Critterhunter
New member
I was planning on trying my back shaft extension water rig today but woke up at sunrise to rain and cold temps, so I figured that will have to wait. I think maybe tomorrow I'll do a mid day hunt in the water since the beaches are closed now and we can show up any time of the day now. Anxious to see how that shaft extension works to see if I can hunt shoulder deep comfortably. You can read more in the modifications forum on that and see a pic I just posted of the extension on my water shaft (stock shaft) to mount the box at head level. Balance is fine too so I don't see how it would be any more wearing on me than any other normal setup.
Anyway, so I grabbed my land rig and headed to the beach to dry sand hunt since it was a bit too crisp this morning. Gridded from the water line to about 2/rds up the beach well past the towel line. Did a huge chunk of beach and marked it on my map for future reference gridding the rest of the beach out over the winter or what have you.
No gold today, but I did dig one junk earing about the width of a stick of gum and about half the length. Thought for a second I might have white gold but it's junk metal. At least it wasn't another one of those big junk hoop earrings. I hate those things. I also got a handful of coins. About 3 or 4 quarters, 3 or 4 nickels, and many dimes and pennies, both some zinc pennies and some copper. Also got a few round and square tabs and the usual assorted bits of aluminum junk.
This beach is probably my worst in terms of mineralization. Usually I can still run sensitivity fairly high with the 12x10 here even though there is a lot of minerals and microscopic iron in the sand, but heavy rains had left streaks of black sand all over the beach, and although the BBS machines are just about as good as it gets for a VLF machine in handling black sand, these streaks were pretty concentrated so I had to drop the sensitivity real low to keep it from nulling out all the time. I had the dial pointed at the "T" in the word sensitivity on the dial, which is about 8 or 9 tenth's all the way down. As my dime tests with the 12x10 against the ultimate showed me, the GT still gets very deep (7 to 9" or so on coin sized targets even at this super low sensitivity setting with the 12x10. So I don't fear turning it down that low. If the BBS machines are having to run sensitivity super low in this sand imagine what other non-Minelabs are struggling with.
I was impressed, because I was popping round and square tabs and coins in the 7 to 10" range or so. But here's the thing I wanted to talk about. Many of these tabs or coins, even at only say about 5 or 6" deep, would null out one way and sound scratchy the other just like a bottle cap (crown caps, not screw caps). Every time I hit one of those signals I would have bet you good money it was going to be a bottle cap, because the audio was still plenty loud enough that I wouldn't think the machine was having trouble with a target at depth, and that these were sounding strong enough volume wise to make me think it had to be a bottle cap. Didn't dig but one bottle cap, and all the rest of those bottle cap signals were coins, or the tab ones were also tabs that acted the same way except for the tone being lower of course. I even dug a few nickles at 7 or 9" or so deep that did the same thing...Nulling one way, breaking through here or there or sounding scratchy the other way.
So keep that in mind if you are hunting for rings on the beach and the minerals or black sand is bad. Don't assume a warbly/wobbly/scratchy/one way nulling signal is just odd shaped tiny bits of aluminum because a few of these nicles and tabs did the same thing. They could have easily been a gold ring. I always scoop those signals anyway hoping for a small gold earing or a gold chain that might sound like that. Some of the real deep 9 or 10" coins I was sure were going to be tiny bits of junk or something they sounded so bad, but they were still giving me a high tone mixed in there, and as said the other way would either null or only break through here or there with a sick or scratchy "in and out" type of signal, just like a bottle cap or say a tiny bit of aluminum junk or something.
If the GT is having that much trouble at this beach imagine what other machines are struggling with. Turning the sensitivity 9/10ths of the way down to keep the threshold from always dropping out, and even then it still was dropping out here and there. Worst beach conditions I've ever hunted with the GT and 12x10. Usuallly I can ride sensitivity much higher than this. If the threshold wouldn't have stabilized at that low of sensitivity I would have flipped over to Auto and saw what that would do. That's my normaly routine when sensitivity gets that low and still is giving me issues. Usually Auto will smooth things right out and still get decent depth, but decided not to go that route today.
Played some more on the sweep speed over some of the super deep stuff that was giving me issues. Super slow sweep banged just as hard as a medium sweep on this beach, but even a super fast Whites sweep still banged good on the deepies too. I'd say super fast just started to break the target up just a hair but it was still something you wouldn't miss. Enjoying the sweep speed thing seeing whats up at various sites. Mixed bag so far. Well, I think only 1 beach thus far super slow crawl wouldn't hear the targets at extreme depth, but medium and super fast have hit fine on them at depth from memory so far. Need to test this more on land too. I'm just impressed the GT is banging fine at whipping the coil on these fringe depth targets. Goes against everything I've always read. Maybe it's my minerals or maybe it's the 12x10? Don't know yet, so need to keep testing at various sites on sand and soil.
Just wanted to point out the thing about the junky signals in mineralized beaches. Don't pass them up thinking they are tiny bits of junk or something. Could be a gold ring and the minerals are messing with it. Only way to see what targets are doing at a beach is dig them and then you'll have an idea if round objects like coins or rings are breaking up like that even because the sand is so bad.
PS- My sweep speed testing is using long sweeps like you are hunting, not the short ones or wiggles we all know are needed to be done at a faster pace to pull the best ID/tone at depth. If I was doing the short sweep/wiggle thing that would throw off the results of course because they always seem to want fast for that.
