Hunting Civil War treasure sight need help

[silverman55]

This is my first post as a new member and I need some help. I am hunting a civil war homestead. It is called the Boggs treasure in the treasure books. Boggs was to have buried jars of gold an silver to keep the soldiers from taking them. I know for sure this is the sight because I looked it up at the count cort house and the land owner confirmed it. He has given me unrestricted access to the property. I thought I was in and this would be a cake walk. However; I found the ground anything but.A large part is shell you need a pick to dig. Where the old cabon , barn, and well was has been burned and buldozed. The part that isn't shell is a big field where cotton was raised. The silver and gold is said by ledgen to be burried in the garden no one know where that was. Then only place I have found it could have been in is the big field that was used to plant cotton and now hay. You can dig it and it is all clay. THE PROBLEM IS --- every where is swing my detector is get mixed signals and I mean everywhere. The ground is full of square nailed, broken blowes, pieces of pot mettle, barbwire, and everything else. I even found a cross cut saw. I have run my etrac with every setting I know and even wide open. Every hit is deep at the bottom of the scale. The far. and co. numbers are all over the place. If is go real slow with little swings I can get some repeat numbers that look good in the range of 1 farris and 40 co. and 12- 40 in the same place but I also get 17 and 8 a lot in the same place on the same swing and the good numbers.
When I dig these places most of the time I can dig to china and find nothing. When I do find something it is a square nail or piece of pot metal. I am using a park pattern and the sentivity turned from 26 to 30 for depth.
Can anyone help by telling me why I keep digging empty holes and get all thses random numbers.

 

[Jeff in Pa]

Sounds to me like you are chasing after every little signal you can. You need to start simple. Start off by only digging the good "Repeatable" signals that sound good. Repeatable from two directions. The sound should be very similar from two directions. Now look to see if your numbers are good.
If the sound is bad the numbers will be jumping all over.
If you are searching for "Jars" of coins then you will get a real nice repeatable signal if you do swing over one. There could be junk all around it and a jar full of coins will still beg you to investigate.
Assuming you are looking for jars buried deep then you need to dig those deep repeatable signals. They will also sound "Big" as you pass over them.

 

[jimmy]

In that red clay I would not run the sensitivity that high, gradually lower it some and your detector will settle down. remember red clay is red because it has a lot of iron in it.

 

[Chris(SoCenWI)]

Over the years I've had several people ask me to help find caches that were supposedly buried years ago. And some of stories I'm quite sure are true. Problem is what the caches are buried in. If in a ferrous box or in a jar with a ferrous lid you pretty much have to dig every big ferrous signal at a farm site and this can mean thousands of holes. About the only good cache stories I've seen on the forums over the years have been ones buried in more modern plastic containers, or wrapped in oil cloth in the old days.

It would be interesting to bury a jar full of coins with a metal lid and see if you can get any kind of signal that is different that straight ferrous. I think we will have to wait for ground penetrating radar to get cheaper, and even that will be a PITA.

Chris

 

[scoopjohnb]

It sounds like you are in need of the ultimate discriminator.
The sensitivity setting.

Rather than drop it down from max until the detector runs stable.
Run it up from 0 until you start finding stuff.

Doesn't matter what kind of stuff, just dig it.
Sooner rather than later you'll come acros a sens setting that picks up deeper/larger targets.

 

[LabradorBob]

A garden would have been where they could get water to it. creek,spring, etc.
Back in those days water was a big thing, think civil war time days and how they lived!

 

[khouse]

Use Google Earth images from every year. You may find outlines, light or dark areas, road or driveway shadows for clues? Also run your cursor (hand) over the ground and watch the elevation. Most houses were built on higher ground. Privies were usually Northeast of the house. Gardens and barns not too far from house. You usually run no discrimination to find a site by finding the most used metal - iron. Then use higher discrimination to try and cherry pick some non ferrous pieces to try and put the puzzle together.

 

[silverman55]

Thank's everyone for the help. I will use your sugestions on my next trip out there.

 

[Rolladex]

You need to run in (Two Tone Ferrous) that will help with some of the iron problem. Good luck let us know if you find it.

 

[Ringo853]

open screen, 2 tone ferrous. do you have an old photo of the place? if its buried, he would want to be able to see the place where its buried out of his window. You may need a small coil. Dig all high signals. Dedicate all your spare time to it and invite me over ;o) let us know!

 

[medicman507]

Ditto what Ringo853 said. You are probably also running sensitivity way to high. You could try automatic and - 1, 2,or 3

 

[silverman55]

I did a test to see who the etrac would do on a jar of silver half's berried in a quirt jar with an old lid at a dept of 28 in. I put them in the ground last spring and dug them last week. The etrack would not pick them up in auto at all. When th sensitivity was turned up to 20 it started hitting but the numbers were all over. When I turned the sensitivity up to 30 it hit sound every time a went over the jar. It gave a reading of 1- 45. I picked up the silver and not the jar. Now we know.

 

[Ringo853]

interesting! (My user name is ETrac on youtube now not Ringo853)

Which coil were you using? My 18x15 SEF would probably hit it without any problem

 

[utahshovelhead]

Sens up to 30 is probably the first Ive ever heard of that suggestion so it will be a game changer for me to try out while cash hunting. (I have one Im excited now to try that out with)

IF you are looking for GOLD coins, bars, or dust you need to know what a large amount of that would sound like. I can tell you that silver in large amounts sounds and looks just like a silver dollar. As for lots of Gold I have not had that kind of fun yet but If I put a 20 gold coin down my bet is that lots of gold will sound like that. UNLESS in a metal box.

As for where it would be burried. There are lots of good books on that subject and if your site is for real it would be worth the money to research a bit.

Would not the ground be soft where people dug 100 years ago where you are at now? I have found outhouse sites and bottle digs by using the T rod or ground rod just looking for soft soil that the rod will stick down into the earth sometimes up to the handle even in 100 year old dirt here.

Good luck, but...you need to let us know how it ends.