what does it take?????, Dang, you out there

[jeepcj5]

Well,
I went out this past Sunday to a place that was a five star resort in the hills near Clear Lake Ca. This place was apparently pretty awesome, my son and I discovered it a few years back while scouting for a deer hunting place.
I put is in my memory and when I got my 505 decided to give it a go when we discovered it there was still a gazebo and part of a rebuilt lodge still standing which has since burnt to the ground. While doing research on this place I discovered it was started in 1870 and by 1890 had 5 hotels and 350 cabins, a post office and store. EVERYTHING burned in 1934 never to reopen as a resort again there is a spring believed to contain healing waters there.


Well it is pretty tough detecting as age has REALLY taken its toll and nothing but a few foundations remain, there is a lot more history but this sums it up. I spent from daylight till about 3:00 in the afternoon detecting with nothing but square nails and some old busted bottle tops of some very pretty purple bottles which I left there.

Anyway, needless to say I was pretty discouraged no coins at all or anything else interesting for that matter Im sure the entire place has been hounded to death, on the way home it was daylight and I came across this old school from 1868 Photo attached:

This place looks awesome and I vowed to return!! Alas to no avail, I worked it in the rain and wind for 3 hours only to find 1 horse shoe very deep 10-11 inches and three FREAKIN memorial pennies just below the surface, I will never bend down and dig another @*&^*!^ penny again...
I am really starting to lose faith in my 505 I am feeling it does not have the depth required to find the deeper coins. This place looks pristine way off the beaten path on a two lane road it couldnt have been hunted hard if ever... what am I doing wrong??? I also stopped at a park in a nearby (small town) some 20 miles away to have a go and nothing but a 1997 dime and more 30 tid penny signals... Hey Dang, what has been your experience in the S M A L L NorCal town parks and old schools??

FRUSTRATED in Sacramento.

 

[CBAILEY IN GA]

if there is any silver there, and you have 1500 to spare an etrac will find it, Craig

 

[jeepcj5]

Craig,
Thanks for the reply buddy, I think that will be my next detector, not that the X-Terra 505 is a bad machine it is a shallow clad killer and with the 18.75kHz DD coil is totlot destroyer! LOL i think i maybe asking too much from the 505... What do you use and what part of the country are you in??

 

[fowlercharles]

Never used a 505 or an Etrac, but I can suggest you "take" a Tesoro Compadre (new for $151) to whip the nail situation ,and you would have a lot more fun and not feel "taken" of your $1500. That little feller kicks Big Dog Butt! HH. Charlie

 

[Clyde(La.)]

Hello Jeep.....,
It sounds like you are frustrated in the detector. Once you loose confidence in it, then you will find nothing...I will say that it sounds like you are new to detecting. You can buy the Etrac and go back to the same place and find nothing again. What I am saying is the 505 is not a bad detector. It has a discrimination control on it just like the Etrac. You have to listen to the detector as to what it is telling you. If you have to, turn the discrimination up to where you are just below nickels. Try this for a while till you learn the detector. Turn your sensitivity down also on a few hunts. That detector will surely go down easy to 7" or 8" on a coin. Also, you are hunting in an area, that is very hard to hunt. If the building has burnt down, then nails are scattered everywhere. If you want to spend your money wisely, then buy you a small coil for this area and SLOW DOWN.
You will start finding good items, if they are there...
Good Hunting, Clyde (La)

 

[jeepcj5]

Thanks Charlie, i've heard a lot of good things about those Tesoro's

 

[jeepcj5]

Clyde (La.),
Thanks much for the reply, I am a new detectorist but have gained enough experience to differentiate by sound (usually only use the TID to confirm) the difference between say a quarter, dime and bloody pennies .. I use very little discrimination only masking out the -3 -6 -9 and 48.

I use good over the ear headphones, ground balance and noise cancel every time I turn on my detector and re-GB during the hunt especially if the ground structure looks like it changes.

I use a relatively slow swing speed and dig every solid signal. I have gotten in the habit of double/triple checking the signals I dig, swinging one way, do a 90 deg turn swing on it then another 45 deg turn as to not get bouncing tones, I usually only dig solid signals, on my 505 a 36 is ALWAYS a dime, 42 a quarter and 30 the dreaded penny

 

[jmaryt]

the place sounds like it is "cooked" i would move on!
if it is truly "burnt" then all you will find is an occasional clad coin anyway!..just sayin!

(h.h.!)
j.t.

 

[jeepcj5]

Thanks jt, did just that and ended up at the school in the pics... 3 pennies for 3 hours... bummed me out man...

 

[slingshot]

Thanks Charlie, i've heard a lot of good things about those Tesoro's

Yep-just remember that it's the Compadre, though. It can be set to where the nails remain silent and coins can be found 3-5" BENEATH a nail-not next to it. It's an awesome and unbelievable performer in iron situations.

 

[hershey1]

Set your 505 up and just cherry-pick the site then if good targets start showing up slow down and get the relics if you want. The tesoro is a good machine but it is not as deep as your ML.

 

[BR549]

Sometimes there just isn't anything there.Or its already been pounded by others.
I hunted a 1855 house place last week that I know nobody has ever hunted.
There was nothing but square nails there.The house has been gone over a hundred years and its in the middle of a 12 yr. old pine plantation.
Just nothing thereyet.I don't give up on the first trip to any place.I usually spend a minnium of 40 to 50 hours at a site before I cross it off
my list.
Never used the minelab terra 50 but I know it is a good machine reading the many post over the years.
The worst thing that can happen is losing faith in your machine.It doesn't help your confidence level,but again sometimes there just isn't anything to find,
or somebody else beat u to it.

