So far so good with the new Excal.

[Greg (E.Tn)]

I've had it about two weeks now, and have used it primarily in a rocky river where Tubing companies rent inner tubes. Wading in the river, moving rocks to get to the river bottom, which is hard work, and bout ten rings found so far--four silver, one platinum wedding band, one 14kt wedding band, and the rest stainless or titanium. Several coins, none of them old. Lots of sunglasses, the best being a pair of Maui Jims that look like they had only been in the water for a day or two.....

I haven't developed an ear yet for different tones--the coins have sounded no different than the silver, gold, and platinum rings (that I can tell); pull tabs and nickels sound a little different (sometimes). For example, one day I dug a nickel that had a nice medium tone, and when I dug it I thought to myself, "Ok, that's what a nickel sounds like."

The next one didn't sound like that, though--it had a higher pitch to it, and I thought it was a quarter or dime.

Big iron has fooled me several times, but that's OK, I expected it to.

Found the 14kt men's wedding band today--then went about thirty feet upstream and got into a really neat coin spill: A SB Anthony Dollar coin, Four Presidential Dollar coins, and four quarters.

Lastly, sorry for not posting pics--I no long have photoshopping software on my computer, and have problems resizing photos that will fit this forum.

 

[Mr. Carolina]

Sounds like you got one heck of a start with that Excal!!! Wish you many more gold!

 

[Greg (E.Tn)]

So far, my ratio is not too good.

Water season is about over down here. Maybe a couple more weeks, we'll see.

Going to send the Excal in for some upgrades this winter, try to get ready for next year.

Thanks for the kind words.

 

[dewcon4414]

On that BIG iron ...... learn to size the target. Gold isnt going to be the size of a can....... well if it is im coming up lol. Depending on the trash you may or may not want a PP switch for hunting. Not much desolves in rivers..... it rusts causing wrap around where iron falls in the high range rather than nulling. Much like hot rocks when running to much sensitivity. River hunting is worse than dry sand hunting on a salt water beach........ just a lot of targets. Sometimes running a 2 disc will knock out more of the bigger iron. Yes it reduces depth and nulls the machine more..... but it pattern hunting knocking out some of those pesty targets you dont want to dig. Gold may or may not sink deeper it depends on the river conditions so a lot of depth may not matter.

Dew

 

[Greg (E.Tn)]

Detecting depth is an issue in my local environment. The river runs anywhere from about six inches to five feet in depth, depending, and tubers float sections that are anywhere from a quarter to a half mile, so there's a lot of river to detect.

Sections of the river have boulders in the river bottom---rings fall down through the cracks and crevices between the rocks to the river bottom, then start working their way down. In some sections there is a 1-2 foot barrier of rocks/boulders between the coil and the actual riverbed itself, so the coil is sometimes at least 1-2 ft from targets, unless the rocks are moved.

A couple of years ago we were working a section of this same river and found a ring that had worked its way down about 6" into the river bed. It was a 1948 local college class ring, with the owner's name inscribed on the inside of the band. The owner was deceased, but turns out his son, who had lost the ring six years prior to us finding it, was still alive, and we returned it to him. His dad had left the ring to him, and he had lost it tubing the river.

I guess the specific gravity of gold causes it to work itself down to bedrock or a solid layer of something that stops it from going deeper. Most of them seem to be 2-3" in the riverbed, unless they were recently lost rings.

Rolling boulders and rocks aside to expose the bottom is hard work, but it has paid off. I guess it's all about being able to get that coil down where it can detect something.

There's some pretty big iron in the river--we found a section of chain with links about an inch thick, six inches long, and four inches wide. about six feet of the chain is exposed on the bottom of the river--the other ends are buried in the bottom, so I don't know how long it is. Some of the bigger iron can't be removed, so we end up just leaving it there and working around it.

My digging/dive partner uses an AT Pro, which has turned out to be a really good shallow water machine.

Again, Dewcon, thanks for the kind words, and advice.