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I need help. The same old story.

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This is my first post, but I've been lurking here for a while and feel that I know a lot of you and would appreciate your input. I purchased my first detector from Heath Kit back in 1968 but have not actively hunted in quite some time. I live near the Texas Gulf coast and plan to beach and water hunt(no diving)and I plan to purchase a detector shortly.
Now the same old story, Which is the best detector for me?
I first thought the Whites Beach Hunter ID would meet my needs because it is good in saltwater and on land(but I don't see a lot of people on this forum using it). Then I thought that because I will be on the beach and saltwater most of the time I should get the Garrett Sea Hunter Mark II. Then I see that a lot of you use the Minelab Excalibur(is the difference in price worth it?).
Your input will be greatly appreciated.
 
though a garrett,tesoro and minelab dealer,,jmho,,,If you arent gonna dive a sov hipmounted will run the wet salt sand, as will the explorer,,,The excal(i have used one for years no problem,but never hip mounted) is a lil bit heavy, But it is a dive machine,,,An elite ,,cause it has a meter and can be found discounted,would be my choice,,you are gonna dig all the low hits anywho,and sunray has excellent aftermarket coils as well as their probes available,,,,,,,,,HH
 
just as much even more than me. The explorer has a little more depth and the soverign has a bigger detecting zone..ie: reads to the side of the coil. Both you can go from the dry sand to 1 foot in the water and not retune.

My first detector was a Heath Kit also...me and a electronic technician from Group Sandy Hook put it together in one night and 6 cases of beer, of course the head was on the wrong end....I can't remember if it was the detector or the one on my shoulders that was on the wrong end. Since then Nautilus, White, Tesoro, Minelab, Fisher, Head Hunter. The only one I missed was a Bounty Hunter...I had one but I used it for a golf club and softball bat combined.

Well what the heck I lived this long with my head where it's at, I can make it for a few more years, unless I go out with another woman then LG will put a foot up my head?????
 
Hey Super Scooper, sounds like you are in my territory. I own the Excal 1000 and Mark IIs. Both units are excellent for surf hunting, can't speak for the other brands, because I don't know about them. The Mark II is excellent for clean surf areas which are few and far between. The Mark II finds ALL metallic targets. If there are a lot of nails, fish hooks, bobbie pins etc. then you may be busy digging junk, but if it is clean or you don't mind hunting a little deeper in the surf area then you will do fine. The Excal with the ferrous blocking ability enables me to get on down the lane and dig non-ferrous which is what we want right. Like yesterday for example, I was hunting a trashy surf area (full of ferrous iron targets), well I did not dig a 1, but I dug 20-30 pull tabs, which is a good thing because they could have been gold bands, so there you go. Had I been using a pulse induction unit I would not have been able to cover nearly as much water and I might have missed 15 pull tabs or so.
 
Gulf Hunter thanks for the reply. Yes I'm in your territory. After seeing some of your posts I'm not sure you left anything for me to find. You're the reason I was looking at the Mark II. The Excal may be more than I need. Also looking at the Whites Surf Master PI Pro.
Thanks again.
 
Yes that Heath Kit was a long time ago. I didn't have the tech help or the beverage help that you did and I still managed to get something wrong. Had to send in for help. First day I walked out my front door and found a 1938 Lincoln cent(I still have it).
Thanks for the reply.
 
hey super scooper been there done that, i know what your dilemma is, but i went to an excal after running a sea hunter 500 which i still have. My pirate counterpart gulfhunter and my self got to the point where we were tired of diggin lots of junk, but we also got some nice booty in the process. We discussed this problem on several hunts an after askin the same question u ask n doin some research on the different water machines i took the plunge first and went to the blood bank n sold a few pints to start my savings toward the excal. all the while i was in neutral waiting on the UPS truck gulfhunter an i continued our discussion on PI verses excal. i was convinced that it would give me more valuable huntin time than i was gettin diggin EVER sound Thur the pi machine. when the excal finally got here my finds where without small wire,small nails, fishhooks, Bobbie pins , my counterpart was a lil sceptic for a while on the depth difference of the two different machines. Then one afternoon gulfhunter went solo to the beach he find was 30 nails,3bobbie pins couple of fish hooks several pieces of small wire, if u figure that in diggin time at 5 mins a hole that close to 2 HOURS waisted diggin junk. he has a post of that trip still on forum. Now we both have excals " PRECIOUS HUNTIN TIME IS BETTER THAT JUNK DIGGIN TIME" NOW U HAVE THE REST OF THE STORY.


COASTWISE

Joe
 
I know the Excal is a good machine... But I run a PI and if you know where to hunt, you don't find that much trash... I have seen plenty of trash by Excal owners... Just because there isn't much iron in your trash you still find it... Last time I looked pulltabs and bottle caps were trash :)

I wouldn't trade my PI for any machine out there and my finds are my proof. And where I hunt I find little trash.. I hunt only in the water where I believe the best finds will be anyway.

If I wanted to hunt the dry/wet sand I would use my land machine but I have no inclination to do so.
 
Hi super scooper if you plan on getting in the water as in near or above the control box of the detector then the minelab excal 800 or 1000 would be nice but are very pricy but worth it in my opinion.

If you plan on going on dry land, dry beach sand and into wet beach sand and shallow water the minelab explorer ll is an awesome detector.

I use mine in the woods, dry beach down to the wet sand and into the water with no problems whatsoever. And it will discriminate, something the pi detectors don't really do. So it depends on what type of hunting you want to do.

Either an all around detector or a dedicated water detector (possibly a pi detector) would be the choices. Hope this helps.

