Leaving your detector on as you head towards your car.

[pghpete22]

Hi guys,

I'm a daily reader and a seldom poster. Here in AZ, we're heading towards the end of the detecting season. With yesterday's high of 97, we're now relegated to early A.M. hunts, with those soon to stop in the next 4-6 weeks. Throughout my MD'ing career, I often heard the adage of leaving your detector on as you head towards your vehicle after calling it a day. While I understand that you can't find anything with a detector that's turned off, I never had the good fortune of finding anything of note on the way to the car. Yesterday, that luck finally changed when I headed to the car after 3 hours or so of detecting in a city park. As I approached the car, I kept the detector flat on the ground, straight out in front of me, and I got a 82-83 reading at 4", and thought "a silver dime would be nice". Sue enough, out popped a decent 64 Roosevelt, kind of blackened from the desert soil (alkalinity?), but a silver coin nonetheless. OK you guys, I'm sure several of you can pass on a story where you called it quits for the day, yet found a goody on the way to your vehicle. Let's hear it. Pete

 

[EtracTom-AdirondacksNY]

That's how I got my second class ring find. Leaving walking across basketball court area to cross a maybe 25-30 ft wide strip of grass to reach my truck and get a perfect 10 reading on a DFX I had at the time and popped out a college class ring.
Was detecting a park at the time.

 

[Ed Steinhoff]

You are right, numerous times the best find of the day has occurred when heading back to the truck. Never quit till you are at the vehicle!
HH Ed in co.

 

[mudpuppy]

Yeah! Early in our days reading the Forum theres so many great finds by the guys who hunt all the way to the car to write it off...so a guy has to do it...

I guess my best was this BF Half which was my dream coin...I was hunting a huge park sniping clad Q's, was heading back to my car to leave or do a pouch dump.....

I knew I had to hunt all the way back, getting close to the edge of the parking area, of course the amount of trash intensified, but I kept at it nice and steady, picking through the foil and whatnot, then BANG! nice solid hit right in front of my car! Not 10' off the asphault! From the tones and size, I figured it was either a modern JFK half, or a round aluminum piece of trash off a car or something...when I stabbed it, I could tell it was either a Half, or again, a heavy aluminum round of somesort, big silver and heavy aluminum feel quite a bit the same with a screwdriver, the same kind of 'softness'...I reamed a hole, jammed my finger down in there. I was just as surprised as it was when I pulled it up! The only silver coin out of a massive haul of clad...

Now my 'Dream coin' is a Barber Half...Same anywhere, you gotta keep it going all the way back nice and steady...lots of stuff gets lost right at the edge of the parking areas, and the trash there masks or discourages most casual hunters...
Mud

 

[liondogs]

About a month ago as I was walking back to my car along the sidewalk at the end of a day of detecting in the park I saw some mole mounds along the sidewalk edge. I ran my detector coil over them as I continued to the car. Got a solid hit on one mound and uncovered this nice find. Made my day

 

[CZconnoisseur]

Heading towards the car whilst swinging the detector is always a good idea:

http://www.findmall.com/read.php?83,2093504

 

[ohiochris]

I always hunt all the way back to the car , as long as Im moving I may as well be swinging my detector. Usually all it does is add a few clad coins to my count but sometimes it turns out to be a little more worthwhile. One day I was hunting last year I hit what I thought was just another quarter but it turned out to be some nice silver WW2 pilots wings. Same goes for walking from the car to where you are gonna hunt too , turn the detector on at the car and swing till you get there , if possible at the site.

 

[upnorth]

I usually shut my machine off. When I'm pooped, I'm pooped.