Vaquero over wet salty sand?

[Tajue17]

I went to the beach last night and I was having a hard time,,, I kept getting good stong signals and digging golf ball sized rocks, ground balance wouldn't work at all. I turned down the sensitivity and it seemed to work until I decided to test it so I got a quarter, nickal, dime and penny and buried them each at about 7" in the sand. where I had the sensitivity at I barely picked up a faint broken signal and when I adjusted the machine at its most minimum settings to give a decent signal over those buried coins those rocks where back signaling too because I re-buried one of them also..

So you vaquero owners when you do the salty beaches what settings do you find works best and what performance are you getting at those settings? I already planned on my next purchase being a beach machine but for now I'm wondering if my vaq is pretty much for the dry sand only in these parts, Its hard ignoring a big solid high pitched signal which up until now meant something good.

 

[REVIER]

Hunting with a VLF detector in saltwater is a tough thing to do for most.
7" is usually a dream...that is why the beach guys use other types.

A DD coil might help a bit to get a little more depth...maybe, turn the sense down, hope for about 2-4 inches and that's about all you can do.
Dry sand it should be fine.

 

[The Magician]

Forget it.

 

[Tajue17]

Ha Ha Ha.. okay so I was a bit deep with those test coins at 7 but I was getting great signals even to 3-4" over the sand but then theres the rocks that signal too! not all of them but random enough where your finding maybe one every 5'x10' section. .. okay hows this what about dry sand vs wet sand is it still a waste of time and if not what about settings for dry sand,,, is there a basic place to start that you guys find works over DRY sand.

 

[fwcrawford]

I tried my Vaquero at a salt water beach last year and after about an hour of searching, I gave up on it.
I was using the widescan 5.75" coil on it during that time which I thought would help the machine cope with the salt and black sand.
I could not ground balance it over wet sand at the surf line, and in the dry sand I had to keep adjusting the ground balance for the black sand concentrations.
Inland, it is one great machine,but forget it for the saltwater environment in my opinion.

 

[dixiedigger57]

even though my old metal box eldorado has Man Gb i still could not do anything in salt worth doing with it. i know some who use them, and say just dont touch the ground. its not a salt machine. never see their GOOD FINDS

baloney bologna baloonie however you spell it. not worth it. TIME TO BUY A SALT WATER MACHINE! if i lived nearer to the ocean, a sandshark, and at the price of gold dig it ALL! it will pay for itself. visit the sand and surf sections, look what the serious hunters use and what they find. their SALT WATER MACHINES PAY FOR THEMSELVES! and Tesoro makes a dandy pair now! sell him one Robert!

 

[allcav]

You really need a PI machine to get through the conductivity of the salt.
The salt is only a factor when it is wet, so the dry sand is ok for most machines.
If you turn your disc level up past 4 or foil and turn your sensitivity down, This should help. It will not take away all of the effects but it will help.

 

[Tajue17]

OK sounds good, at least I know its nothing I'm doing, stinks though because me and the wife wanted to do some beach stuff together mainly HER because she doesn't care for relic type enviorment so i'm thinking I need two more machines now!

 

[pulltaber]

Just stay in the dry sand and you will be ok .

 

[tvr]

The real issue is that the Vaquero, and the other Tesoro VLF detectors, will not ground balance all the way to the wet salt.

Stay in the dry sand and detecting can be very enjoyable with the Vaquero.

There are some VLF detectors out there that do ground balance to the wet salt and they can do very well in the wet salt sand.

As well as the wet salt, many beaches have black sand, or pink, red or purple sand, that can make detecting difficult. The pulse induction (PI) detectors do handle those conditions pretty well. I have hit some very heavy black sand that the Sand Shark would sound off on even with a very relaxed sweep speed. The remedy was to sweep it even slower and come at the larger black areas from all sides. Some of the multi-frequency VLF detectors handle the black sand fairly well too.

Robert is right in that running some discrimination and reducing sensitivity can help. From my experimenting, I found best depth with the Tesoro VLF's was obtained by ground balancing to an area of dry sand that is near the wet sand you want to hunt; then leave the ground balance at that setting. Walk over the wet sand and sweep the coil. Adjust the discriminator up just enough to get rid of much of the falsing. Once hitting a certain level of discrimination, going any higher does not gain more stability it only eliminates more targets from detection. I found that to be just below the the foil marking on the Tesoro's I've tried at the beach. Next go about adjusting the sensitivity to a usable level. For me that has been around 7 most of the time; sometimes 6 or between 6 and 7. Don't expect to get much of anything deeper than 3 to 4 inches over the wet salt sand with the Vaquero.

