Finding Gold In Trashy Parks

[RLOH]

I have a couple of beautiful older parks that I have been hunting a couple of times a week for the last five years. When I started hunting these parks, my detecting buddies told me I was wasting my time because the" silver was all but gone." This fellow does not use an Explorer so I took his advice with a grain of salt. I have been using Sovereigns and Explorers for the last eight years and have them pretty well figured out. On another note, in the time I have been hunting these spots, I have also used Fisher CZ's and they have produced many silver coins in the less trashy areas. People talk of the slow recovery speed of Explorers, but I have another explaination for this. I have never used any detector that if you work it very slow, you can pick coins out of trash. I never use a coin program, but prefer to use the iron mask screen. When you are in a pull tab infested park, it is so noisy, but when you have dug many silver coins with an Explorer," the silver warble" will stop you in your tracks even when you are getting many junk signals mixed in. Well over the years, I have found hundreds of silver coins and into the thousands of wheat pennies. Without looking at my records, close to hundred Indian heads and many V nickles, including a rare 1885. I will admit when hunting in iron mask, I always start out digging nickle signals, but after an hour or so, I quit and concentrate on silver , copper, and deeper zinc signals. Well, five years after my buddy told me the silver was gone, I believe that most of it is gone. I absolutely love the beauty of these parks and I love hunting there even if my finds are dwindling so this winter I came up with a half @@#$%^ game plan for these two spots. I would reprogram my brain for nickle and gold signals and start rehunting all of the productive parts of these parks. I always thought that I would find a gold coin here as they both date back to the late 1800's. I put my new program into action last week after not finding a silver coin here since March of this year. It is very hard to focus on deeper nickle type tones after the hundreds of hours developing the silver tones. I had a hard time the first two times I hunted like this, but I started finding deep(8 inches of deeper) nickles. I paid very close attention to the strength fo the tone(gain at 6) and the depth meter. I was looking for signals that were below the carpet of modern trash. This carpet seemed to be a consistant 5 or 6 inches. I use a SE with the Pro coil and the depth meter seems to be more accurate than my original XS's and 11's that I have used over the years. The lower gain helps me to avoid looking at the depth gauge and with the tremendous amount of trash, I can use my ears more effectively. In three hunts with this method, I have found 28 nickles, with 8 being Buffalo's, but no gold. Saturday I got up early and beat the holiday crowds to the picnic area, which is one of the oldest parts of the park and also the trashiest. The trashy areas are my favorite as the tabs and modern junk hides the good targets. The Pro coil, for a big coil does great with the razor sharp hot spot. Saturday, I decided to grid the area off and hunt at an different angle. The first two signals turned out to be wheat pennies that were both 8 inches deep. The only reason these two were found was because of the angle I approached from as the detector nulled from the other three angles when I checked the target. (I don't know of any detector other than the Explorer that will do this, but you have to barely move the coil). A couple of minutes later I got a deep(faint) nickle signal and dug a deep Buffalo nickle. Less than a foot away, I got a similar signal and dug another Buf. I turned around and got another nickle signal as I was half way through a fifty foot pass. My hole was eight inches deep and the target was still in the hole. I was thinking gold coin, but that was not to be today. I used my hand to clean out the hole and what I found was a ring and it was a very heavy ring. I knew it was gold from it's heft, but the restrooms would not be open for another hour or so and my eyes are so bad, I couldn't see any markings. I did see the gleam of diamonds in the morning sun. I rinsed the ring in the sink when the restrooms were opened. I saw the 10 K marking. I figured it was a 100 dollar ring and was not too excited. I was excited to think my method worked and I had two huges parks to rehunt. I know there are gold coins here and I think my opportunity is knocking. On my way home, I drove 10 miles out of my way and took my ring to a jeweler who has appraised my finds in the past. He said the ring was from the twenties and it has ten diamonds. A very heavy ornate ring that he valued at 800 to 1000 dollars. I would sell it in a heartbeat, but it fits my wife perfectly. I will try to get my friend to help post a picture as it is a very unique ring. Back to my story. This method of hunting has been very successful and if you can stand the noise, give it a try. Sorry for the long post, but it is my first post this spring. Good luck to everyone ! R.L. Johnson

 

[grady2714]

Thanks, R>L>, thoroughly enjoyed the story. Best of luck. I was born in New Carlisle, and lived in Marion for awhile ( in Fla. now ).

 

[Hotcz70]

n/t

 

[Crispytoo]

I admire your tenacity and commitment in trying something different and sticking to the plan. You will in all likelihood reap even more benefits because of your discipline. I really hope you do find that gold coin and I suspect that you will find many other valuable things as well. Great post and I wish you luck in your endeavors. HH.

Crispytoo

 

[Larry (IL)]

Great post RL. If we really knew how much gold we walk over every time we hunt, I think we would dig a LOT more pull tabs. I have threatened for years to ignore the silver signals in favor of the gold range but that is a hard addiction to give up.

 

[Hotcz70]

This was a great post though...and since my parks are depleted of most higher conductor stuff..it really get's me thinking

 

[Crispytoo]

Our support group?

 

[Larry (IL)]

Sad, but true. I have heard it said that we are here to help each other..........

I'd love to stay but I'm going out to find a deep one or two.

 

[Larry (IL)]

I wasn't kidding, I just got back from hunting our courthouse and I was doing the Bryce snail crawl. I got a vertical, VF, 1919-D Merc at 6 inches with the SE Pro, a $24 dime........ It was just a faint pip of a high tone and the cursor was a wild child.