T-2 on Florida beaches

[ccs]

What are the best settings for salt water sand detecting?

 

[ATLfun]

Wow, great question! I was thinking I was going to be forced to buy a sand shark for my beach visits this summer. It would be great if my T2SE could be set-up to do a respectable job. I think the biggest hurdle is that pulse detectors tend to do better than VFI ( I hope I got that acronym right.) I am really looking forward to these answers from the gurus.


Brian

 

[acasto]

I don't own a T2, yet. And, I am not a guru, except in my own head, but I will tell you what I know about beach hunting.

Ground balance will change between wet and dry sand, so adjust it accordingly. I run in all metal with no disc, as it seems to be "deeper" that way.
Go slower, and listen for faint whispers.
When you find a good target, hunt in a spiral pattern outward, as targets tend to congregate.

Look for rocks or shells that are exposed by wave action. Look for areas of erosion, or cuts in the sand and hunt bottoms and edges.

Heavy targets, such as fishing weights are a good sign that other heavy targets, such as gold and silver could be in the area.

You will need a good, strong scoop if you hunt the wet sand.

Bring water, food, cell phone, sun screen, hat, waders if you want to hunt in the surf, and a buddy if you want.

That's all I got. Hope it helps

HH and good luck.
Tony

 

[tndiggin]

set it up just like you would land hunting I used all metal and dial it up to just under chatter and take off, I myself could not get near the wet sand no matter how I adjusted it. But it is a killer dry sand unit and bring a shovel because it is deeeep!

hope this helps and good luck!!

 

[Monte]

from time-to-time. The challenges of hunting an ocean beach, compared to any inland location that lacks salty sand and salty water and a mix of both, can be fun to learn. A simple way I view the challenges, and have hunted them (coastal beaches) on the West Coast and in both Florida and Atlantic City New Jersey, is to first deal with any Iron-based Ground Mineralization (using the Ground Balance adjustment) and next to deal with the very low-conductive salts or wet salt.

I adjust for a 'proper' Threshold audio and then Ground Balance the detector for the strata or section I plan to hunt. That is, if I position myself about 100 yards from the surf-line, I GB the detector and then work parallel to the surf line. I try not to hunt toward-and-away from the water. Doing so means I might GB for some different level of mineralization near the edge of the beach which can also be quite dry, then work out towards the surf-line and progressively I might get into a different amount of negative iron mineralization AND start to get into damp sand, then damper sand, then wet sand, and then into the shallow surf zone.

Adjusting for the mineralization might take a little learning because some beaches, even where it is dry down a good foot to two, or even more, can be very mineralized and require a higher GB that other beach environments. Some beaches, like much of Florida, had sand that was much closer to neutral, especially compared with the ground I usually hunt in NW Oregon, Nevada and Utah (with one exception). Florida beaches are much easier to adjust the Ground Balance for, from my experience.

Anyway, once you adjust the GB in the All Metal mode you can determine if the conditions are favorable or not to hunt the beach in a Threshold-based All Metal mode. If so, I often will. However, you can get some falsing at the beach due to either an errant GB, which is easily heard in All Metal mode, or you can opt to search in the motion-based Discriminate mode. That is what I usually do. here is where the next important adjustment is needed.

If you adjust the GB in the All Metal mode so it sound close to correct, switch to the Discriminate mode. Hold the search coil about 6" above the sand and then briskly bob it toward the sand and back up, going to to about