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Digging Nulls with Excal.....
- Thread starter John(Tx)
- Start date
scubadetector
New member
I don't use an Excal But if you look at my post under where is the gold this year, I typed this:
Want to find gold? Here are some tips. DON'T go where everybody goes. Do some research. Find OLD swim areas. Anywhere in Michigan along ANY shoreline. So you don't get a signal for a half hour, so what? Most people back then didn't swim with coins in their pockets, just rings and jewelry on.
When you find a good target SLOW DOWN. Do circles around it. Make sure whoever lost it was either swimming alone or was the only person that dropped a ring or religious medal.
Dig IFFY signals. Dig iron signals and move them aside or take them out if small enough. LOTS of good targets are masked. I know that for a fact by being able to see while diving.
If you do go where everyone else goes, Go late Sunday night or early Monday morning after a weekend. Just because you never see anybody else doesn't mean nobody else ever hits the area. I have found gold rings ALL along the shore of lake Huron from Port Huron to Lexington. I have found gold where NO other targets existed except a few sinkers.
Same for lake St. Clair. Find the party spots sure, but don't expect gold every time or get discouraged. I pulled almost 1200.00 in one day in lake St. Clair. Kevin got nothing. Kevin got 700.00 in one day in Lake Huron, I got nothing but silver.
The key is you HAVE to get your coil over it. I have found gold in weeds that are 5' tall and had to move them around with the coil. Also in the muck which isn't a great place for waders!! I was in Pine lake in West Bloomfield on a drop-off and found a Barber quarter. I went slow and was rewarded with a 14 gram 14K signet ring. Didn't expect anything but sinkers and fishing lures out there.
I know Metamora recreation area, Brighton Recreation area, Vandercook lake, 7 lakes, Cass lake, Pontiac lake, Island lake, Pinckney Recreation area, and a lot of others get hit HARD. But I found a place in Pontiac lake that nobody ever touched. I pulled over 100.00 in new coins out of there and a lot of silver and gold. I also pulled nice gold out of the recreation area BUT in deeper water.
Tomorrow Kensington Recreation area, Stoney Creek and Detroit Metro park open for the first time of the season. TONS of detectorists will be out there. I will NOT be one of them.
Before air conditioners EVERYBODY swam. Before multi million dollar houses sprang up on the lakes, cottages were there, hidden swim areas for teenagers in the 30's - 70's and in some lakes Amusement parks were built over the lakes. Google Vandercook Lake and Walled Lake. FANTASTIC information, HOWEVER, they have been beaten to death. But, other areas of BOTH lakes have been super productive for both gold and silver.
I found a coin in Vandercook that was redeemable for 5.00 in gold if presented to the Citizen Press BEFORE OCT. 14, 1914. How cool is that? It was about 15' deep on a drop-off. The bottom is muck, as is a lot of other lakes. I still detect them. In Pinckney the main swim area gets hammered. Snorkel in the rest of the rec area among the weeds, I got a nice 22K bracelet out of them and the trash.
Yes you have to work for the gold here in Michigan. It just doesn't jump under my coil. I move rocks, hunt among weeds and push my coil in the muck to find it. I will never get it all. But my underwater hoover seems to find a lot that others have missed.
Target mask is a huge issue, especially underwater. I have been in places where coin after coin and ring and junk were all in one spot. Especially around docks. Around one dock I could easily sit in one spot and pick up over 40 good targets without moving an inch. Things dropped off docks just sink. Coins, rings, keys, nails, screws, bottletops and everything else you can imagine. Then the docks dissapear and you have piles of treasure.
Want to find gold? Here are some tips. DON'T go where everybody goes. Do some research. Find OLD swim areas. Anywhere in Michigan along ANY shoreline. So you don't get a signal for a half hour, so what? Most people back then didn't swim with coins in their pockets, just rings and jewelry on.
When you find a good target SLOW DOWN. Do circles around it. Make sure whoever lost it was either swimming alone or was the only person that dropped a ring or religious medal.
Dig IFFY signals. Dig iron signals and move them aside or take them out if small enough. LOTS of good targets are masked. I know that for a fact by being able to see while diving.
If you do go where everyone else goes, Go late Sunday night or early Monday morning after a weekend. Just because you never see anybody else doesn't mean nobody else ever hits the area. I have found gold rings ALL along the shore of lake Huron from Port Huron to Lexington. I have found gold where NO other targets existed except a few sinkers.
Same for lake St. Clair. Find the party spots sure, but don't expect gold every time or get discouraged. I pulled almost 1200.00 in one day in lake St. Clair. Kevin got nothing. Kevin got 700.00 in one day in Lake Huron, I got nothing but silver.
The key is you HAVE to get your coil over it. I have found gold in weeds that are 5' tall and had to move them around with the coil. Also in the muck which isn't a great place for waders!! I was in Pine lake in West Bloomfield on a drop-off and found a Barber quarter. I went slow and was rewarded with a 14 gram 14K signet ring. Didn't expect anything but sinkers and fishing lures out there.
