I made it out for a little frozen ground hunting today. Wow, that is A LOT of work!
Cabin Fever has set in pretty hard and I've been watching weather reports all over the place to see if somewhere within a reasonable drive might thaw enough to allow a little hunting. Well, I went back thru my hunting records and found a possibility, packed up the Jeep and away I went. Heading out detecting this time of year is a real crap shoot and in years past I've made winter trips that have been a bust due to frozen ground.
I found a small snow-free patch most of which was diggable.
It lasted an entire hour and a half. There weren't a lot a targets, as expected, so most everything was retrieved if the ground allowed.
First up were a couple of wheat pennies in the 8" range. Can't read the dates on them yet. Next was a '43-S Washington Quarter only 3" deep. And the last good target was a '48 Rosey.
The kicker to all of this was a fantastic target right at the end of the exposed area, ringing in at 8/48. I was thinking it might be my first E-trac silver half. It was only about 4-5" deep and was a small and sharp target, just like a coin. Trouble was it was in completely frozen clay. I dug for about 20 min and finally got to it is a piece of frozen dirt. I could see a reeded edge to a bent coin. I broke it out of the frozen piece of clay only to discover that it was a quarter, not a half, and worse, it was dated 1965. Ahhhhhhh Rats!
I included a few pics. I only found a few other coins, all of them in the 60's. There's a nickel in there to show you just how frozen the ground was. The ground turns all of the silver black and so I have them in process of being cleaned up. I'll post a pic when they are cleaned.
Well, it was nice to get out and find a little frozen silver.
Good luck all.
Rich
Cabin Fever has set in pretty hard and I've been watching weather reports all over the place to see if somewhere within a reasonable drive might thaw enough to allow a little hunting. Well, I went back thru my hunting records and found a possibility, packed up the Jeep and away I went. Heading out detecting this time of year is a real crap shoot and in years past I've made winter trips that have been a bust due to frozen ground.
I found a small snow-free patch most of which was diggable.
It lasted an entire hour and a half. There weren't a lot a targets, as expected, so most everything was retrieved if the ground allowed.
First up were a couple of wheat pennies in the 8" range. Can't read the dates on them yet. Next was a '43-S Washington Quarter only 3" deep. And the last good target was a '48 Rosey.
The kicker to all of this was a fantastic target right at the end of the exposed area, ringing in at 8/48. I was thinking it might be my first E-trac silver half. It was only about 4-5" deep and was a small and sharp target, just like a coin. Trouble was it was in completely frozen clay. I dug for about 20 min and finally got to it is a piece of frozen dirt. I could see a reeded edge to a bent coin. I broke it out of the frozen piece of clay only to discover that it was a quarter, not a half, and worse, it was dated 1965. Ahhhhhhh Rats!
I included a few pics. I only found a few other coins, all of them in the 60's. There's a nickel in there to show you just how frozen the ground was. The ground turns all of the silver black and so I have them in process of being cleaned up. I'll post a pic when they are cleaned.
Well, it was nice to get out and find a little frozen silver.
Good luck all.
Rich
you should feel a little better. Congrats!! on the coinage any find this time of year is a good find. 
Cool