Great jog with the Compadre! A lot of bang for the buck and very capable in the right hands as you have proven.
It's not neccessarily that the people before you missed targets, they might be have been just meandering. I know when I get to a park I meander until I find an area with a few coins and then I grid that area and liberate the ground of money. I poke around promising looking places and meander until I think it's looking good enough to grid a small area. The weird thing about it is the areas I end up gridding and finding the coins are often where you would least expect. I can only guess that at sometime in the past that for some reason it was an active area. I think the obvious places in most parks have been pounded. The nice thing about it is that if you came into a park after me you would never know where I was or dug. After I cut my U-shaped plug I place any removed dirt on a drop cloth so that I get it all back into the hole and leave no sign. I also rake and fluff the area up after tamping the plug down. I have had two park employees tell me they have seen me detecting and check the area out curiousity after I leave and can never tell where I dug.
Ken, I notice that besides that big fleet of Tesoro's you own a Detector Pro Pirate. Is that good on silver coins? I know it's operating frequency is about 3 Khz which would be good on silver coins.