I know Metamora recreation area, Brighton Recreation area, Vandercook lake, 7 lakes, Cass lake, Pontiac lake, Island lake, Pinckney Recreation area, and a lot of others get hit HARD. But I found a place in Pontiac lake that nobody ever touched. I pulled over 100.00 in new coins out of there and a lot of silver and gold. I also pulled nice gold out of the recreation area BUT in deeper water.
Tomorrow Kensington Recreation area, Stoney Creek and Detroit Metro park open for the first time of the season. TONS of detectorists will be out there. I will NOT be one of them.
Before air conditioners EVERYBODY swam. Before multi million dollar houses sprang up on the lakes, cottages were there, hidden swim areas for teenagers in the 30's - 70's and in some lakes Amusement parks were built over the lakes. Google Vandercook Lake and Walled Lake. FANTASTIC information, HOWEVER, they have been beaten to death. But, other areas of BOTH lakes have been super productive for both gold and silver.
I found a coin in Vandercook that was redeemable for 5.00 in gold if presented to the Citizen Press BEFORE OCT. 14, 1914. How cool is that? It was about 15' deep on a drop-off. The bottom is muck, as is a lot of other lakes. I still detect them. In Pinckney the main swim area gets hammered. Snorkel in the rest of the rec area among the weeds, I got a nice 22K bracelet out of them and the trash.
Yes you have to work for the gold here in Michigan. It just doesn't jump under my coil. I move rocks, hunt among weeds and push my coil in the muck to find it. I will never get it all. But my underwater hoover seems to find a lot that others have missed.
Target mask is a huge issue, especially underwater. I have been in places where coin after coin and ring and junk were all in one spot. Especially around docks. Around one dock I could easily sit in one spot and pick up over 40 good targets without moving an inch. Things dropped off docks just sink. Coins, rings, keys, nails, screws, bottletops and everything else you can imagine. Then the docks dissapear and you have piles of treasure.
bootyhoundpa
Well-known member
i work the nulls to see if i can muster a tone out of them..........if i can get the null to sound off i dig it....i have had good targets null on the 1st or second swing only to sound off when approached from different angle or slower sweep speed...
Critterhunter
New member
I use a GT on the beach. Here's the thing...The beach I hit today has super high minerals (a lot of microscopic iron too) and also it had streaks of black sand due to heavy rains that washed off some of the top layer. I was digging coins and round and square tabs that would null one way and sound iffy/bad the other way, acting just like a crown cap does on the BBS machines. Every one I would have bet money was going to be a crown cap, but none were. And these were only say 5 to 9" coins and tabs. Worst beach I ever hunted under this conditions due to the streaking black sand which made the already mineralized beach worse. Had to run sensitivity 9/10ths of the way down. Just a hair more and it would have been all the way down.
Furthest down I've ever had to run my GT at this beach, and this is using my 12x10 which usually allows me to run higher sensitivity than the stock 10" Tornado. When I get past about 5PM or so I usually just throw it into Auto if the threshold doesn't smooth out, but I was digging coins and tabs as deep as about 9" or so, so I was really impressed with the depth at that low of a manual and with that bad of minerals. It's just that many of these tabs and coins would either act like crown caps (the coins), or act like tiny blobs of aluminum (the tabs did)...So I always dig those somewhat nulling hits in case of a tiny gold earring or a gold chain.
The BBS machines will bang hard at crazy depth on even the thinnest of gold rings because they are a complete loop and show a big signal like a coin to the machine, but the tiny gold earings or fine gold chains might null/sound iffy or sizzle and such, that's why I dig them. When I saw how bad round targets were acting on this beach I knew I better dig all that nulling stuff so long as it broke through in any way, because it could be a gold ring. Never saw a beach this bad, and even this beach isn't nearly this bad on most days. This is a freshwater beach too, so no issues with salt.
But, here's the thing...These targets didn't sound so deep that they should be nulling on me. But, if targets are scarce then digging complete nulls can yeild rings or coins, because on ANY machine as the target gets right at fringe outer limits of depth the microscopic iron in the soil or sand is now stronger than the target signal and it will pull the signal down into the iron range. That last little bit of outer detection where the coil can still see a target it will null like it's iron. Fortunately the GT will ID and give a tone almost to the complete limits of depth. I've only seen about a 1/8th to 1/4" difference between where the target will ID and where it can no longer and it will null out in my tests. This will happen with any machine, but some machines lose the ID and tone at much shallower depths than the coil can see.
