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Carpet of nails
- Thread starter JHM
- Start date
oscpeterson
New member
I would set the GT to disc Notch off dig the good tones. Go back over in all metal
Critterhunter
New member
I'd take a different approach. Work it "easy" the first time and then each time you go back make it progressively harder for yourself with the settings. Set your sensitivity to auto so it will help to keep the threshold stabile. Iron Mask OFF. Silent Search. Discrimination at max (allowing only copper coins and above to sound off). Notch zero. The whole idea would be to limit your ear exposure the first time out working it. The easy stuff will come that way and you aren't going to be sorting through a sea of tones and noise to find those targets.
Once you've covered the entire area that way on your next trip back keep discrimination at zero and try a low to medium manual sensitivity. Iron Mask ON this time and Silent Search OFF.
After the area is covered once again it's time to tweak sensitivity out for max depth. I'd be particular about making sure that's adjusted right in a clean spot where there is no iron. Either pump the coil or keep sweeping in one spot until the threshold nulls and then back it off a bit.
Final trip would be hunting in all metal and constantly flipping back to Disc. to reverse discriminate the targets.
Make sure you cover the area from a different angle each time you go out. I found in my testing that badly masked coins will sound off perfect one way but might sound bad or null completely the other. I'd say try using a small coil like the S-5. Go back and work the spot with a bigger coil later. Working it with all the above methods and different levels of sensitivity will insure you're getting most of the goodies.
Why go all out with depth and everything the first time out since that's probably the kind of place you are going to want to work over and over. Less distractions the first time or two by using the settings properly will give you less chance of missing the easy good ones rather than hearing all that junk. Later when you are hearing it all you can dig the iffy stuff and all that jazz. It's like food...I like to savor a site like that by not gulping it all down at once.
Once you've covered the entire area that way on your next trip back keep discrimination at zero and try a low to medium manual sensitivity. Iron Mask ON this time and Silent Search OFF.
After the area is covered once again it's time to tweak sensitivity out for max depth. I'd be particular about making sure that's adjusted right in a clean spot where there is no iron. Either pump the coil or keep sweeping in one spot until the threshold nulls and then back it off a bit.
Final trip would be hunting in all metal and constantly flipping back to Disc. to reverse discriminate the targets.
Make sure you cover the area from a different angle each time you go out. I found in my testing that badly masked coins will sound off perfect one way but might sound bad or null completely the other. I'd say try using a small coil like the S-5. Go back and work the spot with a bigger coil later. Working it with all the above methods and different levels of sensitivity will insure you're getting most of the goodies.
Why go all out with depth and everything the first time out since that's probably the kind of place you are going to want to work over and over. Less distractions the first time or two by using the settings properly will give you less chance of missing the easy good ones rather than hearing all that junk. Later when you are hearing it all you can dig the iffy stuff and all that jazz. It's like food...I like to savor a site like that by not gulping it all down at once.
Critterhunter
New member
Yea, in reality I normaly get in a rush for depth and dig anything "iffy" right off the bat as well. I normaly won't be as tedious and mythodical with my search strategies at a site like that, but having a little perspective (since I'm not hunting it ) I can sit back and say slow down and take your time with it. Why rush a spot since it sounds like you don't have competition there?
) I can sit back and say slow down and take your time with it. Why rush a spot since it sounds like you don't have competition there?When I get into a lot of small iron I find that nothing compares to a Tesoro with a 5.75 "widescan" DD coil. I like the Tejon but the Cibola or Vaquero may work well too, all three use the same 5.75 DD coil. There is nothing like it in heavy trash, especially small iro. The Sovereign will work in small iron but not as well, you will hear all the nails. If they are whole they will double beep, if they are cut or corroded and broken they will usually not hit from 90 degrees, (only one way) and you have to stop and check them all out. With the Tejon, you just wont hear them but you will hear buttons and bullets and other good targets... it's 17khz+ frequency hits hard on brass and lead.
Sorry... no disrespect to the Sovereign. I love my sovereign but it isn't my "go to" in a bed of nails.
For more info or for a second opinion ask Monte.
If you live anywhere near NW GA you are welcome to borrow mine so you can try it...
Julien
Sorry... no disrespect to the Sovereign. I love my sovereign but it isn't my "go to" in a bed of nails.
