First Lake Hunt: Impressions and Questions

[Habanero]

Ok, I had finally gotten my tiger shark back from tesoro b/c I made a bad trade with someone else and turned out it needed to be recalibrated and the coil leaked but such is life and the risk of used detectors but Tesoro took care of me free of charge so kudos to them! I finally got out to a nearby lake to do some wading with it and see what water hunting was all about. I off loaded the jet ski first and played with that a bit but I was also using it to scout the area to check out what looked like prime swimming spots; it's a very small lake so I saw all of it and picked out the spot with the well used looking beach and swimming buoys. First of all, I need to secure items to myself a little better. I tied my floating sifter to the back of my belt and got busy and after looking back an hour later, no sifter was attached to me anymore but had floated about 100 yards away to rest on the shoreline. I just left it as I had the place all to myself on a weekday morning. I wasn't getting any sifting done anyway b/c the bottom had a fine layer of sand with rocky clay underneath and the basket was not sitting low enough for sifting contents to touch the water, hence, no sifter needed. The bottom conditions made digging with my scoop a serious work out and actually shaking the scoop to sift was another work out. I most of the time had to reach my other hand in there to break up the clay so I got a serious work out.

All in all, I think I'm addicted! I love the cool water in the triple digit heat and it's so neat to pull that scoop up to see what you got! I only set my discrimination no higher than 3 so I dug most everything, even a nail or two and rusty bottle caps as those still sounded off but with a broken tone. I spent probably 4.5-5 hours out there and don't have a lot to show for it but most of it was getting used to swinging underwater, pin-pointing and scooping but it was still fun! I found almost $2.00 in clad, several bottle caps, pull tabs, some foil, a large junk hoop earring, another large earring that is probably junk metal and a tungsten ring. I did most of my hunting waist to chest deep as I found it easier to bring up my scoop and shake with the help of the water to float my wooden scoop handle. I also found less junk in the deeper water whereas the shallow stuff was mostly junk.

I had some questions and observations. I can ground balance my tiger shark fine on land but in the water I couldn't get it balanced. On land I know I'm too positive if the threshold tone gets louder and too negative if it disappears. In water, no matter how I turned the gb pot, the threshold always went away when going down with the coil making me think that the gb was too negative. Do you gb on the shore near the water and go in to hunt like I was having to do or how do you set that? This might be better served on the Tesoro forum but if any of you know then please chime in.

Also, I was really having to scoop over and over and over again to get my targets a lot of the time. I use the largest sized stealth scoop by the way. I would pin point best I could by x-ing the target where I thought it was then I would set my right foot a couple of inches behind the coil then scoop in front of my foot by pivoting the front of my foot up to guide my scoop. Once in place I would push forward as far as I could to get a more downward angle then push with my foot and work the scoop handle side to side to work it down and also pull back on the handle to go through the range of motion of a scoop. Most of the time, the target was still down there and it got very frustrating to keep coming up empty scoop after scoop. Anyone have any scooping tips for this particular model scoop or could it be a pin pointing or scoop alignment issue?

Any pointers anyone can give? Like I mentioned, I hunted the deeper areas as that was easier on me and seemed to hold better targets; anyone find this to also be true? Thanks!

 

[deerman]

as for digging targets with a scoop pinpoint your target and then put your foot just touching the back of the coil then move the coil and put the tip of your scoop just in front of your foot and then push it into the bottom with your foot you should then have your target in the scoop as you learn it gets easy but this way you know where the coil was telling you your target was about 5 inchs in front of your foot if your using a 10 inch coil and pinpointed right,just remember some targets will move with current that are lighter(foil,pulltabs and the light stuff)gold will be there in the hole sometimes it will get pushed to the side of your hole if you did,nt get it in the scoop the first try,also if your digging in sand with a clay base under it most of the time the gold will stop and be sitting on the top clay becouse it acts like rock,but some really old rings do sink into the clay some

 

[Hank68]

Hey Habanero make sure the area is trash free to GB and yes you can GB in the water , I painted my coil bright yellow to see it better in the water, HH hank

 

[Habanero]

Hey Habanero make sure the area is trash free to GB and yes you can GB in the water , I painted my coil bright yellow to see it better in the water, HH hank

What about the funky thing with the threshold disappearing as if the machine were way too negative? Maybe I was just not turning the pot enough to balance it out but I gave it a good 3 whole turns with no change.

 

[scubadetector]

Its very possible they missed something. I know absolutely nothing about their machines BUT I do know techicians make mistakes. They will know for sure what might be the problem. I don't use a scoop much at all but I have a 10" coil and I put my toe against the coil and scoop from there when I do. I also use a Stealth and don't seem to have much problems. I do know from experience diving that 99% of your finds will be on TOP of the hard bottom. Only a very few will be in the clay or the heavier packed together stones.

 

[Habanero]

I think I will give them a call after the holiday over at Tesoro to ask them about the gb question just to be sure. I have the 8" coil by the way so it's a possibility I may be scooping in front of my target. If I get a chance I may take the Tiger out in the back yard with some targets, pretend I'm in the water by pin pointing and scooping just to see where I'm at. I wasn't "digging" the clay bottom, metaphorically speaking. I do think most of my targets were likely sitting on top of the clay and I was doing way more work than I needed to. I will trade some clay for the sand any day but hopefully I'll get to hit some other lakes soon to see how the scooping is there because that clay is tough, doesn't sift and it's darn heavy!