Some guys hunt in pin point mode and say it's deeper for them on Excals and such. I've tried it with my GT and often PP mode won't see a super deep target I can hit fine in discriminate. One of the reasons I rarely PP in PP mode. I just prefer discriminate to PP as then I know PP isn't dragging me off the target into iron. Now though, I suspect that when there is a lot of microscopic iron in the soil or sand, PP might see the target where as discriminte at fringe depth nulls it out as iron. Going to play with that more when targets are scarce, but so far PP mode doesn't seem deeper for me. But, the other day I hunted in PP and kept flipping back to discriminate (I wired a remote PP switch into my grip so it's easy to flip back and fourth) to check the target, and while discriminate could hear them easily too sometimes I had to be right on top of them with the center of the coil or I would have missed it, where as PP mode gave a much more broader/forgiving response if I wasn't right on top of it. For that reason alone PP mode can have it's merits, particularly when you are trying to cover ground faster and there are few targets around.
Anyway, here's what I'm saying...if you know the sand or soil isn't causing stuff to null out on you then I'd pass on the shallower nulls and only dig the nulls that sound super deep, because then that could be a coin or ring at the very outer fringes of detection depth. The shallower nulls I wouldn't mess with, unless you know the beach or soil minerals are giving you issues with that like it did me today. I can only imagine how bad my other machines would have done at this beach, because the GT has handled my minerals better in my soils/sands for me with amazing depth but it was crawling on it's knees today. The depth was still good even with such a almost all the way down sensitivity, but the target responses past about 5 or 6" where terrible, like a bottle cap or iron signal giving me a false hit, and a complete null sometimes from the other direction. People pass on tiny bits of aluminum or other junk all the time that sound like this. Big mistake IMO, especially at this beach.
Furthest down I've ever had to run my GT at this beach, and this is using my 12x10 which usually allows me to run higher sensitivity than the stock 10" Tornado. When I get past about 5PM or so I usually just throw it into Auto if the threshold doesn't smooth out, but I was digging coins and tabs as deep as about 9" or so, so I was really impressed with the depth at that low of a manual and with that bad of minerals. It's just that many of these tabs and coins would either act like crown caps (the coins), or act like tiny blobs of aluminum (the tabs did)...So I always dig those somewhat nulling hits in case of a tiny gold earring or a gold chain.
The BBS machines will bang hard at crazy depth on even the thinnest of gold rings because they are a complete loop and show a big signal like a coin to the machine, but the tiny gold earings or fine gold chains might null/sound iffy or sizzle and such, that's why I dig them. When I saw how bad round targets were acting on this beach I knew I better dig all that nulling stuff so long as it broke through in any way, because it could be a gold ring. Never saw a beach this bad, and even this beach isn't nearly this bad on most days. This is a freshwater beach too, so no issues with salt.
But, here's the thing...These targets didn't sound so deep that they should be nulling on me. But, if targets are scarce then digging complete nulls can yeild rings or coins, because on ANY machine as the target gets right at fringe outer limits of depth the microscopic iron in the soil or sand is now stronger than the target signal and it will pull the signal down into the iron range. That last little bit of outer detection where the coil can still see a target it will null like it's iron. Fortunately the GT will ID and give a tone almost to the complete limits of depth. I've only seen about a 1/8th to 1/4" difference between where the target will ID and where it can no longer and it will null out in my tests. This will happen with any machine, but some machines lose the ID and tone at much shallower depths than the coil can see.
Some guys hunt in pin point mode and say it's deeper for them on Excals and such. I've tried it with my GT and often PP mode won't see a super deep target I can hit fine in discriminate. One of the reasons I rarely PP in PP mode. I just prefer discriminate to PP as then I know PP isn't dragging me off the target into iron. Now though, I suspect that when there is a lot of microscopic iron in the soil or sand, PP might see the target where as discriminte at fringe depth nulls it out as iron. Going to play with that more when targets are scarce, but so far PP mode doesn't seem deeper for me. But, the other day I hunted in PP and kept flipping back to discriminate (I wired a remote PP switch into my grip so it's easy to flip back and fourth) to check the target, and while discriminate could hear them easily too sometimes I had to be right on top of them with the center of the coil or I would have missed it, where as PP mode gave a much more broader/forgiving response if I wasn't right on top of it. For that reason alone PP mode can have it's merits, particularly when you are trying to cover ground faster and there are few targets around.
Anyway, here's what I'm saying...if you know the sand or soil isn't causing stuff to null out on you then I'd pass on the shallower nulls and only dig the nulls that sound super deep, because then that could be a coin or ring at the very outer fringes of detection depth. The shallower nulls I wouldn't mess with, unless you know the beach or soil minerals are giving you issues with that like it did me today. I can only imagine how bad my other machines would have done at this beach, because the GT has handled my minerals better in my soils/sands for me with amazing depth but it was crawling on it's knees today. The depth was still good even with such a almost all the way down sensitivity, but the target responses past about 5 or 6" where terrible, like a bottle cap or iron signal giving me a false hit, and a complete null sometimes from the other direction. People pass on tiny bits of aluminum or other junk all the time that sound like this. Big mistake IMO, especially at this beach.
Every single null I've ever dug (on the beach) with my GT or Excal has been junk. That being said, some have stated that deep target nulls can become solid signals after removing a scoop or two of sand. Possibly they are hunting in all metal? I hunt in discrim only and have removed sand with no change in signal.