It sounds contradictory, doesn't it? I mean, how can you detect behind yourself and still increase your finds?
Well, you most certainly can, and the the crux of it is dead simple. The work involved isn't too complicated, and is easy to do.
Luckily, most of it can be done when you can't otherwise go detecting.
To detect behind yourself and continue to make good finds, you need a circuit - a pattern you follow from place to place over a given amount of time. Here's how I manage that.
First off, I have both a county and city map and on each are marked the following things:
Schools
Colleges
Public parks
Athletic fields of all kinds
Churches
Fairgrounds and festival sites
Campsites
Swimming pools with grass areas
Unpaved parking lots
Other areas where people are known to gather en masse.
I use these maps to plot these places on a round trip arrangement, so I can head to any point of the compass and hit several of them. On any given day I can have three or four sites to detect, sites which I know I myself haven't been to in a long time. As we all know, it takes time for a site to be replenished with goodies to find.
I hang these maps on the wall, mounted on a large piece of cardboard. I use old fashioned, numbered stick pins to mark the sites on the map. I keep a small index on the maps to denote which pin is which. I have the addresses of each place on the index, along with a bit of pertinent info. I find these reminders help to jog my memory. They remind me of good finds made in these places and other spots nearby which might fit into the visit. I find I don't get those sorts of prompts with a GPS handheld, for example, and I certainly can't remember all this stuff in my already crowded brain. The foibles of being an aging genius, I suppose.
I also have radius rings plotted on the maps in 1 mile and 5 mile increments. If I don't feel like going far, well, I don't have to. These days, I rarely want to.
If I do feel like visiting one of the more distant areas of the county, then I have places there which I know are producers and which are open to me. Call these "treasure maps." if you like, for that is really what they are. Sometimes, "X" does mark the spot!
Secondly, I keep a bound 3-ring book. I used to keep a file card box, but that got to be sort of clunky and fussy, so I just switched to this book. In it I keep the sites organized both alphabetically and in various circuits. Depending on which way I want to go on a particular day or how much time I have, I can select a given route that meets those needs.
I have north, south, east and west circuits, routes arranged by the town they focus on and even short and long hunt circuits. Each time I travel one of my circuits, I jot down the date and day of the week. Then, if I have no special place to detect on any given day, I open the book and see which route meets my needs of the moment and was run the farthest back in time. That is the one I'll hit that day.
In the book I expand the information I have about each location I've visited in greater detail. I log the number of coins and jewelry items found by date, along with things like pertinent features of the site, tidbits about the surrounding areas and possibly other potential sites that catch my eye nearby. Then I can review these items and as the seasons progress, I have a running narrative about any of these places and my own coin shooting efforts.
I don't get overly pedantic about all this site information, mind you, just a little obsessive. I mostly note things that I feel will be helpful for future reference.
I have never kept a strict coin-by-coin tally and I couldn't tell you precisely how many of what sort I've found on any given site. But, I can tell you which sites are consistent producers of coins or jewelry. Also, when something special crops up about a site, or I uncover some heretofore unknown fact about a spot, I make sure I note it.
For example, in one park in a small town nearby, they hold an annual harvest festival. It is held right in the middle of an otherwise nondescript grassy area. If you didn't know this, you'd probably wander through the nearby tot lot in your ignorance and miss this piggy-bank entirely. This festival information was relayed to me by a resident of the town and when next the festival was held, I payed a visit there. Sure enough, it was true.
So, I took some notes about the number of people there, and some general location landmarks for future visits.... times when I knew the rides, booths and hawkers would be gone, leaving only a vast expanse of grass. Now when I go there I hit the tot lot, of course, but I never fail to spend time on the festival site. I also discovered an award winning eatery in the next block over from the festival site, the last time I was there. I wrote all these things down in my book and when I next plan a trip there, I can read through the book and give my memory a kick in the pants!
Another great thing about the book is it gives you a place to write down new and untried sites you would otherwise forget about. How many times have you driven by an old tree on an overgrown lot or field and said to yourself, "I'll bet that was an old house site." Or for whatever reason, you spy some other likely spot that might produce some good finds. But, in your rush to go about your life, you keep driving - - and invariably never return to check it out. With a notebook like this you can capture the information while it is fresh in your mind and have it at your fingertips for later recall.
Third, some mention should be made here of the modern tools available to assist you in your circuit hunting efforts. Of course, I'm referring to things like GPS locator's, laptop and notebook computers, etc. These can easily take the place of maps and paper-and-pencil notebooks, and if you have them or are inclined to use them, by all means you should. I don't use them simply because I like to keep things well, simple. My notebook takes no batteries and is always ready.
It does have one drawback, though: it cannot readily be backed up in case of loss or damage, as a computer can. And a handheld GPS locator could put me precisely back on that harvest festival site, right down to the best concession stand.
Hmmmmm, maybe it's time for me to update myself!
A circuit method like this has many advantages, however you go about implementing it. It organizes your efforts, adding some method to your madness. It is repeatable, season after season and prevents you from retracing your own steps too frequently. It is also amenable to whatever degree of refinement you wish to adopt, from the ridiculous to the sublime.
It will keep your hunting fresh and new, providing you with known and yet still interesting places to go, time after time. By adopting such a practice you can increase your finds, eliminate the boredom that sometimes sets in and best of all, you rarely have to ask yourself , "Where do I hunt today?"
I would rather follow the other guys, than myself and I do most of the time. When I follow my own Vaquero I don't find much. I hunted this area a few weeks ago and thought I Must have left quite a bit, because I found quite a bit. The oldest coin is the nickel (1952). How does the old song go, Gloom despair and agony on me ...... Bill in Texas 
