learn your sites

[rbholt80]

I have my e-trac down like its a magic wand connected to my brain but. Yea but each site is different and even a site you think of in one way can change.

I have a shady spot under some oak trees that i visit once in a wile. its next to the elementary school i went to as a boy so it has fond memories for me. I visit this spot and remember me and my grand dad hunting the school then walking to that shady spot and hunting. We never found much there but it was nice and peaceful and cool.
Last year i noticed that the school had purchased the land and had cleared some of the brush away from the old fence line. I hunted it but like always didnt find much other than a wheat and a 48 nickel. So iv been watching for month's now to see if the school did any more work at the shady oak spot and this week they did. Bulldozers and track hoes came in friday morning and Friday night i hit it. And all week long iv hit it every night.

Now to the learn your site thing. The first 3 nights i hunted that spot with my e-trac i had the same old ideas about the site. These ideas came from years of hunting this spot and not finding much at all. I even met a friend once that was hunting the spot with no luck. So it was welded in my brain that the place was trashy with not much coinage. I walked around swinging the deEp-trac with my mind set to not find much. The first couple hunts were crappy but it was fun to watch the memories of years past as i walked around finding nothing.

The next hunt i told myself that there had to be something still there and with all the dirt moved around that i could find the things we had all missed. So with the rite mind set and a little attention to what the site was telling me I started finding wheat's. The next night i found a 45 Washington and a 43 merc and 2 wheat's. the last night i found a wheat an a 54 Rossie. 3 nights i hunted and didnt find crap cause i didn't learn what the site was saying to me and i had my mind set to not find things. The next 3 nights i was on my game and i found 3 silver and 14 wheats oh yeah and part of a tootsie toy car and some 1930's relics.

i learned my lesson again.

The detector is the tool and if you watch what its finding it will give you an idea of how to hunt a site and what you may find. Trust the old trash you find cause it will date the site and tell you a lot about what setting will work and how to hunt that spot.

Moral to the story is learn your site.

 

[Nick A]

I think more than "learn your site" the moral here is to be focused on what you are looking for. I know I am fresher the first hour of a hunt, and tend to dig more and better targets. As the time passes, especially if it is hot and humid, my mind tends to wander. I have to bring myself back to focus. Congrats on some nice finds and a good site! If it's there, the E-Trac will find it... but you have to put the coil over it, and have the right mindset.

 

[Elton]

n/t

 

[In2Deep]

Being almost brand new to the sport, what you said about trusting the trash helps me a lot. I spent hours today looking around in the park. Our local home town police officer was there today. I walked by him with detector in one hand and minelab digger in the other. He could of cared less about me hunting there. That was a relief to me, but today was the first day I dared venture off of my acreage and go somewhere that I might actually find something.

I went to the far back part of the park, There is some pines and furs standing back there and the grass is groomed very well. I started this morning using my 6" eq2 and it was nice. After I got the kids from school, we came back home and I put on the stock coil to give it a go. Headed back down to the park. I can say that I should of left the stock coil at home and stuck with the 6".

You all with get a laugh out of this one, my son has taken to detecting with me and I have to fight him for my etrac. We dug up our first coin tonight. To quote him "Daddy, this dime is old, it was made in 1980".

So I ended up digging a lot of trash, nothing that I notice was very old. Mostly pieces of cans, not even the entire can. Just a piece of it here and there. I know the park has been there since atleast the 60's and our town goes back to the mid 1800's with a gold rush.

Trusting the trash, that is so simple and I never thought about it. I should of shifted areas or back to the 6". Do you use a probe at all? After today I can see where a probe could save you hours of effort, I had a hard time pin pointing with the garbage and the stock coil

 

[rbholt80]

i havent used a probe in my 23 years but i wouldn't mind having one.

I would say a site that has shredded cans at depth would be filled in with fill from the ditches around or near by.
may still be coins there but they may be deeper so i would use a larger coil to get down to them. I hate places that use fill dirt from ditches, cause in Texas they just mulch the cans into the ditches when they mow and then when they dig them out every 10 to 15 years they give the dirt to land owners near by or parks or school. So you know what that means when you hunt a place with that fill dirt. CAN SLAW.

sounds like a new park to me. 1960's isnt that old and that part of the park may not have seen much traffic in the last 50 years. I would have probably moved on after a wile to a more promising place. I personally never hunt places that are newer than 60 years old. Im a clad hater lol. I hate new coins and feel like they are a disease to my detector hahaha.

 

[In2Deep]

My friend that comes over detecting likes to find the loose spending change. I cant stand the idea of it either, after the etrac and a few coils I am in over 2k.. Finding modern day dimes and nickles aint gonna cut it for me! Well, I guess I would not complain, but I am more interested in the older stuff.

We go back to 1817 (atleast the part with flour mill does) or somewhere around then. There is a park that I am like 80% sure is city property, it was the first flour mill around I guess (so the sign says). They built a new flour wheel for display but the grounds look to be untouched. I wont detect there until I find out for sure.

Our population here is 1,500 and we are 85 miles (ish) from a freeway. NE Corner of Washington state. There is a ton of history here and you can drive through town and see some of the older homes that are obviously old as the dirt they sit on. If I recall our county is the one of the poorest counties in the state. There is just not that much money here because we are so rural. I dont know if that is why I have never seen anyone detecting or if its just not that interesting to others. Heh, my train of thought is more like "Why wouldnt you have a metal detector?"

So many people that have lived here their entire lifes have no idea about how big the gold rush was back then, Many of these little towns heritage goes back to mining and hardly anyone knows it. Before I got into prospecting and detecting I could of cared less to. But now I am like a sponge and always trying to soak up as much as I can.

I guess when I get better at pin pointing then I will venture out to maybe the schools or start asking permission to hit some of the old yards. Watching the youtube videos with some of the guys using them probes made me jealous. I guess today was my first day out off my own property though, i guess when I get better maybe I wont be as interested in a probe.

The next town over is getting some long overdue road repairs. They have the blacktop stripped off and its down to dirt on a few of the roads. I been kicking the idea back and forth all day to go seek permission to see what was under that pavement all these years. Sure would beat a backfilled park full of ripped apart soda cans! Going to be hunting the ghost towns to that are not on federal land. Many of the mining camps are buried in the woods still. Its going to be a fun summer as long as I can avoid the ticks and the snakes..

Was going to ask you, they did not bulldoze your tree that you had such fond memories of did they?

 

[rbholt80]

Yea they got the big old tree but once i seen the equipment i knew it was time to get one last walk down mem lane. the next day the giant oak was gone along with about half the other old trees.

Its ok i guess, that its all gone now. Some times a place will drag your mood down and every time i drove by i would remember my grandpa. So now it will be different when i go by it so maybe i wont miss that old man as much.

 

[In2Deep]

My grandpa took me out detecting a lot when I was very young. I am thinking I was less then 12. We used his Radio Shack detectors and I dont remember ever finding anything but a property marker in his yard. For most of my 20's I wanted another detector because of the memories I had with my grandpa. I think I was 29 when I got my explorer. Maybe 30, dunno.. Then I parted ways with my X (note the X in that sentance.. LOL) but I was forced to sell it. Its taken me 5 or 6 years to have enough money for another one and I really probably should not of bought this one.

There is still food on the table so I guess its not that bad

 

[rbholt80]

you think like me. I was on medical leave with half pay when i got my e-trac. hey the kids were eating so it was ok.

 

[big-ears]

I'll hunt it a dozen times dry, damp, damper, wet, wetter, soaking, cool, hot and in between and it always changes things and what I find. Example, I never expected heavy rains to wash bullets out of an area, but thats how I located a site.