opinions wanted on hunting old home site with several coils.

[pointer80]

Hey everyone, I would like to get some of your opinions on hunting a old home site with several coils in your arsenal. Let say you get permission to detect a old home site from the late 1800's with a decent size yard and you have several coils, one small coil( 5 or 6 inch or 8x6), one medium coil(stock coil or 10x12) and larger coil(13 inch or equivalent). What would be your plan of attack? Which coil would you use first? Would you follow up with another size coil next and if so which one and why? Would you switch to a smaller coil and try to pick thru the trash or go bigger and try to squeeze more depth? Also what mode would you use with the different coils? Just curious what people think. Thanks and HH.

 

[surfchunker]

I'd start with a 8x6 and work around the house first where it would be trashy but the most finds are then switch to a bigger deeper coil as I work my way out and it cleans up and then if possible go back over the near house area with a bigger - deeper coil

 

[pointer80]

Thanks surfchunker for the reply. I guess your the only one with a opinion.

 

[surfchunker]

more than welcome ... I don't get many replies either

 

[jughed440]

All i hunt are old home sites, and at all sites i've hunted the most trash was found in the rear...front yards are generally cleaner, and it's where i've found the most coins. If the house no longer exists and the layout of the property is not known, my plan of attack would be to use the larger coil from the road/front side of the property and work towards where i would guess the house once was (using clues such as debris, sunken ground at the foundation, etc.), then search the sides, and the back yard last. If i start hitting a lot of iron trash i will skip that area and change to a smaller coil later, or do so on the next hunt.

 

[silversweeper]

I hunt almost entirely with the 13 inch ultimate coil, even in trash to most degrees. So I would probably start with that and if I found the site was too trashy, or that targets were mostly shallow, I would switch to a smaller coil (either the 10x12 sef if the ground isn't too trash heavy, or the 6x8 if it was heavy trash). Given the time and extended permission, I would probably go back over the site with the little sunray coil if I'd done fairly well up to that point. As for the good old stock coil........couldn't tell you the last time I used it. Not a bad coil, I just prefer the others. And for mode, TTF with a wide open screen and manual sensitivity of about 26 is usually my go to search method, lower sensitivity or auto plus 3 if there's a lot of trash. On old sites there are a lot of good targets that are not going to fall in the coin range so if you use a screen set up that notches a lot of the screen out, you're going to miss some goodies. Your question, though, leaves a lot of gray area. I've searched old home sites that were fairly clean with little trash and then I've hunted others (like one I'm on now) that does have good stuff but it's mixed in a blanket of nails/iron bits, farm implement parts, aluminum cans and slaw above that, and various other odds and ends. The big coil will find stuff in it but I'm going to hit it next time with the 6x8. Still using wide open TTF but my choice of coils depends a lot more on what is present in the ground than it does on how old the site is. If you've got an old site that doesn't have much modern trash mixed in, hunt it with the big coil and dig everything repeatable in TTF that is conductive. The more modern trash their is, the more you're going to have to make guesses and decisions on what to dig and what not to......depending on how much hunting time you have.

 

[Dekeyser68]

start with the pro coil then work your way down unless your nulling like crazy and just use the small coil from the get go.