig even the deeper stuff so what the heck.
No great surprise in that entry area, all signals I dug I suspected were trash and rust iron and they were, but the more I get out of here the the more I can check the area for other better targets that might be masked.
I walked around a couple other areas I have hit millions of times, ended up digging a clad dime I had missed before so I was up 10¢...a great hunt as far as I am concerned coming from areas with so few good hits nowadays.
I was heading out of the park on the way home and I tried something...I turned the F70 disc up to 65, DE speed, notched in nickels just in case some gold in that area might be hanging around, the sense was quiet at 97 and I pushed the thresh up from my normally low negative numbers to positive to see how high I could go.
Surprisingly I got it all the way up to +9 and this thing was eerily quiet...that is really rare anywhere I have ever hunted in any site in three states...weird.
All signals were great at these settings, I came across several pop top signals that I knew were pop tops but I dug them anyway just to see if something better was in the vicinity, tabs all jumped around like usual, can slaw jumped too and some of this stuff I left in the ground while digging some others but every guess I had was correct, I could tell the trash every time and another clad dime was here at 3" and that one I knew was good before I dug it.
Then I came across this signal right before I left the park.
High into the 85-87 quarter range but still a bit jumpy.
Switching back to all metal I swung over it again and got those same high numbers from 2 directions but still got some drops to iron...a few more than I like to see when hunting in this soil which up-averages all targets past 2-3" on my Fisher, this one was at 4", and most iron here seems to give me those high signals but usually drop on the back swing or if I turn 90 degrees.
This one kinda acted like that but a few times I got some pretty solid repeating 85-87 numbers with tiny movements of the big coil and I was in my usual 1 tone in disc and after switching back the iron did sound a bit squeaky but when I got those high numbers it seemed pretty darn sharp on the ends.
Probably my last signal I was gonna dig on this hunt and fortune does favor the bold so even though I figured this was a rusty iron nail or something my curiosity was peaked so I dug a hole.
I got down to that 4" area and rooted around with my Propointer and I had to dig into one sidewall a bit but came up with this rusty round little target.
I think I knew what this was...a steel war cent covered with a thick layer of rust.
My soil for some reason is usually better for these, I have found a few crusted over a bit but tumbling cleaned them up enough for me to see a date and other clues but this one was different and thick with rust but exactly the size of a one cent coin.
This thing is the type to give me that exact kind of signal...High tones mixed with drops to iron.
I stuck my pinpointer in the hole and got nothing so I replace the plug, cover it up and I was going to go home then I did what everyone should do I swung over the area one more time.
I got that 85-87 signal again, this time even more solid and sharp with very few drops to iron.
I open the hole again and rooted around with the pinpointer, nothing in the original hole but I got some clicks in one of the sidewalls.
I picked up the detector and pinpointed this signal and it was still at 4" but slightly outside the original hole so I dug another little plug on that side.
Nothing in the hole but there was something under this area so I figured there was some deep big iron throwing off those high signals, deep iron here frequently will show a depth of 3" even if it is way deeper if it is big enough, and I dumped the bit of dirt I took out of the new hole back in, replaced the plug and got up to go home.
I swung over the hole one last time and got that high signal again...this time at 3" and more solid and sharp as ever.
"Sigh"...I couldn't let this go so I opened up that hole one last time...I will find this thing whatever it is if it kills me.
I popped the plug, dug out the loose dirt I had just pulled out and put back in that hole but this time when I dumped the dirt on the ground next to the hole I saw something that shocked me...a small clean silver looking small disc.
I'll be darned, I had just dug up a silver dime!
I must have got it out if the hole before but didn't check the dirt pile and then threw it back in.
I was shocked, I had found an older buff in this same area although about 60 yards away from this spot last year but for all my time spent in this part of the park I always looked but never could find another old coin here, not even a wheat.
There still was something big and deep under this area throwing of high tone false signals and then dropping to iron...my world and welcome to it.
I got what I was after so I covered that hole up for the last time and walked home with a big smile on my face.
Was it that really high threshold setting that helped me notice this dime that I never could before?
Was it just that conditions were just right for me to notice it despite the masking iron target in the vicinity and the deeper iron under it?
Could it be despite so much time hunting in this area I actually never got a coil over this exact spot?
Honestly I don't really know for sure, I will go back and try those same high sense and thresh settings and see if I can still hunt with them there and see if other good targets pop up.
All I know is in an area where I never thought I would find a silver coin, hoped to but I figured chances were slim to none...I did.
I took a hammer and smacked that rusty suspected steel war cent at home in an effort to crack that iron layer off of it, it is unrecoverable otherwise, even tumbling can't clean up this thing.
What I found was an extremely eaten up piece of metal.
No way to tell what this thing actually is, some sort of other small piece of steel or iron or what but like I said it is exactly the same size as a steel one cent coin so I am going with that for now.
A silver dime, my first silver coin for 2017 actually, recovered from a site I have scoured with a suspected rusty steel war cent covered in iron in the hole with it that tried to mess with me, deep big iron under it and a big coil hitting them all at once and yet I still had my wits about me and the tenacity to recover it.
And the right tool to do it all.
I was a great day for me.
After lots of decent rain recently and a few days of dry weather the conditions were perfect.
Soil had just the exact amount of moisture, digging plugs that stayed together was as easy as it gets around here, I had all kinds of good sounding sharp signals although most was iron or other trash.
It just doesn't get any better in this rough soil so I have to take advantage while it lasts.
I switched back to the big DD coil a couple of hunts back for better coverage, the sniper was mounted for weeks but I felt like a change was due.
