going to hunt burned 1850 ferry building & house, ????

[mattnum]

Hi,

I've gotten permission to hunt an old ferry building and house in the California central valley. It dated to the 1850's. I think the site has been searched before but now the buildings are gone due to a fire.

I have not done this kind of hunt before.

Any recommendations for the MXT or general recommendations on hunting a site where there was a fire?

thanks in advance,
matt

 

[Butch in Colorado]

....Make sure you have a smaller shooter type coil. You will probably want one. Chances are it will be very trashy. Go slow and, as always, dig every signal that sounds good. Probably want to open up the discrimination until you can gauge how trashy the site is. Good luck and show us your finds !!

 

[mattnum]

thanks,

I have a shooter coil. I was going to start with the 1400 then go to the shooter. Hopefully, there is a bag of cali gold under them thar buildings.

 

[Monte]

a smaller coil to deal with any building debris present. This is especially true of nails and other small iron stuff left behind due to the building being destroyed by fire.

In addition to using a small coil, keep your discrimination as low as possible. You'll have to tolerate a lot of trash target recovery if you want the best chance of finding good stuff.

If there is any fallen-down rock, such as flattish rocks that might have been used for a chimney or wall, run '0' discrimination and if you get a solid audio hit with an 'Iron' TID, move that rock and investigate.

In short, use a small coil, with the least discrimination possible, make sure your sweeps are slow and controlled, and recover a lot of targets based upon the audio response and NOT rely on a visual TID to make the dig/no-dig call.

Report back as to which coil you used, the mode chosen, the amount of time spent, and your success. Best of luck to you!

Monte