Another eye-opener!

[Mtnmn]

Went detecting again with my friend who is a world class detectorist. This time we hit the exact same sites as last Friday and amazingly we each beat Friday's totals by about 15% which was kind of surprising given the amount of finds we made on Friday. More surprising was my total value of finds was exactly 45% of his finds BOTH days. So his amount of finds on the first hunt was no fluke. Like you guys said it is the man that makes the detector, not the other way around and nothing beats experience on a machine.

 

[Jerry-Wi]

Did you get a chance to sweep any of his targets with your detector before they were recovered? Your detector probably heard similar targets and you passed on them as trash. A lot of times it is just a gut feeling. You know something is there but it does not sound good enough to dig........ or does it? I also wonder how much in the way of trash he dug. It seems to me that the guys who are willing to dig the most iffy signals are the ones who find lots of good stuff as well a lot of trash.

As for me, I pass on lots of iffy stuff because I am of the age where I can only get up and down so many times during a hunt and do not want to waste a lot of energy chasing junk. I more willing to dig pull tabs and aluminum junk at the start of the hunt when I am fresh and not so much later. Even at that I seem to get somewhere around a 150 coins give or take on a good day.

Jerry

 

[mudpuppy]

Since you guys hunted those spots before, his "read" of the area would have been one thing on the first day, and I'm thinking his target retrieval on the next? Hes gotta be a coin popper, and a quick one to boot. Any coin within 4" of the surface is a 10 second job! Stab and Grab, brother!
Mud

 

[Mtnmn]

I checked at least a 1/2 doz. of his coin targets and the Safari easily hit on all of his targets (he uses a XLT). Actually I seemed to dig more iffy targets than him, but his turned out to be better targets as I dug 4 match box cars to his one , but he also dug two Boy Scout tie clasps to my none. By not digging as many iffy signals also saved him a lot of time. Yes he is an expert at popping coins out of the ground with a probe and I'm not (hadn't thought about how much time that saves him). Plus his newer Pro-Pointer gets an easy half inch more depth than mine does which also saved him a lot of time and effort. Another thing that saved him a lot of time was his XLT pin-pointed much more accurately with its 9.5" concentric coil than the Safari does with its 11" DD coil and because of my bigger coil I was digging slightly deeper coins on average than he was which also cost me time. After reading all this I realize I'll never be able to match him in finds, but that's not what its all about anyhow, just having an enjoyable outing is all that matters and if you don't dig the iffy targets (non coin targets), your not going to find much in the way of jewelry and rings.

 

[mudpuppy]

I tell you what, you get good at popping, and what you are doing is compressing TIME. You will get twice the experience in half the time, twice the targets, and cover twice the ground too. Which in essence will make you just as good as him, or better! You could leave your trowel and pinpointer in the truck, but you cant live without that screwdriver! Carry a spare, or you will be lost without it! After a while, you wont even use the pinpoint button on your machine, look at the screen, or even the depth...the sounds will tell you what is there, and how deep. Those Iffy signals can be identified when you touch them with the screwdriver, you can then decide whether to retrieve them or not...you can actually FEEL pulltabs, ace bandage wrappers, screwoffs, hot wheels, foil, glass, keys, tokens, etc. All of this should add to your enjoyment of the sport, and put more gold rings in your pouch, why? because you got over them. If you get a good signal but cant stab it quickly, slow down, and feel around easy, its a ring! Of course, this is a speed sweep method intended on shallow fresh drops (surface to 5") in areas where there is little to no hope of old silver coins.( you will get a few just by accident though) Just purely a jewelry/clad grab. Tight spills and multidenominational stacks are sort of interesting. Just work on TIME from target aquisition to pouch, you will be impressed at how fast your body adjusts from using its eyes to its ears and amazed at how sensitive your hands are at feeling the subsurface target with a screwdriver. You can walk with your head up and use your eyes to search for likely locations, which will develop that site reading ability mentioned...stay in it!
Mud