On this short hunt I spent most of my time in the entrance to this park where I have found lots of great masked targets but not much left that are good signals to dig now so I am now down to digging almost any jumpy signal that isn't in iron...and even some iron signals that I usually wouldn't dig because there are too many drops to iron from those high tone falsing I get from rusted iron.
You just never know and I would rather dig something and maybe have a chance if being surprised than just walk around swinging the coil.
Like I said everything was unusually super easy to dig even the deeper stuff so what the heck.
No great surprise in that entry area, all signals I dug I suspected were trash and rust iron and they were, but the more I get out of here the the more I can check the area for other better targets that might be masked.
I walked around a couple other areas I have hit millions of times, ended up digging a clad dime I had missed before so I was up 10¢...a great hunt as far as I am concerned coming from areas with so few good hits nowadays.
I was heading out of the park on the way home and I tried something...I turned the F70 disc up to 65, DE speed, notched in nickels just in case some gold in that area might be hanging around, the sense was quiet at 97 and I pushed the thresh up from my normally low negative numbers to positive to see how high I could go.
Surprisingly I got it all the way up to +9 and this thing was eerily quiet...that is really rare anywhere I have ever hunted in any site in three states...weird.
All signals were great at these settings, I came across several pop top signals that I knew were pop tops but I dug them anyway just to see if something better was in the vicinity, tabs all jumped around like usual, can slaw jumped too and some of this stuff I left in the ground while digging some others but every guess I had was correct, I could tell the trash every time and another clad dime was here at 3" and that one I knew was good before I dug it.
Then I came across this signal right before I left the park.
High into the 85-87 quarter range but still a bit jumpy.
Switching back to all metal I swung over it again and got those same high numbers from 2 directions but still got some drops to iron...a few more than I like to see when hunting in this soil which up-averages all targets past 2-3" on my Fisher, this one was at 4", and most iron here seems to give me those high signals but usually drop on the back swing or if I turn 90 degrees.
This one kinda acted like that but a few times I got some pretty solid repeating 85-87 numbers with tiny movements of the big coil and I was in my usual 1 tone in disc and after switching back the iron did sound a bit squeaky but when I got those high numbers it seemed pretty darn sharp on the ends.
Probably my last signal I was gonna dig on this hunt and fortune does favor the bold so even though I figured this was a rusty iron nail or something my curiosity was peaked so I dug a hole.
I got down to that 4" area and rooted around with my Propointer and I had to dig into one sidewall a bit but came up with this rusty round little target.
I think I knew what this was...a steel war cent covered with a thick layer of rust.
My soil for some reason is usually better for these, I have found a few crusted over a bit but tumbling cleaned them up enough for me to see a date and other clues but this one was different and thick with rust but exactly the size of a one cent coin.
This thing is the type to give me that exact kind of signal...High tones mixed with drops to iron.
I stuck my pinpointer in the hole and got nothing so I replace the plug, cover it up and I was going to go home then I did what everyone should do I swung over the area one more time.
I got that 85-87 signal again, this time even more solid and sharp with very few drops to iron.
I open the hole again and rooted around with the pinpointer, nothing in the original hole but I got some clicks in one of the sidewalls.
I picked up the detector and pinpointed this signal and it was still at 4" but slightly outside the original hole so I dug another little plug on that side.
Nothing in the hole but there was something under this area so I figured there was some deep big iron throwing off those high signals, deep iron here frequently will show a depth of 3" even if it is way deeper if it is big enough, and I dumped the bit of dirt I took out of the new hole back in, replaced the plug and got up to go home.
I swung over the hole one last time and got that high signal again...this time at 3" and more solid and sharp as ever.
"Sigh"...I couldn't let this go so I opened up that hole one last time...I will find this thing whatever it is if it kills me.
I popped the plug, dug out the loose dirt I had just pulled out and put back in that hole but this time when I dumped the dirt on the ground next to the hole I saw something that shocked me...a small clean silver looking small disc.
I'll be darned, I had just dug up a silver dime!
I must have got it out if the hole before but didn't check the dirt pile and then threw it back in.
I was shocked, I had found an older buff in this same area although about 60 yards away from this spot last year but for all my time spent in this part of the park I always looked but never could find another old coin here, not even a wheat.
There still was something big and deep under this area throwing of high tone false signals and then dropping to iron...my world and welcome to it.
I got what I was after so I covered that hole up for the last time and walked home with a big smile on my face.
Was it that really high threshold setting that helped me notice this dime that I never could before?
Was it just that conditions were just right for me to notice it despite the masking iron target in the vicinity and the deeper iron under it?
Could it be despite so much time hunting in this area I actually never got a coil over this exact spot?
Honestly I don't really know for sure, I will go back and try those same high sense and thresh settings and see if I can still hunt with them there and see if other good targets pop up.
All I know is in an area where I never thought I would find a silver coin, hoped to but I figured chances were slim to none...I did.
I took a hammer and smacked that rusty suspected steel war cent at home in an effort to crack that iron layer off of it, it is unrecoverable otherwise, even tumbling can't clean up this thing.
What I found was an extremely eaten up piece of metal.
No way to tell what this thing actually is, some sort of other small piece of steel or iron or what but like I said it is exactly the same size as a steel one cent coin so I am going with that for now.
A silver dime, my first silver coin for 2017 actually, recovered from a site I have scoured with a suspected rusty steel war cent covered in iron in the hole with it that tried to mess with me, deep big iron under it and a big coil hitting them all at once and yet I still had my wits about me and the tenacity to recover it.
And the right tool to do it all.
I was a great day for me.
so I can only get to +9.