Help with park that floods.(long)

[Anonymous]

Ok folks, I need help, comments, suggestions, whatever. Every nice day I try to hunt at lunch when the weather is nice. Here in the town where I work is a park from the early, mid 1800's. During the late 1800's thru the early 1900's Chitaquas(sp)were held there and I have seen pictures of thousands of people gathered there for over 40 years. The problem is it sits in a bend of a river and every couple years it floods for several days and sometimes for a week, deep and fast moving water. The ground is highly mineralized so my XS is a constant screech. I have run sensitivity from 32 down to 10. I have run ferrous and conductive. I turn my threshold down to silent because of the constant chatter. I have programs to try to eliminate some of the iron but I rather run in iron mask which I usually run from -12 to -10 but in here I've gone as low as -5 and it's still terrible. Now here's the kicker, I've run my XS for over a year and feel I know how it works pretty well. I have hunted this park atleast 50 times (it's probably 10 acres). I've moved all over the park. I've used an 8" coil and the stock 10" coil(I even tried my MXT with a 5" and the 6x10DD) and have never found anythng older then an early 20's wheat and it was down probably 10+ inches. I have even found memorials and clad at those same depths in clean, dark, non-fill dirt. My thoughts are the flooding loosens the soil to a "liquified" state and over the years the old stuff has sunk beyond reach leaving only newer coinage and the occasional semi-old coin that may have stopped on a hard, rock or clay spot, IE: the couple of wheats I found. Am I screwed in this park??? Suggestions??? opinions???
Thanks, Bryan

 

[Anonymous]

Basically yes, "screwed" is the proper word.
I wonder if you could take a tarp there after work and dig out about a 3' by 3' area about one to two or even three feet down and see how the soil is down there. The coins may be resting on top of gravel which may be a foot of so down.
Of course you may want to check with the park management first for permission.

 

[Anonymous]

I've encountered similar problems at parks that flood out. Mineralization and depth do seem to be major problems. My best luck has been with the 10" coil. All the deeper silver that was dug gave lousy signals, and none of the silver was that old. And any copper/bronze coins were really chewed up.
For those extremely deep coins, I was thinking of someday getting a pulse detector and teaming it up with the Explorer. I'd first going over a spot with the Explorer, marking the ground with a soluable paint or golf tees for all the deep iron and junk hits, then use the pulse to dig up anything deeper. I don't know if it would work but I think it might. Now, wouldn't it be cool if someone could design a GPS into the Explorer with a few inches of accuracy that would record all junk hits up to maybe 10", then transfer that data over to a pulse detector so it nulls over all those spots?

 

[Anonymous]

Hey Bryan,
I've worked some areas near a river that floods from time to time. Didn't have much problem with stability but did notice many newer coins were deep. And worse, everything sounded like silver. All copper coins were highly corroded and think the corrosion is more conductive and gives the high pitched signal. Found a couple of Indians that more or less fell to pieces when I tried to clean them up. Worthless before cleaning; worse afterwords.
I don't think flood plains are the best place to hunt; too bad because much early settlement activity took place near water.
Oh well,
Chris

 

[Anonymous]

I wish I could take an end loader through there and shave off about 10" of top soil, there has to be stuff in the ground. And you are right every good hit sounds like a deep squealing silver. I've dug lots of deep Memorials that are so corroded there is no way to read the date and it's all you can do to see the Lincoln Memorial on the back. I was pretty sure this would be the answer but I had to ask. Well if nothing else it's a nice place to swing the coil and watch the river, you know, I guess I could throw the fishing pole in the car and sit under a big ole' oak tree for 45 minutes, beats the tar out of sitting in the office.
Thanks Again, HH, Bryan

 

[Anonymous]

I have mixed feeling because I have found good coins at places like that but have been stumped also at others.
Snow in the winter usually turns the ground to mush in the spring and repeats every year but still I find old coins right near the top when doing cellar holes etc.??
But a bigger coil might definitely be the answer?
Good Luck!

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks Jim, A friend of mine had his 12" coil in there and the chatter was so bad he turned his machine off and walked to his car shaking his head. He's been hunting about 15 years and said he'd never seen anything like it. I keep going back though, as the ground dries out it gets a little better. Maybe when the ground turns to concrete this summer most of the halos will be gone.
HH Bryan