Ed-
 
P.I PRO,BEACH HUNTER ID. OR THE EXCAL. I USE THE BEACH HUNTER ID MOSTLY, ITS GREAT!! AND A REALLY GOOD DEAL!! W/PRACTICE YOU CAN GET GREAT DEPTH!! I HUNT SIDE BY SIDE W/GUYS WHO USE THE EXCAL I SEE NO REASON TO SPEND THE EXTRA MONEY!! THE P.I IS A GREAT CHOICE TOO. GOOD DEPTH, GOOD PRICE!! LOOK AT CRAIG'S FINDS!!!! I LIKE THE ID LIGHTS ON MY BEACH HUNTER ID THEY TELL ME THE IRON TARGETS,SO I HUNT IN ALL METAL,DIG ALL GREEN AND WHITE ID LIGHT TARGETS SKIP RED(IRON) TARGETS!! I CAN COVER A LOT OF AREA AND GET GOOD DEPTH!!
 
just out past them, B U T water is somewhere around 9lbs. per gallon and big waves that knock u down have many many gallons of water so they move giant rocks, little rocks........they move any damn thing they want..........including gold and silver loot.

which means many many rings are coming to the shore line fast, especially when lost during the peak summer season. i do not know what my ratio is, B U T I AND MANY OF MY VA BEACH BUDDIES FIND MANY MANY RINGS FROM THE EDGE OF THE WATER TO THE TOP EDGE OF THE DAMP SAND. I would think that would hold for all beach hunters.

when i owned my eric foster PI........all of the excal owners would out hunt me 2 and 3 to one on gold rings in any given day. WHY, more quality time spent covering more gold laden beach area. these rings are not go all that deep during the peak season and travel great distancese up the beach.

so i sold my PI and again i am a happy man...........i do not miss finding sunglasses 15 to 17 scoops deep and litlle fish hooks the same................i do like coving much beach area.

IT IS ALL ABOUT TIME SPEND AND TIME IS GOLD

JUST MY TAKE ON THE P.I.
 
Max...

Like I said in my post I don't hunt wet sand or dry sand and I don't dig a lot of trash.. Its boils down to... "To each their own" as far detector of choice.. If I was to hunt the wet/dry I wouldn't use a PI...

If you ever get the itch again Max... I'll let you borrow mine :)
 
then again i might

i do not hunt it hardly ever either

but i can assure u of one thing

U ARE MISSING MANY MANY NICE TICKETS THAT THE SURFGOD HAS DEPOSITED IN THE DAMP SAND. (PEAK SUMMER SEASON)

OH WELL, YOUR OTHER BUDDIES MUST LOVE U.

see u
 
want to add more to it.

still related to energy and not what kind of detector one uses.

i for one can only verify these two items.

the first is a creamtion tag. low tide tim found it in the damp sand in 2004, showed it to me and then sailed it as far back into the ocean as he could.................couple of months go by and i find it again, about 3 blocks south..............i scratch max on the back and date...............i toss back............same deal, big dave or big rich finds it again............they sail it back into the sea................we both (all) know the wave energy moves it back to the damp sand...............now i find it again myself in 2005. i never tossed it back this time, i just figured this person did not want to be in the sea..........each time it was found in the damp sand.

second is a gold key i found in july. low tide tim actually met and talked to the lady who lost it at 17th. street in wasit deep water. tim and i and several others hunted for it everyday in that range .........wasit deep to the waters edge.

about 3 ro 4 weeks go by and bingo............i find it...........where was it.............at the very top of the damp sand where it meets the dry

i am sure others have some stories similar. - sound off here

my point is...........waves = energy and it does not take much wave action to move many tickets out of the water to the edge and up rapidly.............the more wind and bigger waves the same story.

i feel absolutely certain u for one know this, so during the summer, give the damp sand a spin...........believe me, u will not be disappointed.
 
Max... :)

I was going to edit my other post but I figured I would wait until you answered :) Its different here... We are not on the open ocean like you where gold will be pushed onshore I am on Long Island Sound protected from large ocean waves... So here a PI is the ticket at least for me and the rest of the eastcoast its probably good for your Excal's.

I have hunted with Excal users and I find as much and sometimes more than them... Its where you hunt here and I have gotten pretty good at it :) Bottom line... Our coils have to go over the rings and jewelry to find them :)

The water I hunt is generally calm, the beaches are flat, Here we don't have the cuts that I see posted on this board.. There is no undertow at all.. I was able last Friday to hunt in the water with 50mph winds blowing across the beach.. I didn't find much because I had a cold and I quit early... But I think if I hunted your ocean beaches in 50mph winds I wouldn't be here now. :)

Since I no longer hunting wet sand I find little if any iron and what I do find I don't dig because I know what it sounds like.
 
BEACH HUNTER, thanks for your advice. The Beach Hunter ID was my first choice, for all the reasons you listed, until I started reading the message boards and really got confused. It sounds like it's a personal preference thing and they all do good jobs. I still have not made up my mind but thanks again for your input.
 
Craig, thanks for your reply. At this time I'm leaning towards Whites Beach Hunter ID or Garrett's Sea Hunter Mark II. I like the Beach Hunter because of the indicating lights that may help eliminate some unwanted items. I like the Mark II because it is a PI machine and is recommended by Gulf Hunter, who has used it at the same beaches I plan to explore. Thanks again for your input.
 
better move north on the sound and follow u around.

u have the gold loot to show for it toooooooooo

i like it

keep it coming...............i can not find any, so i can look at yours. :) :)
 
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