For more info or for a second opinion ask Monte.
If you live anywhere near NW GA you are welcome to borrow mine so you can try it...
Julien
Critterhunter
New member
Jbow, have you ever used an S-5 on your Sovereign? If you haven't your opinion might change a bit.
Yes I had one, I sold it. I just couldn't get used to it.
I think I sold it to Adam in CA. I also had an S-12 that I didn't care much for.
I use the 10" Tornado mostly and an 8" coinsearch but the thing is that theTejon simply ignores the small iron with the disc on foil... you know, that make's me think though. I ALWAYS use the Sovereign with no disc and no notch... I wonder how it would do if I disced out the iron... hmmm. I will have to try that with the Coinsearch.
Thanks,
Julien
I think I sold it to Adam in CA. I also had an S-12 that I didn't care much for.
I use the 10" Tornado mostly and an 8" coinsearch but the thing is that theTejon simply ignores the small iron with the disc on foil... you know, that make's me think though. I ALWAYS use the Sovereign with no disc and no notch... I wonder how it would do if I disced out the iron... hmmm. I will have to try that with the Coinsearch.
Thanks,
Julien
Critterhunter
New member
Let me know what you find out. I'd rather hear everything myself while hunting for old coins and let my ears & VDI be the deciding factor on targets. I'm going to have to try all metal fixed since I like to hear all the iron as well, but I am starting to learn to "hear" the iron by the threshold nulling out on the Sovereign in discriminate. When ring hunting on land in real trashy spots I prefer using discrimination and notch. That's when I like disc at 90 to kill most foil and a notch set to about 152 thru 165 to kill about 84% of all round/square tabs (see splitting hairs on rings thread).
Critterhunter
New member
No they aren't! I have a friend that always says that. He's switching to gold ring hunting only because his theory is gold is being replaced but old coins aren't still being dropped. Always laugh when he says that. While he sits around and complains that all the spots are hunted out me and my other friend have been tearing up the old coins all last summer and fall.
There are ENDLESS places to hunt that have never seen a coil. The key is imagination. You must always be looking for places. While shopping drive around the back of the store. You might find an old lot or a small body of woods there that has seen activity. Hunting the woods along rivers and creeks is always good, as is ANY body of woods for that matter. You simply don't know what might have been there at one time. Hunting camps, old cabins, some guy bonking his girlfriend, and so on.
I keep a very keen eye out for any indications of activity when scouting woods. Old dates on trees. Depressions in the ground. Non-native trees (I *LOVE* looking for apple trees when they are in bloom. They stand out like a sore thumb). Pottery or glass shards, old stones piled in one place. Trees that are younger than the surrounding forest. Highways that trapped homesteads between them and a cliff, river, ridge, or private property with no way out so they were abandoned.
But it isn't just woods. Look for playgrounds in old neighborhoods. Chances are these tiny lot parks are built on where a house used to be. Train tressels often had construction camps near them. The tree lawn around stores or other places where nobody is likely to kick you out. There are endless places and possibilities but a negative attitude will not find them for you. Every time my friend starts getting down on old coin hunting I call my other buddy up and we go out and prove him wrong. I'd say this past summer was one of the best years I've ever had for old coins, and as I fine tune my "research" or scouting techniques I expect this year to be even better.
Heck, I even found a small lot behind a Mcdonalds parking lot in an old neighborhood. I know it was somebody's yard at one time because it's got a few shade trees and I can see the rope marks on a limb where a swing used to be. Can't wait to hunt that one either. Sometimes I'll read old "vanity" books that locals wrote. You'll find a lot of good leads in them as well. In fact, I just tracked down a spot where conterfitters were making coins on a high spot in a swamp from one of those old books. Guess where I'll be hunting this summer?
What I also try to do is take different streets when I go to the store or something so I can look for new places. Even if I'm just leaving my house I'll take the next street over to get somewhere. Found out a patch of land near some railroad tracks was scraped last summer by doing that. Some locals had cleaned this spot out several years ago and got some good coins. I never got anything and the ground was very mineralized. When I saw that they had scraped about 14" of dirt off the lot I called my friend and we were there that night. Then I started popping the coins that were either too deep or masked before the the layer they stripped off. Up until they had removed that topsoil I had hit this spot four or five times only because I knew what had came out of there before but never got anything. This was prior to me owning a GT which might have produced there. Point being watch for construction sites as well.
