I finally got one thanks to Jeff at Quality Metal Detectors (excellent transaction and met my every need quickly). I've been out three times on the Charleston, SC beaches. I know I have a lot of learning to do so hopefully I can do a little here. I've never had to adjust the ground balance - I start at 10, adjust down to 1, hardly ever a sound (in pinpoint mode) then back to 10 as the manual suggests. The bobbing method produces almost no sound. So I don't know if I have the gb correct or not. If not, what problems does it present? And every time I enter the surf as soon as a wave washes over the coil I get all kinds of (false?) signals. At least I can never get them to repeat. Other than that it seems to work ok it just needs a more educated operator. I've run it with disc at 1 and sensitivity all the way up and found a little clad, sinkers and an ipod. Also very little trash. I just can't imagine any beach (these were Folly and Sullivan) being this clean. I'm headed to Myrtle Beach tomorrow so I would really like to get it figured out. I welcome any and all advice!
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CZ-21 beach hunting issues
- Thread starter grfisher
- Start date
I have not hunted near Charleston. In the Myrtle Beach area, some areas of sand are pretty neutral and some are mineralized where you can get a response change with ground balance adjustments. When you get to the beach you are hunting, check the ground balance. It may be like Charleston, it might not. Sounds like you read the manual. 
That is always a great place to start!
I like to hunt the beach in one of two modes:
1) disc set to 0. I like to hear the iron and listen for any bounces to mid-tone. If there is a bounce in tone with a few sweeps of the coil over the target, I'll dig it.
2) autotune, and when I find a target flip to disc 0 to get an idea of what the target might be.
With the sensitivity at max, it is not surprising that it falses on water action. At max sensitivity, I guess I'm a little surprised there isn't more falsing, but if there isn't, then I wouldn't change too much. If you hunt in autotune, it may take a high sensitivity setting to get a threshold in the back ground. The manual covers that pretty well.
Beaches in the wet sand and water tend to be a lot cleaner than parks, athletic fields, tot lots and most populated places where I've detected the ground. Some of the dry sand areas can get trashy, but it can largely depend on the traffic the beach gets and whether or not there has been any beach replenishment activity in the last year or two.
Three pictures are from my last two trips to Myrtle Beach area, first two (silver and gold) are from Christmas to New years week; the third is from early April ... was hoping it was white gold, it was not, marked P4SR ... so the third one (P4SR) is mostly silver. The third ring is posing with another find from the April trip; one of the .50 cal points that turn up every now and then in the Myrtle Beach area.
Hope you have a great trip and get some goodies!
Cheers,
tvr
That is always a great place to start!I like to hunt the beach in one of two modes:
1) disc set to 0. I like to hear the iron and listen for any bounces to mid-tone. If there is a bounce in tone with a few sweeps of the coil over the target, I'll dig it.
2) autotune, and when I find a target flip to disc 0 to get an idea of what the target might be.
With the sensitivity at max, it is not surprising that it falses on water action. At max sensitivity, I guess I'm a little surprised there isn't more falsing, but if there isn't, then I wouldn't change too much. If you hunt in autotune, it may take a high sensitivity setting to get a threshold in the back ground. The manual covers that pretty well.
Beaches in the wet sand and water tend to be a lot cleaner than parks, athletic fields, tot lots and most populated places where I've detected the ground. Some of the dry sand areas can get trashy, but it can largely depend on the traffic the beach gets and whether or not there has been any beach replenishment activity in the last year or two.
Three pictures are from my last two trips to Myrtle Beach area, first two (silver and gold) are from Christmas to New years week; the third is from early April ... was hoping it was white gold, it was not, marked P4SR ... so the third one (P4SR) is mostly silver. The third ring is posing with another find from the April trip; one of the .50 cal points that turn up every now and then in the Myrtle Beach area.
Hope you have a great trip and get some goodies!
Cheers,
tvr
Thanks for the reply. Yeah it took me until this evening when I got to Myrtle Beach to realize the falsing in the water was at the end/beginning of each swing. So I backed the sensitivity all the way to 3 before it stopped. I remember reading 3 is usually the recommended setting in salt water but just didn't think about it since I run it maxed out everywhere but in the water. I only got a couple hours in this evening and wound up with two pennies, a costume ring and a flashlight lol.
That little trough right at the waters edge is a tough place to hunt on account of what you mention...its a prime spot too, so you will figure it out, I walk along the edge and drag the coil behind me down in that riffle...also, like TVR mentioned, you can go a loooong way between pings on a beach! You will find yourself occasionally swinging your coil over your scoop to check to see if your rig is even turned on! Good Luck, you have a very capable machine..
Mud
Mud
Ha! You should read some of Norm Garnushs' writings...Hes deceased, used to have a site called "The Golden Olde" He swung a CZ 20....also Clive Clynick has some good stuff you could benefit from...you will develop your own style/swing pattern to deal with conditions....Up here, Lake Michigan, its more of a 4month race than a hunt, and whoever can cover the most prime realestate in the fastest time generally wins..One July I did a little math, I figured in that month alone I covered 100 miles barefoot hunting every morning..(theres nothing faster than bare feet on the sand, risky though).....generally from @5am to 9am....and theres no guarantee you will find anything!!.
