Drunken sailor

[rmptr]

I usually go directly to what I hope to be hotspots when I get to a location,
work them, then section things off and work a grid pattern.

Seems much as I try to work a straight line towards some landmark in the distance,
then another heading back, my pattern becomes flawed as I walk like a drunken sailor,
because I'm looking at the ground so much.

Unwise to use stakes on a sports field, as some child might be injured,
and old tennis balls, well THEY certainly won't work around kids or dogs!

I always pick up general trash from the sports fields and deposit it on my way out.

Just the other day I found this cloth loop... probably a girls hair tie thingy for a pony tail.

It dawned on me that I could use it as a place marker as I walked my grid, across the sports field.

So I'd slip my coil into it, and flip it over to the other side of my swath each time I passed it and it helped me keep my place.

I figured it might be a good tip, for those working a large open field to use loops of cloth cut from around an old cotton T shirt that was headed for the rag box. Bright color would be a good thing.

If forgotten, the small bit of cloth would not harm the blades on a park mower.

Those guys are my friends! Want to stay on their good side.

 

[tabdog]

That's a good topic. It's hard to grid properly when your concentrating on the ground.

I do it just about like you do. Hit the hot spots first and then grid.

I've been surveying for over 30 years. It's like finding a land corner. I started doing grids with magnets to locate ferrous metal post. I'm serious. We had two magnets suspended in wooden boxes. When the magnets pointed to a metal object, we dug.

I've been doing grids so long it's become second nature, but there are situations where I have problems. I've been doing your trick for decades. The one where you throw a high visible object to the next pass. I usually used trash when available.

Happy New Year,

 

[RLOH]

RMPTR, I try to do the exact same thing. I keep my passes to a maximum of 50 feet. Any longer and I tend to wander. I use sticks poked in the ground of a piece of paper or other trash as a marker. I always keep either a mental note or write down land marks where I stop so I can pick up in the right spot the next time I hunt there. Most people find this too tedious, but I am always amazed at what I can find with this grid system. Two days ago I went back to a spot where I found many Indian heads and Barber coins. I gridded the same area I hunted last summer, but I turned and ran my patterns 90 degrees. I found 8 wheat pennies, one Buffalo nickle, and two mercury dimes in a hour and a half. I would have found more, but I got froze out. Public places are hunted very hard and gridding will produce, but to some it is boring. I just like detecting and by hunting in two directions, you get more hunting time. Bill Revis one of the moderators on the Garrett forum wrote an very interesting article about this type of hunting ten years ago and I never forgot it. R.L.

 

[jim tn]

I agree, gridding will get many more goodies then just wondering around. In fact, when ever I search randomly I have the sense I'm missing nearby targets. HH jim tn

 

[rmptr]

By golly I'm gonna have to get up earlier to come up with something this group hasn't already thought of! LOL

Jim, I go the opposite way, and I'm sure it's a flaw...

I KNOW it's better to work a grid because it's more thorough...
yet I'll feel like something over there might be talking to me and I'll kinda step over thatta ways, and...
well, there goes my pattern!

Many years ago I read an article in a treasure detecting mag where someone described certain folks who hunted various areas on instinct... the article was by some british folk, so I've referred to it as the English method.

If you can train yourself to make a snap decision and go with your best instinct right off the top, you can determine if you are indeed capable to making good decisions in that fashion.

Since I do this for fun, mostly, I use that English method except when I get to a point where I want to "clear" a field of targets and only need to deal with recent drops in future trips to the place. (usually a sports field)

Myself?
I'm NOT such a person.
I never got a thing that was not by persistent hard work. LOL
So a grid works out better, in the end, for me.

But that has never deterred me from having fun at this hobby and wanting to be among the lucky ones!

 

[King]

Drunks tend to stagger into things and stumble dropping their belonging along the way. So the way I see it, staggering like a drunk, should be a great method. It's like re-tracing your steps except that they're not yours they're some drunken sailor's!

 

[tab-nabit]

I've done the poking sticks in the ground, laying on the ground.
My test garden, over each target is marked with plastic hot color golf tee's. Having them pressed level to the soil, they are hidden from the grass. Been trying to get my son used to pinpointing. Idea here is to hit the tee with a brass probe. The color of the tee denotes what the target is. Lawnmower has no affect. This is helping him, and I have notice him poking sticks in the ground at times when we go out on a hunt - lol

 

[tabdog]

"Following in the foot steps"

"Retracing the foot steps"

These are surveying terms. I've been a surveyor for over 30 years.

This Arkansas was originally surveyed by the GLO, (Government Land Office) in 1800's.

The original monuments or their locations are supreme over all subsequent monuments.

There for, I've spent over 30 years finding evidence of people who passed through here and left their mark over 180 years ago.

The best way to do the search is to "follow in their foot steps".

It is best to use equipment similar to what they used. Or at least to have a good understanding of the obstacles they faced and the instructions they were acting under.

Metal detecting demands the things that I enjoyed about surveying. I'm retired/disabled now.

Metal detecting fills the void in my life created by not being able to survey.

The bad parts of surveying are behind me now

HH,

 

[Mi$$ouri Jim]

I have found that making smaller grids will help keep from going off the mark.

 

[tab-nabit]

Didn't you use a GPS that alarmed when you got off track?
So you ran in all magnet mode relic hunting.
But no GPS - Maybe it was in the wooden box

 

[tabdog]

HA HA HA Ha


We had a good time with it too, if it wasn't 105 degrees or 20 degrees.

Funny you should mention it. When GPS was first made available to the public it was brand new and very expensive. Few could afford it.

In surveying high precision GPS could pay for it self in a short time even though it cost $ 75,000 or more to have it.

I have had classes in GPS ever since it came out. I've yet to own a unit.

That's something I really should do. I know all about the technology and longitude and latitude, state plane coordinates, quad maps and map reading.

Seems like a no brainer

Maybe in the near future

HH