Sophmore day with the sov GT

[Murphdasurf]

Six hours now total at the public beach with the sov. The silver ring is a tad better pick than the one from Thursday hunt which I posted before. The other jewelry is junk but the watch is a working Kenneth Cole model KC4440 found this morning.

http://www.worldofwatches.com/detail.asp?bo_products_variance_id=62010&rid=GoogleBase&utm_source=GoogleBase&utm_medium=cpc

Still working without any disc and taking guesses at target id before digging in an effort to get my ears trained. Pre dig guess on the watch was a shallow and fairly new bottle cap. Pretty bad guess. Coins are pretty easy though and I was tempted a few times to disregard some obvious penny hits but went ahead and liberated them from the sand any ways. No gold yet but I ain't complaining. I got a chance to hit it again first light tomorrow. Hope springs eternal.

 

[Silverstar_Lawman]

n/t

 

[adam in cal]

thats a nice watch, looks like it wasnt in the sand too long (good for you) the beach just eats stuff up .....I hear you on the penny thing, .....Just keep digging them pennies Altough it sucks sometimes you get a suprise ....good to hear your having sucess and fun .....

 

[Gulf Hunter]

n/t

 

[Murphdasurf]

kind of doubt at this point if it has anything to do with skill. There has been some changes on the beach I hunt. The sub tropical low that moved across FL produced some waves and stripped some sand off the beach. All three mornings I was able to hunt were close to high tide. The first morning I noticed sand had been pulled away about ten yards producing a terrace/step down to the wet about two feet high. However the ring was found at the top of the step and has no tarnish so has to be a recent drop.

Second day with the watch the terrace had vanished. Watch was found right at where the wet met the fluffy stuff and shallow so also had to be a recent drop. The toe ring and junk ear ring were found in solid wet same day as watch. Noticed that when playing around with notch disc that discing out a square pull tab also eliminated this junk earring.

Sundays hunt was disappointing with another drastic change to the beach. I had moved about an quarter mile south of were I had been hunting and the only wet there at high tide had been covered with mounds of sea weed three inches thick and went on for as far as I was willing to hunt. The county guys will have a horrible Monday morning cleaning all of this up. The rain had collected in any other low areas and stunk to high hell and looked to be quite contaminated so I did not try those areas either. Pretty much had to confine myself to dry areas or areas that are usually dry and came up with the expected clad, can slaw, pull tabs etc. Basically all the things I was limited to finding when I was using the ace. Never saw a fellow mder on any day (unusual). The mornings were cloudy with rain threat and high tide so maybe they just decided to stay home and let me pluck the recent drops. I thank them for that.

Our winter extreme low tides, better water quality and tourist season is coming up so some better days are just around the corner IMO.

While I am here how about some advice on bottle caps. I am pulling a lot of them. I have found that they can null out completely, produce some pretty enticing tones, those tones can be different depending on how they are laying and what condition they are in or have a great tone until the halo is broke and then null out. I have kind of done a 180 on trash targets. With the ace pull tabs could easily fool it and ignore the bottle caps. With the sov pull tabs are pretty easy to guess on (high crackly inconsistent and somewhat faint even when shallow like a small piece of high grade foil) and the bottle caps are saying dig me. I guess it is also possible that with the ace, besides the fact I could not hunt the wet, was ignoring the jewelry with the bottle caps. Like I said before my pre dig guess on the watch was a shallow new bottle cap. I have a feeling getting ear trained on these low tones with the sov is going to be the most important thing.

 

[Gulf Hunter]

WOW, what a lode of info to sort through! Well, allow me to start with discrimination, there is NONE on the beach and surf, especially in the surf. That pull-tab cancel WILL cost you some gold, as it will inevitably fall into that range occationally. I have no notch, but the Excal is set to 1 on Discrimination and that dial is NEVER MOVED. My Threshold is set to barley audible and then down to just not audible. If the Threshold tone, breaks over the silence, you are still up too high. It has allowed me to hear deeper whispers, that would have been masked by all the background noise of a loud Threshold and I feel it has increased my finds. I learned that trick from cjc and would highly recommend you read this book as well, as it will take you to the next level in your skills, it is entitled, "Finding Gold, Silver and Coins with the Minelab Sovereign and Excaliber metal detectors". The Excal is like being on vacation, compared to what I'm used to with a PI! Ferrous is the only thing that I want to discriminate and I'll tell you why.....The non-ferrous target you auditorily passed, because you thought the tone, was not good on, could be near a piece of ferrous iron and trying to null. What I do is dig everything I can get to repeat and YES, I dig my share of trash, but I think it pays in the long run toward quality finds. Believe me, I'm thinking to myself, I know what this is and usually I'm right, but every now and then I get fooled! Many pull-tabs sound EXACTLY like a gold ring! Be careful what you leave! I actually signalled an 18K fine gold chain, with no medallion or pendant and it was a broken low-tone! You wanna see some bottle caps, I can show you some bottle caps! My next upcoming post has a mother lode of them on the water hunting forum. Take a look. OBTW, there is a little gold and silver in there too!
[attachment 69068 emblem.JPG]
GH

 

[Murphdasurf]

Yep that last post of mine was a tad long winded. I am a vary good typist and combined with my newbie enthusiasm for the new detector and you end up with post that length.

I guess I will just stick with the no disc and a dig it all. Just still not use to digging so deep for targets. I gave up on a few Sunday that just got to deep to chase after with my plastic spade. Sand scoop is on the way though. Should arrive in plenty of time for this weekend.

 

[Gulf Hunter]

Hey you got the right idea and taking the right steps for quality equipment, gold is in yer future!