PS #2- Also played with PP mode on some deep ones and a few it couldn't hear while discriminate hit fine on them. I keep seeing this on soil and sand for me in my area.
Anyway, so I grabbed my land rig and headed to the beach to dry sand hunt since it was a bit too crisp this morning. Gridded from the water line to about 2/rds up the beach well past the towel line. Did a huge chunk of beach and marked it on my map for future reference gridding the rest of the beach out over the winter or what have you.
No gold today, but I did dig one junk earing about the width of a stick of gum and about half the length. Thought for a second I might have white gold but it's junk metal. At least it wasn't another one of those big junk hoop earrings. I hate those things. I also got a handful of coins. About 3 or 4 quarters, 3 or 4 nickels, and many dimes and pennies, both some zinc pennies and some copper. Also got a few round and square tabs and the usual assorted bits of aluminum junk.
This beach is probably my worst in terms of mineralization. Usually I can still run sensitivity fairly high with the 12x10 here even though there is a lot of minerals and microscopic iron in the sand, but heavy rains had left streaks of black sand all over the beach, and although the BBS machines are just about as good as it gets for a VLF machine in handling black sand, these streaks were pretty concentrated so I had to drop the sensitivity real low to keep it from nulling out all the time. I had the dial pointed at the "T" in the word sensitivity on the dial, which is about 8 or 9 tenth's all the way down. As my dime tests with the 12x10 against the ultimate showed me, the GT still gets very deep (7 to 9" or so on coin sized targets even at this super low sensitivity setting with the 12x10. So I don't fear turning it down that low. If the BBS machines are having to run sensitivity super low in this sand imagine what other non-Minelabs are struggling with.
I was impressed, because I was popping round and square tabs and coins in the 7 to 10" range or so. But here's the thing I wanted to talk about. Many of these tabs or coins, even at only say about 5 or 6" deep, would null out one way and sound scratchy the other just like a bottle cap (crown caps, not screw caps). Every time I hit one of those signals I would have bet you good money it was going to be a bottle cap, because the audio was still plenty loud enough that I wouldn't think the machine was having trouble with a target at depth, and that these were sounding strong enough volume wise to make me think it had to be a bottle cap. Didn't dig but one bottle cap, and all the rest of those bottle cap signals were coins, or the tab ones were also tabs that acted the same way except for the tone being lower of course. I even dug a few nickles at 7 or 9" or so deep that did the same thing...Nulling one way, breaking through here or there or sounding scratchy the other way.
So keep that in mind if you are hunting for rings on the beach and the minerals or black sand is bad. Don't assume a warbly/wobbly/scratchy/one way nulling signal is just odd shaped tiny bits of aluminum because a few of these nicles and tabs did the same thing. They could have easily been a gold ring. I always scoop those signals anyway hoping for a small gold earing or a gold chain that might sound like that. Some of the real deep 9 or 10" coins I was sure were going to be tiny bits of junk or something they sounded so bad, but they were still giving me a high tone mixed in there, and as said the other way would either null or only break through here or there with a sick or scratchy "in and out" type of signal, just like a bottle cap or say a tiny bit of aluminum junk or something.
If the GT is having that much trouble at this beach imagine what other machines are struggling with. Turning the sensitivity 9/10ths of the way down to keep the threshold from always dropping out, and even then it still was dropping out here and there. Worst beach conditions I've ever hunted with the GT and 12x10. Usuallly I can ride sensitivity much higher than this. If the threshold wouldn't have stabilized at that low of sensitivity I would have flipped over to Auto and saw what that would do. That's my normaly routine when sensitivity gets that low and still is giving me issues. Usually Auto will smooth things right out and still get decent depth, but decided not to go that route today.
Played some more on the sweep speed over some of the super deep stuff that was giving me issues. Super slow sweep banged just as hard as a medium sweep on this beach, but even a super fast Whites sweep still banged good on the deepies too. I'd say super fast just started to break the target up just a hair but it was still something you wouldn't miss. Enjoying the sweep speed thing seeing whats up at various sites. Mixed bag so far. Well, I think only 1 beach thus far super slow crawl wouldn't hear the targets at extreme depth, but medium and super fast have hit fine on them at depth from memory so far. Need to test this more on land too. I'm just impressed the GT is banging fine at whipping the coil on these fringe depth targets. Goes against everything I've always read. Maybe it's my minerals or maybe it's the 12x10? Don't know yet, so need to keep testing at various sites on sand and soil.
Just wanted to point out the thing about the junky signals in mineralized beaches. Don't pass them up thinking they are tiny bits of junk or something. Could be a gold ring and the minerals are messing with it. Only way to see what targets are doing at a beach is dig them and then you'll have an idea if round objects like coins or rings are breaking up like that even because the sand is so bad.
PS- My sweep speed testing is using long sweeps like you are hunting, not the short ones or wiggles we all know are needed to be done at a faster pace to pull the best ID/tone at depth. If I was doing the short sweep/wiggle thing that would throw off the results of course because they always seem to want fast for that.
PS #2- Also played with PP mode on some deep ones and a few it couldn't hear while discriminate hit fine on them. I keep seeing this on soil and sand for me in my area.