How does this happen?

[Southwind]

This happens all too often and make no sense.

I found a new site and spent a quick 45 minutes doing a rapid walk around just to get an idea of the potential. In that 45 minutes I found 2 wheats, 1 Franklin half, a 1914 United States twenty Centavo and 2 rings. I'm thinking this will be a killer site so I head home to plan the next days hunts with my buddies. It is an old high school site so pretty good sized and I didn't even step on well over 1/2 of it. My buddies get there and I had to leave right away but they hunted it a good part of the morning including all the areas I didn't even step on. They found nothing. In that 45 minutes of quick walk through I seem to have found all the keepers? Not logical at all!

 

[Tom Slick]

I've had the same thing happen. sometimes you just go over the good stuff and find most of it quickly. It happens in the competition hunts as well. Sometimes you get lots of tokens for prizes and other hunts in the same fields you get squat. Sometimes you just get lucky and seem to follow the same course as the guy that planted the tokens. Sometimes you just happen to go over the spots that people dropped stuff.

 

[sprchng]

Are you sure your buddies know what they're doing?
What are you going to do if you go back and find all sorts of good stuff?
Will you spare their feelings or go for the throat?

 

[azsh07]

Happens quite a bit. I will research old colonial location. Hop in and find like maybe 3 or 4 decent finds in 30-40 minutes. think...awesome....leave and bring back one of your hunting buddies. Then...squat the next 4 hour trip. Since I am also hunting and find squat I know I found all there was in the first recon trip.

So for me happens more times than you would think. Then again.....had a spot where I found 6 large cents and half a dozen buttons in less than an hour at a virgin mill. Thought better not hunt it all out and save it for a return trip with my close detecting friend. Ended up hunting that for years it was so productive. Best estimate was 60-70 coins all penny coppers ( KGII's LC's and IH ) and several hundred buttons....just ridiculous the amount of stuff it gave up and for years. Kind of laugh sometimes about that firs trip and thinking...gee don't want to hunt it out in the first day.Sure wish those spots were still around.

 

[yowow#1]

Happens,, why i don't know. I've hunted spots for the first time and had good finds,,,, went back and didn't find squat. decided to go back third and fourth times cause i thought there has to be other things there,,, and found more good finds. It seems every time i go to a place that i think is done i always find something else. Atmospheric pressure... Who knows? but i'll bet there are other good stuff there.

 

[Ism]

There must be something to it. It happens to me often.
The other day, in 15 minutes of random searching I found a 10.5g platinum ring in a sports field.
I spent the next 2 hrs. gridding and only found about a buck in clad.

 

[airscapes]

You gota remember if you are using a concentric coil the field is only an inch or 2 wide at it's deepest.. so swing over an area and not over lapping swings by 75% you are missing most of the deep stuff.. School in 4 hours??? How much ground we talking about? Then there is silent masking .. I have hunted my 15x30 yard a half dozen times and still keep fining things.. Just sayin...takes a long time to hit every inch of soil at depth..
I am going to put this URL on my tombstone.. if you have never read these 20 pages you really should.. you will be glad you did.. Oh well can't post links.. kind of silly..
Google Truth about search coils..

 

[Mega]

@airscapes,a must read that articale as is the website generally,have read it many times

 

[Sven]

I have a schoolyard like that, must have over 200 hours at, been over every inch way too many times, shouldn't be anything left.
Come back in with a different detector on a different........hey, these coins weren't here the other day.........................
One 20x50' section just keeps on giving. But, the rest of the schoolyard is still sprouting coins as well.

 

[DougF]

I have had the same thing happen to me, and have one possible explanation. Detecting schoolyards or parks, over a period of time, good finds tend to show up more often in certain types of areas. Under old shade trees, level areas where someone might picnic, open areas where people might play a game. When you go to a site for the first time, you're not really wandering at random around the site, you're subconsciously (or consciously) hitting those high probability areas first. Other possibilities are day to day variation in EMI at a site, different moisture condtions, etc.