As for the dry sand, keep it ground balanced and don't sweep too fast and it should get you good depth. Some beaches have consistent sand other have black sand streaks and areas that you need to ground balance to and adjust as the sand changes; like fwcrawford says above. If you are only hitting "hot rocks" and not a lot of black sand you could ground balance to those "hot rocks" and not detect them, or not as many of them. The mineralization (black sand) and hot rocks largely depend on the particular beach you are on.

The salt water beaches are much easier to deal with using a detector designed to handle the conditions. On beach trips, I'll pack two detectors that handle the wet salt and that I can go into the water with. I also like to pack the Tejon with the cleansweep coil for the dry sand.
tvr

 

[Tajue17]

alright dry sand it is,,, do you guys find much in the dry sand though? I'm thinking where the waves break is where the action would be.. also does anyone know of any good sand shark videos,, theres a guy on YTube but its a photoalbum with mucis... I want the live video where I can hear the machine and see the finds happening in realtime..

 

[REVIER]

This is the very first gold I ever found and it was found with the Vaq shortly after I got it.
I was hunting at a state park and had just found my first silver rosie in the grass in front of the park office at this site a little earlier in the day, and then I found this at the very small beach in the sand on a very small lake in front of that same office.

As you can see, it is extremely small and thin, but I found it with the Vaq with that knob in disc but hunting close to the iron section.
(In air testing with all my detectors, this ring comes in at the small foil mark).
Sense was probably around 8-10.

This was pretty deep...from what I remember maybe 7-8 inches or so, but it was a loud and solid beep so I dug it.
This was so small that only through the help of my Propointer was I finally able to find it...and I was such a noob I didn't even know it was gold even though it is clearly marked 10k.

I have found other good targets with the Vaq in dry sand at volleyball courts, even deeper too, so it is very capable in that type of hunting.

 

[tvr]

do you guys find much in the dry sand though?

Dry sand will have a lot more foil and more tabs and bottle caps than the wet sand and water. Can do fairly well on coins, depends on the day. Dry sand has produced many more matchbox type cars for me than the wet sand and water have. Depending on the beach and the day, the towel line in the dry sand just above the high tide line can be pretty good. Sometimes the highest part of the beach and the trails to and from the beach can be good. If there are volleyball nets, check those areas. Generally the wet sand and water have fewer targets overall to find, but is where I'll find more gold and silver than in the dry. That said, just after I got the cleansweep coil and put it on the Tejon, I hit a nice gold ring walking down the sand path to a beach right where it opened wide onto the beach. Had to put in many hours of detecting before the next gold came along. It generally takes many hours of hunting between each piece of gold or silver; but they are out there.
Cheers,
tvr

 

[rjsupersonic]

I have never had a problem with using the Sand Shark in wet salty areas .....Shark is the way to go IMO.

 

[Tajue17]

thanks for the replys and pictures of that ring,, thats pretty impresive but what I did was this past saturday I hit a beach on the way home from work and made sure I kept the machine over the dry sand and just a tad into the wet sand but just enough where I knew to turn the sensitivity down to 5 and 6 and almost max out the discrim,,, what was cool is I knew I was over a bad area because my ground blanace was way off! so instead of trying to balance it which gave me a headache the other night I just left it alone and then ket checking it as I got inot more dryer sand..

It went pretty good, I found one wheatie, 2, bullets, 1 tiny sterling Virgin Mary pendant, and 2:90 in clad dating from 1951 to 2002. and maybe 30 pull tabs...... the pull tabs where almost always 10" to 12" deep and even max discrim It sounded like a quarter buried 2" deep so I dug them all hoping,, I did learn alot about listening to the signal carefully..

I've been feeling around for a new waterproof saltwater machine and I'm not sure if I want the Sandshark because I'm not sure I want to dig everything in the sand including all the trash while standing in 2' to 3' of water,,, it seems like it will be a big pain in the butt and I say that only because of how much trash is at these beaches here,,, I just can't believe it. and I know the spot I did today I just put a tiny dent in the place and finding clad 6" to 10" deep right at the 1st part anyone would even look means nobody has dug here in a while so theres going to be ALOT of trash,,,, my first thought was someone would try to rob me for my machine in this bad section of Boston but now I'm more worried about my back staying straight!

 

[mortarman]

I was at the beach just last week and was using my V for the dry sand and Shark for wet. The V worked quite well but I did have to check and re-GB it often. I still found quite a bit though. The SS performed flawlessly in the wet sand and surf as it should!

 

[Smudge]

As a rule, single frequency detectors do not function well in wet salt sand.

Dual/mutli-frequency detectors do much better, as to PI machines. Tesoro makes a great one in the Sand Shark.