Competition hunting

[John D.]

Hello Everyone,
Well it is raining today so I am on the net seeking advise. Saturday I went on my 1st competition hunt, using my GTP 1350. Everyone there was highly experience except for yours truly. I found only 3 silver coins and the more experienced found 12-15. Now my question, what settings do you all use when on a competition hunt?
I am not displeased with finding only 3 coins, however I would like to have won some of the prizes which were given away. Thank you in advance for your help and suggestions.
Your Friend,
John D.

 

[jimmileo]

Hi John D! I just hunted in my second ever comp. hunt. Your detector settings should be set according to the type of coins or tokens you are hunting. My first hunt was a "deep" hunt and to get extra depth I hunted in all metal. I might note also that the ground was free of very much trash. My second hunt was shallow pennies with the prize pennies painted. In this one I discriminated out iron and quarters, halves, and silver dollars. Pennies sometimes ring up as dimes and even get over into the gold and pull tab range on my ACE 250. The next hunt was silver quarters so I discriminated out the entire left side of my scale. The last hunt was silver dimes mostly with silver rounds, silver quarters, tokens and a few silver halves as prize coins. Again, I discriminated the entire left portion of my scale. Although I didn't find a prize token I did come home with 20 wheat pennies, nine silver quarters, 30 silver dimes and two silver halves. In most of the hunts speed was the secret to being most successful. I figureed the discrimination would improve my speed and it did as I did much better than my first club hunt. I still am not speedy enough to be really competative because of a mild handicap I have with my back, I am slow. I could just as well have hunted the entire thing in an all metal mode since there wasn't much trash. I did find myself picking up more silver than some of the guys I followed along behind with high dollar detectors! I was just unable to get my coil over a prize token! If I had I feel confident I would have found it easily. Jim

 

[au4greg]

Actually,

I use a Tesoro Compadre because its not necessary to pull the trigger or push the button and then pin point. As the target is encountered you know about where it is. Since most targets are shallow, recovery is easy.

The Ace 150/250 and their relatively fast recovery rate also makes them a candidate for organized hunts where fast recovery and ease of pin pointing will equate into more targets found in the first ten to fifteen minutes.

 

[John D.]

THANKS EVERYONE,
I think I now know ONE OF MY PROBLEMS.
I hunted slow an easy like I normally do and now that I think of about it, I was the only one hunting slow and easy.

 

[Skillet]

Quick pinpointing and target recovery... for about the first 15 minutes. Then you can slow down and look for the scattered coins and tokens the others missed.

Last comp hunt I went to, I used an old Freedom Ace. You don't need bells and whistles for shallow silver. I was lucky enough to pull up a prize token for a 1500... the ONLY machine on the table I already had! Oh well, at least the old green battle-axe paid for itself and the entry fees.

Skillet

 

[BOB in TX]

I have been to about 75 comp. hunts,you will find that about 70 or 80 percent of the coins were gone in the first 20 minutes.

 

[Ken_in_MI]

Hello Jim,
I see you used the 250 in your comp hunts. I notice that when I hunt with others that the 250 chatters when they get near me. Did you have much of a problem with this in the hunt? I wouldn't mind trying a comp hunt, but figured that maybe the 250 wouldn't be that great a machine to use. Don't get me wrong...I am a 250 addict. I value your opinions...
Best regards,
Ken

 

[GH]

I'm some what new to all this & have never gone to one, I've never heard of one where I live, way up in Northern Canada.
I'm curious to know if anyone in these hunts ever use a pin pointer probe in any of these competitions? Dave

 

[au4greg]

Nothing like experience. I remember at a California Searcher's Hunt, one of my coin shooting friends was in his first silver hunt and was on his knees probing all so carefully as to not scratch the coin.

I had to raise his detector IQ from Moron to Commonsense.

 

[Uncle Willy]

Yeah it's nearly impossible to swing the 250 to fast to miss a target with its quick response and recovery.

Bill

 

[old lineman]

the comp hunts I've been in pin pointers were illegal. As far as chatter goes I tried to hunt one time with a metal detector whose frequency was 6.4 and other detectors drove me nuts. I didn't find much. The next one I went to I used the Garrett stinger (15KHz) and did real well no problems with other detectors, discrimination set to detect nickels and above.