One other thing about hunting woods: Keep in mind that as trees get older the underbrush and briars go away. For that reason alone you are probably the first person to swing a coil even in a small wooded lot right in the middle of a city. I watch for tree growth that looks to be just old enough to start killing the briars and brush under them. Those are for sure virgin areas even if they are right next to an old school because it was too thick to hunt just a few years ago.
There are ENDLESS places to hunt that have never seen a coil. The key is imagination. You must always be looking for places. While shopping drive around the back of the store. You might find an old lot or a small body of woods there that has seen activity. Hunting the woods along rivers and creeks is always good, as is ANY body of woods for that matter. You simply don't know what might have been there at one time. Hunting camps, old cabins, some guy bonking his girlfriend, and so on.
I keep a very keen eye out for any indications of activity when scouting woods. Old dates on trees. Depressions in the ground. Non-native trees (I *LOVE* looking for apple trees when they are in bloom. They stand out like a sore thumb). Pottery or glass shards, old stones piled in one place. Trees that are younger than the surrounding forest. Highways that trapped homesteads between them and a cliff, river, ridge, or private property with no way out so they were abandoned.
But it isn't just woods. Look for playgrounds in old neighborhoods. Chances are these tiny lot parks are built on where a house used to be. Train tressels often had construction camps near them. The tree lawn around stores or other places where nobody is likely to kick you out. There are endless places and possibilities but a negative attitude will not find them for you. Every time my friend starts getting down on old coin hunting I call my other buddy up and we go out and prove him wrong. I'd say this past summer was one of the best years I've ever had for old coins, and as I fine tune my "research" or scouting techniques I expect this year to be even better.
Heck, I even found a small lot behind a Mcdonalds parking lot in an old neighborhood. I know it was somebody's yard at one time because it's got a few shade trees and I can see the rope marks on a limb where a swing used to be. Can't wait to hunt that one either. Sometimes I'll read old "vanity" books that locals wrote. You'll find a lot of good leads in them as well. In fact, I just tracked down a spot where conterfitters were making coins on a high spot in a swamp from one of those old books. Guess where I'll be hunting this summer?
What I also try to do is take different streets when I go to the store or something so I can look for new places. Even if I'm just leaving my house I'll take the next street over to get somewhere. Found out a patch of land near some railroad tracks was scraped last summer by doing that. Some locals had cleaned this spot out several years ago and got some good coins. I never got anything and the ground was very mineralized. When I saw that they had scraped about 14" of dirt off the lot I called my friend and we were there that night. Then I started popping the coins that were either too deep or masked before the the layer they stripped off. Up until they had removed that topsoil I had hit this spot four or five times only because I knew what had came out of there before but never got anything. This was prior to me owning a GT which might have produced there. Point being watch for construction sites as well.
One other thing about hunting woods: Keep in mind that as trees get older the underbrush and briars go away. For that reason alone you are probably the first person to swing a coil even in a small wooded lot right in the middle of a city. I watch for tree growth that looks to be just old enough to start killing the briars and brush under them. Those are for sure virgin areas even if they are right next to an old school because it was too thick to hunt just a few years ago.
Julian, the iron is disced out all the time on the sovereign even at 0 disc and notch, to me it would have been nice to disc it in so you could hear it and not have to wait for he null to pass to carry on, i hunt that way a lot with the Etrac and its amazing how close you can get to iron/nails etc without problems, you get a good earbashing if you do it too long but for short spells works great(i also switch to Ferous sounds and get a low iron grunt as the high pitch of nails hurts my ears in conduct)
Critterhunter
New member
Yep, I like to hear the iron to get a "feel" for the spot. Like I said, I'm learning to "hear" it by the GT's threshold nulling out, but I also plan to try hunting in all metal fixed and then just flipping back to disc iron ON to check a target. That's another reason why my remote pinpoint is going to come in real handy for me. So far I don't think pinpoint is as deep as discrimination on my GT. I would guess All Metal Fixed would be as deep or deeper than discriminate but need to check that in the field. Often when I check a deep target in pinpoint I can't hear it but it is very loud in discrimination.