 

[jeepcj5]

Thanks fellas for the votes of confidence, I do plan on going back to the school house and try my 6" DD coil and a new attitude. It was raining pretty hard and i was detcting in about 3-4" of water most of the time... man i tell ya that horseshoe seemed old and VERY deep 10-11 inches...

 

[mitto]

Another thing to remember is that back in the days when that school was functioning, kids did not have much money to carry around in their pockets. I have never had a ton of luck hunting school houses. You may be searching for something that simply isn't there.

Good Luck, and don't get discouraged

Mitto

 

[Dirty Money US]

First off, that XT505 is one hell of a detector. However, if you don't want, send it to me & the wife will take it & the daughter can have the 305. Sad thing is, you'll start finding goodies with it and keep it.

Without being a smart***, I do understand your frustration. I have a site that I have worked off & on for almost 2 years without having found the sweet spots. The bigger the area, the longer it takes to cover it all. And you'll spend a good part of the first year really learning the tones and adjustments on your detector. By the way, if you don't have a decent pair of headphones, get some. They really help.

Keep at it & keep learning. It will come together for you.

HH

Dave

 

[Mike Hillis]

Now that you have talked about it and posted the pictures means that when you go back in 30 days the place will have fresh dug holes all over it. Maybe even some no trespassing signs, too.

Good luck.
Mike

 

[D&P-OR]

YEP!!!

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Jeep, I'm from CA too, and I can feel your frustration. But here's what you have to realize, and the mistake you are making:

Go figure, with a resort like you describe, that is "no secret to the history books", you can BET that every Tom, Dick & Harry, for the past 30 yrs, has picked up the same tired old history book citations, and gone out to the same spot. And yeah, of course they disc. out the iron, so you hear all the iron, yet get few conductors from there. Trust me: if a spot is a) good, b) accessible c) in an area with a prolfic amount of hunters, then did you really expect that past hunters were going to leave easy 4 star signals and old coins all around. And even if a caretaker or local person says "no ones ever md'd there before" Trust me, they simply don't know.

Oh sure, "no one ever gets it all", but if you, as you say, are a beginner at this, do you think you are going to "one up" guys who know how to grasp for the hardest-to-hear targets hiding in the iron? Clear Lake area of CA is not far from the Santa Rosa/San Rafael area, which hosts a BIG bunch of hunters, a club, etc... (go figure, it's home to Whites west coast distributor). And trust me, all those guys, even as far back as the 1970s, researched all those counties up there, searching out all the old resorts, campgrounds, etc.... Because the area was the "playground" of SF elite, even back before the turn-of-the-century.

Same goes for the 1-room school house: just like it "caught your eye", so too would it have caught the eye of everyone else passing by, with a metal detector in their trunk.

It's gotten to where I almost exclusively search out the locations which AREN'T in the glossy "Sunset Magazine Ghost Towns" books. You know, out-of-the-way country cross-roads that faded, yet little remains, except a vague reference, in a hard-to-find out-of-print book, not replicated elsewhere. Or, for example, using your one-room-school house as an example: You can simply pick up old topo maps, or old assessor's maps, and they too have 1-room school locations, which today might be nothing but a cow-pasture, with nothing to mark their site, and nothing in the history books to tell more about them.

But be aware, that even 1-room school sites (those that vanished anyhow) are sometimes not very good to hunt, for coins. The student populations of those might be a mere 12 students and the school lasted for 3 yrs, or whatever. Unless the school also functioned as a grange hall, church, and other such adult things, they usually aren't as forthcoming with coins, as something with commercial/recreational/adult usage would be: campgrounds, stage-stops where money specifically changed hands amongst travelors, etc....

Your going to have to hit the history books harder, and find locations not hard-hammered. Another way to find old coins is old town urban demolition sites, like sidewalk tearouts in old-town districts, or turf scrapes (to make way for parking lots, artificial turf, etc...) in old parks, etc...

 

[jmaryt]

that's understandable,AND part of the reality of the hobby!
don't get discouraged!..there are many sites that WILL produce!
get "crackin" on research!..they ARE out there!..just sayin!
good luck!

(h.h.!)
j,t.

 

[dixiedigger57]

same here on the old sites. i have been dissapointed more than once. old schools in the sticks were fer us po folks. I did a turn of the century one room school house, all black farmers kids, and found ZERO! the owner, who grew up there, said, well, what did you expect? they did not even have shoes! so.... You have a good machine. I use Tesoros, but have been exposed to many. i hunt with very little disc, and have learned to back off on sensitivity a little. I am slightly hearing impaired, and use a regular 20 buck set of head phones that rock, Calrad, my local tesoro dealer orders them from somewhere, and he uses them also. I suggest you get some known targets, go to a sand box, and bury them, testing out machine on the targets and adjusting untill they read. if you have no trouble there, then the place just has slim pickings. My machines are single freq, no meter, no ID. and again, i have trouble with tones due to hearing damage. i use an old buffalo nickel to adjust with, turning until it goes away, and bring it back solid. i will bury it 3 inches deep sometimes in a new spot, just to check my machine. i am finding shield nickles also now. and wheaties and Indian heads.i hurry through a lot the first time, and then the second time with more patience, which produces more. the horse shoe ten inches deep could have been a pistol frame just as well! from the pixs, could it have had the top dirt scraped off before? it sounds more clean site than man and machine. i would give it a second chance. never really had a bad day hunting, beats a honey do list anyday!