Question about wet salt water beach detecting

[candcantiques]

Both yesterday and today I have noticed that instead of having a ripple trough we have had 30 feet of nothing but ripple at low tide. I believe that is because we have lost a lot of sand in the past few days because of seriously heavy waves. I would think on of two things would be true. Either everything that was on the lower beach by the water is gone and I should forget detecting in the wet right now OR I SHOULD detect there a lot because all of the heavy gold could be below in the solid pack. Is the solid pack TO solid for the gold to keep going down. Our beaches here really get seriously hard. The solid pack is hard enough that if I got down on hands and knees and punched the sand there would be a really good chance of breaking my hand. That's how packed it is.

Further up the beach we also have something else I am not used to. We have a 10 foot wide swath of red sand that I believe is the heavier red coral sand. This sand is much more coarse and all of the much finer white sand has been washed away. We normally see a good bit of the red sand here and there but I personally have never seen this much of it. Would it be wiser to search in the heavier coarser sand rather than the hard pack?

There is no trough just everything got washed away. Maybe I should just stick to the dry sand for now? Any suggestions would be great. Thanks all.

 

[jimmy jam]

Look for the lowest part of the beach, and start there, you will know by the darker sand color. slopes are really good to. after that, its your call. If I'm using my ACE, i wont even go close to the water, in wet sand its OK with sensitivity 4 notches, dry sand 1 notch from max. learn to read a beach, so write down what you find and where you find it on the beach, that's what i did, and now i can go to the beach and get on the good stuff first thing. their is much more, but i think that is a good start. Have fun!

 

[candcantiques]

What is a sloop?

 

[jimmy jam]

Sorry, i mean slope. LOL.

 

[candcantiques]

Personally I think that the upslope rather than the downslope would be best. Do you agree.

 

[jimmy jam]

You can also go to the beach and water detecting forum and watch all the videos by surfdigger. they are pretty good .

 

[candcantiques]

I have watched a bunch of videos with bootybay Rae and surf digger and they are very good and great info for what I do, however I think that this is a different situation with the beach conditions. There is nearly no low spot on the beach. Maybe an inch or two at most over a span of 12 to 15 feet then it drops off down to the water. I am used to the ripple troughs but there really is no trough at all.

 

[jimmy jam]

I agree on the upper slope, are you going on low tide? and i was out the other day, at one beach and it was sanded in and flat, found 3 clad coins then i went to a different beach and found the stuff i just posted yesterday at the coming in of high tide and the lowest part of the beach. every beach is different. A week ago i worked just the high dry and found 2 mrcs. a1945 standing liberty 50 cent , buffalo nickel, 6 wheat cents, and about tree bucks in clad with the ACE. this same area i detected a week before and did not find more then a couple of coins.

 

[candcantiques]

WOW ! Where do you live that you can find those old coins on the beach ???

 

[jimmy jam]

Virginia!

 

[candcantiques]

Virginia beach ? The Ocean or inlets and bays. I used to live in Winchester and could direct you to some serious places to hunt if you might be interested in traveling to that area. Civil war battleground areas that haven't been searched in many many years. Trust me, they haven't been searched. You'll need a machete to cut through the BS so you can MD. I only wish when I lived there that I had bought a detector but I was so busy buying and selling antiques I really didn't have much time.

 

[jimmy jam]

I'm in Newport news, so i go to all the beaches, a different one every two days. only been here 7 months, moved from California. I would love to search for relics, that is also why i got a PI. detector, problem is there is so many laws out here, so i joined a club and that is helping a lot with areas to search.

 

[candcantiques]

Look online and see where Winchester is. It is right on the western border of Virginia and West Virginia. If you go where I suggest law enforcement will not be a problem and it will be like virgin ground never detected. You are going to want to make a weekend of it though. Its not a one day or few hour thing. Your not going to want to leave. Truth I never detected there. I wish I had those types of opportunities here though. Go west on Rt 50 to Winchester. Find I-81 south. Go south till you see exit 302. Take the first off ramp right and turn right. Go to the first light. There will be a 7-11 on the left corner. Turn left. Make your first right into the only apartment complex in town. Go down to the second left. Turn left and park at the end of the parking lot. 15 feet away from you through the woods to your south is a civil war stone wall entirely encased by overgrowth. The wall runs a long way east and west. This is where you will need your machete. Search the north side of the wall. Where Union soldiers would have hidden from the bullets. Who knows what they lost there. The south side I am sure will provide a lot of bullets. If you keep traveling through the woods past the wall in the southerly direction you will come upon a clearing. In the middle of the clearing you will find remnants of a house that was torn down in the early 1900's. I do mean really early. Look for the flowers around the trees that just seem as if they don't belong there. The old foundation is ever so slightly to the west of those flowers just before the drop off. The property goes slowly down hill till the back (western edge) of the foundation where it drops down significantly. If you then travel to your south east, uphill, you will find an area that again drops off. Look on the ground for the shards of glass and pottery. These shards date back to the 1700's. They come from the Wayside inn just to your east which has been there since the late 1700's. It was their dump for 200 years. It's all buried deep but there is a fortune there if you have the time and money to dig deep enough. The owner gave me permission once as long as the Inn got half of what was dug up. I could never afford the equipment nor did I have the time to do the job properly. There IS a fortune buried there. IF you have the finances to dig it up. If you ever have the opportunity I'll dig. Just let me know. To the west at the bottom of the property you will see train tracks. Follow them to the south. They will lead you to many areas that need to be searched. You will know them when you see them. You will pass a MAJOR civil war battle field. Don't even think of searching there. Why, first because they won't let you, Second because it has been searched so many times you will be wasting your time. Search the woods. If you see a wall search the northern side. You may want to take a compass with you. If you go you will never want to go home. The woods are full of stone walls that the troops hid behind. I never saw any evidence that anyone had ever been there for many many years. If I didn't hate the cold I never would have moved. If you go I envy you. Email me if you have any luck at candcantiques@yahoo.com. Happy hunting

Seriously out there, nobody will EVER bother you about metal detecting laws but RESPECT the Wayside Inn enough to share everything or they won't like you much. Here is a link to the Wayside inn.

http://www.alongthewayside.com/home.html

This little town with next to nothing there dates back to the revolutionary war. It was a MAJOR stop over for horse drawn carriages. Seriously major. I NEVER saw ANYONE around there with a metal detector and I lived there for 4 years. Have fun.

Chris