A person has to use their eyes too, you see a little cut, and in there you go, you see fresh tracks on the sand from a cooler, or especially where somebody went for a night time skinnydip, and there you go! so you get good at reading the signs that people leave behind and not just hunting along blindly with no thought or strategy...you start thinking about things and hitting those really prime areas before sun-up, sort of smoke jumping from one hot spot to the other...you scoop everything as fast as you can and try not to waste any time with redundancy...travel really light and be prepared...you will find gold eventually if you commit to it, but it certainly is NOT easy...the toughest kind of hunting I know.....truth be told, a person would do better financially hunting easy shallow clad at an inland park or totlot.....Good Luck and report back how you do!..
Mud
A person has to use their eyes too, you see a little cut, and in there you go, you see fresh tracks on the sand from a cooler, or especially where somebody went for a night time skinnydip, and there you go! so you get good at reading the signs that people leave behind and not just hunting along blindly with no thought or strategy...you start thinking about things and hitting those really prime areas before sun-up, sort of smoke jumping from one hot spot to the other...you scoop everything as fast as you can and try not to waste any time with redundancy...travel really light and be prepared...you will find gold eventually if you commit to it, but it certainly is NOT easy...the toughest kind of hunting I know.....truth be told, a person would do better financially hunting easy shallow clad at an inland park or totlot.....Good Luck and report back how you do!..
Mud
Last trip to Myrtle Beach area this past April, I had a chance to talk with a young fellow who lives in the general area and he was talking about Jim Brouwer's finds. Jim wrote a book, that I've read, that I think covers water hunting pretty well. He wrote about finding the areas where you would reach the hard bottom with the scoop. I'd love to have enough time in the Myrtle Beach area to meet Jim and talk with him and to learn to find more of the hard bottom areas.
Wife and I have been going to the Myrtle Beach area for about 10 years. That gives me between one and two weeks of beach detecting there a year. In those times, I have found the shell layer or a hard bottom in the water very few times. I've found an increase in coin count if I hit the towel line down to about 10 feet below the high tide line. Some times there are groups of coins further out than about 10 feet, depends on where the water pulls them. Some parts of the area have a narrow beach, some a very wide beach at low tide. Most jewelry I've found has been between the high tide line and ankle to knee deep in the water. The jewelry I've found in the area, more so than the coins, is generally spread or dropped further out than right at the high tide line. Where the beach is wide at low tide, I've done fairly well kind of zig zagging the area and when I find a good target (not a tab or bottle cap), I'll start a tight spiral pattern around the target, working the spiral out and overlapping the sweeps. Can frequently find another target or more in the spiral and find a line where the targets kind of line up. I then break the spiral and hunt along the target line, extending it and widening it in both directions. When that line doesn't produce, move on and repeat the random find, spiral, line hunting pattern. May not work for every one or on every day, but it has done fairly well in the Myrtle Beach area for me.
On the Florida trips we have taken, I've had about zero luck with that pattern. I do better just finding the low spots in the water or hunting the towel line / high tide line.
Cheers,
tvr
Wife and I have been going to the Myrtle Beach area for about 10 years. That gives me between one and two weeks of beach detecting there a year. In those times, I have found the shell layer or a hard bottom in the water very few times. I've found an increase in coin count if I hit the towel line down to about 10 feet below the high tide line. Some times there are groups of coins further out than about 10 feet, depends on where the water pulls them. Some parts of the area have a narrow beach, some a very wide beach at low tide. Most jewelry I've found has been between the high tide line and ankle to knee deep in the water. The jewelry I've found in the area, more so than the coins, is generally spread or dropped further out than right at the high tide line. Where the beach is wide at low tide, I've done fairly well kind of zig zagging the area and when I find a good target (not a tab or bottle cap), I'll start a tight spiral pattern around the target, working the spiral out and overlapping the sweeps. Can frequently find another target or more in the spiral and find a line where the targets kind of line up. I then break the spiral and hunt along the target line, extending it and widening it in both directions. When that line doesn't produce, move on and repeat the random find, spiral, line hunting pattern. May not work for every one or on every day, but it has done fairly well in the Myrtle Beach area for me.
On the Florida trips we have taken, I've had about zero luck with that pattern. I do better just finding the low spots in the water or hunting the towel line / high tide line.
Cheers,
tvr
grfisher said:
I am in wilmington nc, just a few hours north of you. I do not need to ground balance either and keep it at 10. I keep the sensitivity as high as I can go without falsing. Usually a 9 on the sand and 6/7 in the water. It will false if a wave comes through or something like that. You just need to learn when its falsing vs not. Time will help you with that. I would run in autotune as its deeper then when you hit a target switch to disc 0 to see what kind of tone it is. On disc 1 you are missing gold.