 

[pulltaber]

Hey Habanero make sure the area is trash free to GB and yes you can GB in the water , I painted my coil bright yellow to see it better in the water, HH hank

What about the funky thing with the threshold disappearing as if the machine were way too negative? Maybe I was just not turning the pot enough to balance it out but I gave it a good 3 whole turns with no change.

Hank68 is right you can gb in the water, but it will not hurt to gb at waters edge. You may have to bring your internal threshold pot up a little bit so it is strong and steady .Gb in fast tune and normal mode. As far pinpointing deerman is right on.

 

[pulltaber]

you are talking about fresh water right??

 

[Habanero]

as for digging targets with a scoop pinpoint your target and then put your foot just touching the back of the coil then move the coil and put the tip of your scoop just in front of your foot and then push it into the bottom with your foot you should then have your target in the scoop as you learn it gets easy but this way you know where the coil was telling you your target was about 5 inchs in front of your foot if your using a 10 inch coil and pinpointed right,just remember some targets will move with current that are lighter(foil,pulltabs and the light stuff)gold will be there in the hole sometimes it will get pushed to the side of your hole if you did,nt get it in the scoop the first try,also if your digging in sand with a clay base under it most of the time the gold will stop and be sitting on the top clay becouse it acts like rock,but some really old rings do sink into the clay some

Ok, I took the Tiger Shark out in the back yard along with a nickel and my stealth scoop to do a mock recovery as if I were in the water. I was doing what Deerman and others before me suggested when I was at the lake yesterday with the foot behind the coil thing and tip of the scoop. Problem is that scoop, the way it's designed does not have a 135 degree angle like, lets say an RTG scoop, but instead is at a 90 degree angle. This means that to get the tip of the scoop right in front of my foot, I would have the really lean the scoop forward so far that I would be bent over at a 90 degree angle myself. Y'all get what I am trying to verbalize and illustrate? In my mock test in the back yard, because of the scoop design, I was actually inserting the tip of the scoop in front of the target instead of behind the target. I found that if I touched the back of coil with my right foot at the toe, then moved that foot rearward at least 6 inches, then I would be inserting the tip of the scoop behind the target as it should be. With a scoop that has the 135 degree angle then this does not apply as I can tilt it forward very easy to get the very tip of the scoop just in front of my foot.

 

[Habanero]

you are talking about fresh water right??

Yes sir, I am talking about freshwater, thanks.

 

[Tom Slick]

I use a SunSpot scoop which has the handle at a 90

 

[triplehooked]

I use a SunSpot scoop which has the handle at a 90

 

[jyt2017]

Sorry if this has been said. Look. Discrimination is for one thing. To mitigate iron. Whatever brand does not matter. Set it as low as possible. You will miss rings otherwise. I don't know about those machines. But I know fisher and excal, both same boat. All set as low as possible.

Pinpointing is hard. Sometimes, you hit it right on the money. Today. I had a signal. I knew the tell tale tone. I use an excal II. I knew this sucker was clad. I dig everything anyway. It took me 20 minutes and lots of scooping. Ifnuriating. Quarter was deep. Missing it moved it. etc etc. You will need patience. When you hit a strong signal. Slowly wave over it and back off until you hear no signal at all. Mark that spot with the tip of your foot, as centered as possible. Thats where you will put the tip of your scoop down.

Now, do you bury the scoop, or just shave the top 2 inches of sand off? Up to you. Its a waste to bury the scoop on surface targets. But, deeper targets will test your ability to pinpoint and scoop.

All in all its fun. Get yourself a wetsuit if you have not. 6 hours in the water is right around the corner for you, a suit is a must. Get booties. Welcome to water hunting. GL an HF. -Joe

 

[tvr]

bottom had a fine layer of sand with rocky clay underneath .... no matter how I turned the gb pot, the threshold always went away when going down with the coil making me think that the gb was too negative

As already suggested call Tesoro and talk with them.

The two parts of the post extracted and put in the box; about clay bottom and acting like it was too negative may, be related. The clay may be highly mineralized and the detector is not getting ground balanced to it. I think the Tiger Shark is supposed to balance to ferrite, so it should be able to balance to the clay bottoms too. If you get back out there, scoop up a couple handfuls of the clay and put it all down on the dry sand (after checking the area for lack of targets) Now, see if you can ground balance to a large blob of clay or if it acts like the Tiger Shark did when you were in the water. That test may add another piece of information when you call Tesoro.
Cheers,
tvr

 

[Habanero]

Ok, thanks for the good suggestions everyone, I appreciate it! I would worry about nicking the coil and/or the coil wire with the scoop so I think I will use the foot technique but backing off until the signal disappears may be better than trying to pin point to the center of the coil; will have to see. I am still learning the machines sounds underwater to I tend to dig in first then scoop to take a huge chunk out; it's akin to cutting and 8" diameter plug for a target thats 2" down. After some time in the water with the machine I will start to tell the deeper signals from the more shallow ones but with a clay bottom, most of them were probably shallow. Thanks for the suggestion about a wetsuit Joeb; I may try to add one for the winter but unless it helps to keep me cool I think I will pass for getting one for the summer. I'm actually about tapped out on expenditures for lake hunting until I may get lucky and find some jewelry to fund some other goodies!

I did contact Tesoro today about the gb issue and was told that the conditions may have been so neutral as to not balance out. I'm not sure about the science behind that statement but that's what they suggested; that and balance on the shore then go in. I may do what TVR said and grab a chunk of that clay out of there to see about balancing over that on the dry shore. It could just be my inexperience but I can balance it just fine on land; it's in the water that things get a bit wonky.