What are some of the dumbest things you've ever done...

[cubfan64]

in the pursuit of this wonderful hobby?

I have 2 I'd like to share:

1) Shortly after getting my CZ20 while I was still trying to learn it, I stopped off at a local "tot lot" on my way home from work. Followed all the steps I had memorized to ground balance it and got started - started getting hits almost right off the bat. It had been a long time since I had been detecting, but I did my best to try to pinpoint the target and then dig it in the wood chips. For the first 15 minutes or so I was getting extremely frustrated as I couldn't seem to locate a single target!! I'd get the signal, try to pinpoint it as best I could, then kneel down, dig around a bit and check with my vibra probe... nothing. I'd get back up and sometimes the signal would be there and sometimes it would be gone and I'd find another target a foot to the right with the same result.

Needless to say, it took me about 15-20 minutes before I realized it probably wasn't the smartest idea to go detecting with my steel toe work shoes on!!

2) Went to a local freshwater swimming beach after dark. It was a rainy night and it was about 35 minutes away. Got there and realized to my dismay that in my rush to get going I had forgotten my waders. With the water being kinda chilly I had wanted to use them. I couldn't make myself drive all the way home, so since I was wearing shorts and sandals, I just waded out in the water with those without a second thought. Detected for a couple hours finding myself getting pretty cold and soaked from head to toe from the rain. Finally gave up and went back to the car. At that point, the realization set in that I had NOTHING along to either sit on, towel off with or anything. No coat, no towel, not even a glove or kleenex!!

Already being pretty cold, and not wanting to sit in wet clothes in a wet seat for 35 minutes of driving in the rain, I did the one thing you're probably imagining I did. I drove home "al fresco." I obeyed the speed limit EXACTLY and did NOTHING that might provoke a cop to pull me over and I prayed I wouldn't get in an accident. I saw 3 police cars that had pulled people over on the way home and to top it off, I had forgotten that I had to go through a toll booth (luckily for me I had found enough change that I could go through the automatic) - but those glaring lights kinda had me sinking in my seat!!

I will say my wet shorts were lying in a heap by my feet JUST in case I needed them!!

 

[hobbes_lives]

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[bdahunter]

After a week with my Excal and my introduction to waterhunting, I decided to start experimenting with the settings to get more depth. I started by using some of the settings that were recommended by the great folks on this forum. With that well in hand I started finding some nice loot and with each hunt I pushed the sensitivity a little higher until I was working around 10:30 on the dial. This was great and I found a lot of good stuff that was really deep but the Excal would false quite a bit which was annoying but productive.
As a Newbie with less than a month of waterhunting under my belt, I decided that I should push the envelope so I went to the beach, waded out into knee deep water, slipped on my headphones, set the base threshold and then adjusted the sensitivity down to 9 o'clock and then reset the threshold. The Excal purred like a kitten with almost no falsing but my finds dropped off from the 10:30 setting, I couldn't figure this out, but if more sensitivity had been good I had to assume that even greater sensitivity had to be better. I did the same thing for half a dozen hunts until someone on this forum set me wise to the fact that the auto sensitivity isn't at the point that reads 'auto' but rather it is at 9 o'clock. I had switched back to auto sensitivity for all those hunts and never heard the click of the auto sens. detent because I was wearing my headphone when I adjusted.
Thanks for the advice, Mike. I felt like a horse's patootie for a good while after that goof up.

Cheers,

BDA

 

[Joe G]

I was having a problem with my Exp II falsing at the exact same point in my swing... I had waders on (no shoes). I finally figured out (sadly, after a long period of time) that there was a nickel in the toe of my left boot.

 

[PaPa-Joe-Fla.]

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[Bobbie]

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[don tyler]

How about driving all the way up to north conway, n. h. from merrimack and forgot my digging tools.DOn Tyler

 

[Macaco]

...with my Excalibur. I found some nice coins, all silver (dimes, quarters and halves), and knew I would come in with a bag full of them.

Then nothing. No more signals. I was thinking I couldn't have found all the coins here. I found about six in five minutes and there aren't any more?

I was perplexed but I burned the rest of my tank and covered a lot of bottom. I came to the surface, out of air, and discovered that my headphones had floated off my head without my noticing early in the dive.

The Excal was finding more coins but I wasn't hearing it.

 

[Gulf Hunter]

1. Early in my career, I had the Mark II and had the unit hip mounted. Used the stem, to brace myself, while digging the hole. When the wave crashed over me, the stem broke in two and the hunt was over. Trauma also occured to the coil wire. My very 1st experience at hip mounting tradgedy!

2. This is a good one! Was using the GQA2 and it was about a month old. Told Mr.Bill, when I bought the unit, I did not like hip mounting, from previous disasters. I was hunting in the surf one night and let me tell you, I'm REAL JUMPY at night, for obvious reasons. I spooked a school of bait fish and they spooked me! I jumped and when I did, guess what happened? I jumped onto the coil wire and ripped it out of the control housing on my $1500 PI! You talk about throwing a wall ass Texas sized fit! I think I threw the 11LBer about 25 yards! Huntress was there trying to console me. Took me a while to calm down. Huntress gave up her 800, as I think the 1000 was in, because I snapped the headphone bracket in 2 on the old blues, when I put them on one day. I calmed down, but was not happy. When you hear me get downright opinionated on stem mounting, well ya'll know my tramatic history! For these reasons, ALL detectors in GHs arsenal are stem mounted.
[attachment 65003 emblem.JPG]
GH

 

[Gulf Hunter]

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[DavHut]

What are some of the dumbest things you've ever done

1. Quit college to go to a KISS concert, on a cross country trek.
2. Married my ex-wife.

 

[cubfan64]

well, I stocked the trunk of my car with a couple towels, an extra pair of clothing and shoes from now on just in case and I change out of my work shoes before I leave work .

As embarrasing as it would have been for me to get pulled over and probably ticketed or arrested for indecent exposure, the embarrasment my wife would have to face if my name got in the paper for that one is enough to keep me from ever doing that again

 

[cubfan64]

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[AllenOK]

Right before I moved back home to OK from MI. I had gone off into the woods at the biggest park in town, near where I had found a Seated Dime that Spring. I was using my 8" coil on my CZ-5, hipmounted. I didn't really have a lot of time, about an hour or so. I only found one good old target, what I believe was a .45 caliber rimfire cartridge.

I got back to my van, and was trying to get all my gear back into the back of my van. I tried shutting the back hatch, and it wouldn't latch. I slammed it really good, and it still wouldn't latch. I looked down, and the coil cable for my 8" coil was blocking the latch. I looked at the wire really good, and realized that, yep, I had damaged the wiring.

 

[cubfan64]

I've heard of other guys who clipped their cables or even broken their shafts (no smart ass comments here!) in their trunks or when they shut the tailgate on their truck.

 

[cubfan64]

with all the experience we have detecting, we should trust that little voice in our heads that tells us when something isn't acting quite right and sit back and look closely at the situation...

But then again, if we did that it wouldn't make for funny stories later.

 

[RandyNorthridgeca]

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[Diane]

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