Competition Hunts

[mitto]

Hi All --

I hope everyone is weathering the bitter cold temps over the past month. We are supposed to have a heat wave here this week. Temps are supposed to be in the 30's. WOW!!!

I guess I better get to the point. I belong to a metal detecting club. This spring we are going to host an open competition hunt to raise funds for our club. I have no doubt it will be successful, and everyone will have a great time.

My question to everyone is what you all feel about these hunts. I personally do not feel they are that exciting, and the thought of going out and hunting in a cordoned off area for dimes someone has planted in the ground just before you got there is not my idea of a good time.

What are your thoughts of these hunts. Am I off base, and should I give them another chance, or are there other people who feel the same way I do.

If there are people who enjoy these type of hunts, what is it about them that attracts you to them. I mean no disrespect to those of you who enjoy these hunts.

 

[mwaynebennett]

I attended my first ever treasure hunting (MDing) club meeting last night. On the agenda was an upcoming hunt as you mentioned. On the way back home I was thinking that such a competition has its shortfalls, like competitors swinging their machines into each other and how a large portion of the outcome was luck based. I then conceived of what I would think to be a more fun competition. That would be an ID competition. Take 20 small plastic peanut butter or similar jars and paint them so they were no longer transparent and place insede two pieces of foam rubber and then sandwich 20 different "targets" in the jars, one target per jar. The foam would keep the targets from rattling in the jars and providing some hint as to the identity of the targets. I would have the jars numbered 1-20 and place them in a large open area, perhaps 36" between jars and let the competitors each have a fixed amount of time, say 15 seconds per jar, to swing and ID the invisible targets. Each competitor would record his/her best guess as to the contents of each jar and the contestants who get the highest scores win the prize/s.

To me, that would be a skill based competition and not dependent upon being at the right place at the right time.

Mark
Elite 2200
WA St.

 

[dave5710]

I see where Mark is going and that would be interesting. But I doubt if it would take more than an hour. The club I belong to has an annual silver hunt. The cost is $25.00 per person. We have 4 hunts in one. A poker hunt, which is a team event, a key hunt, certain keys will unlock small treasure chests, a silver hunt with tokens, the tokens are redeemed for prizes, and a Indian Head, wheat penny, and assorted nickel hunt with tokens.

For the silver hunt the tokens we use are painted silver dimes. These are randomly buried on the course with about 400 silver Mercury dimes, some quarters and a few halves. If I were greedy and just skipped all dimes to find quarters and halves, I wouldn't get any of the prizes. I can't tell a silver dime from a painted silver dime when it is buried. One year I found 6 of 25 tokens, the previous year I found 0. The key hunt has prizes for most keys, but also certain colored keys are redeemed for prizes. The keys are uncut house keys blanks that would be available from any hardware store. We use a couple hundred silver and gold blanks and 1 red, and 1 blue blank. So even if the slowest hunter only found 3 or 4 keys, they would still be a big winner by finding the red or blue key. The penny nickel hunt works the same way as the silver hunt, but on a smaller scale, except painted nickels and pennies are the tokens. The poker hunt is really an ice breaker event that gets strangers talking to each other a little bit. It is held first, as there always seems to be new faces every year.

I have never seen anyone bang coils together.

 

[mwaynebennett]

Man, I would like to go to one of those team events. My team would use a MD like the one in this photo. We would really kick "you know what."

The MD in the photo is used in the heartland to find meteorites. It is pulled behind an ATV or quad.The link is about one that was found that is worth a cool $1*10^6. That is a million bucks to all those unfamiliar with scientific notation.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.01/meteor.html

Mark
Elite 2200
WA St.

 

[ggoodew]

To bad there not aloud in competition the biggest coil you can use is 11'' lol

 

[jackintexas]

Been detecting 33 years. Been on many competition hunts. The trick is to have prizes anyone would love to have. We always have a few detectors to win with numbered tokens. Also many other prizes. Silver dollars ect. But you must charge a fee paying for someone to hunt in the hunt.I love them. Lots of fun.....Jack