It has been a long cold winter so far and no detecting till now. Sunday's balmy 35 degree weather put me in a detecting mood. I was pulling my grand kids on the sled behind the four wheeler and noticed the snow was getting a little mushy! Tonight I headed out to the swimming beach where I took Elson and Falk last fall. Sometimes they lower the water level in the winter and the swimming area is high and dry. That makes for some great detecting. I had about an hour and a half of daylight left when I arrived at the area. The water had been lowered and the whole swimming area was out of the water!! Hoooraaay! just one problem. It was covered with 4 inches of hard frozen snow.
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[attachment 78460 snowbeach.jpg]
I thought that I was not going to be able to dig at all. Anywhere the snow was blown off, the ground was like concrete. Happily, the ground under the snow was not frozen, or just frozen an inch or so. The wind was blowing very cold as I began to concentrate on the deeper end of the hole where the water was over my nose this summer and I had not detected at that depth. My first find was a good strong signal. It sounded like a silver dollar. I had refined my digging technique to a few simple steps, Pinpoint, Kick the hard snow our of the way with my # 13 foot, re-pinpoint, and then dig as normal as you can while kneeling in the frozen snow. I dug down just a few inches into the sand and found this silver dollar sized Medallion. It has the god Baccus on it, the god of wine. I cleaned it up a little and found it marked .925. Big chunk of silver.
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[attachment 78459 silvermedallion.jpg]
I went along digging clad and junk for a while when I hit an even bigger chunk of silver!
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[attachment 78458 silvernjade.jpg]
That is one big honking ring! It is sterling and I believe the stone is a chunk of jade. It also had the initials in it and is marked Zuni. It cleaned up real nice and is very heavy. I was pleased to have a find or two to post tonight. Now if I could just find an old coin.
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[attachment 78457 wnowwheat.jpg]
The best I could do in the short frozen time was a wheatie. 1953. Nancy and my birth year. I took a picture of it in the hole it came from. If you look closely you might be able to see the drip from my frozen nose at this point in the evening. I did not see any other tracks on my beach other than deer and coyote. An owl was hooting at me loud enought to hear with my headphone on as I left in the darkness. I had two silvers, a dollar and 23 cents in change, a junky toe ring, and a bunch of other crud for my efforts. My first hunt turned out fairly well, and my frozen parts are thawing nicely as I type this. A feller can't let a little snow and cold stop him!
HH DC
<center>
[attachment 78460 snowbeach.jpg]
I thought that I was not going to be able to dig at all. Anywhere the snow was blown off, the ground was like concrete. Happily, the ground under the snow was not frozen, or just frozen an inch or so. The wind was blowing very cold as I began to concentrate on the deeper end of the hole where the water was over my nose this summer and I had not detected at that depth. My first find was a good strong signal. It sounded like a silver dollar. I had refined my digging technique to a few simple steps, Pinpoint, Kick the hard snow our of the way with my # 13 foot, re-pinpoint, and then dig as normal as you can while kneeling in the frozen snow. I dug down just a few inches into the sand and found this silver dollar sized Medallion. It has the god Baccus on it, the god of wine. I cleaned it up a little and found it marked .925. Big chunk of silver.
<center>
[attachment 78459 silvermedallion.jpg]
I went along digging clad and junk for a while when I hit an even bigger chunk of silver!
<center>
[attachment 78458 silvernjade.jpg]
That is one big honking ring! It is sterling and I believe the stone is a chunk of jade. It also had the initials in it and is marked Zuni. It cleaned up real nice and is very heavy. I was pleased to have a find or two to post tonight. Now if I could just find an old coin.
<center>
[attachment 78457 wnowwheat.jpg]
The best I could do in the short frozen time was a wheatie. 1953. Nancy and my birth year. I took a picture of it in the hole it came from. If you look closely you might be able to see the drip from my frozen nose at this point in the evening. I did not see any other tracks on my beach other than deer and coyote. An owl was hooting at me loud enought to hear with my headphone on as I left in the darkness. I had two silvers, a dollar and 23 cents in change, a junky toe ring, and a bunch of other crud for my efforts. My first hunt turned out fairly well, and my frozen parts are thawing nicely as I type this. A feller can't let a little snow and cold stop him!
HH DC