Took the plunge on a Vaquero

[flint]

Well, when I get bit by a bug, I get bit hard.

I've been interested in metal detecting since I was a kid, but lost interest for quite a while when girls appeared, then life seemed to get in the way, and now I find myself at a point in life where I have a bit more time and need to get out of the house,.

I recently got re-interested in MD as I was searching on Google for Florida beaches, and as luck would have it, I found this site. I stopped by Radio Shack three days ago and bought one of the Discovery 1100 detectors they had on sale for $30, and have been using the heck out of it (about 15-20 hours of detecting so far), but with the little taste I got from using that cheapie, I decided that I wanted something better (i.e. 'deeper').

I've found about $5 in clad so far, along with a few wheats, a spanish colonial coin from the phillipines (dated 1826), and a pair of cloissone earrings, but all of that stuff was within the top 4" to 5" of the soil... I could only imagine what I was missing that was down deeper.

So, to make a short story long, I started researching, and hit upon the Tesoro detectors, after looking at Bounty Hunter, Garrett and Minelab. The Vaquero seemed to be a very good all-around detector that I can keep around for a while. I didn't need TID, since I hardly ever look at the one on my 1100, I just listen to the different tones to see what I have under the coil.

So I stopped by Treasure Hut, and lo-and-behold, they had a Vaquero trade-in in mint condition at a great price, so I bit (even though I had planned on waiting for a while before upgrading... yeah, right).

Hopefully it will be here by the middle of next week so I can give it a good run-through before going on vacation to the Monterey beaches (I'm in California) at the end of next week.

I mainly just wanted to say howdy, and I'll post a report once I get this puppy... I've already read the online user's manual twice, so after reading it a couple more times I'm sure I'll be ready once it gets here.

 

[tsb]

Hi Flint,
I did pretty much the same thing. I bought the discovery 2200 from Radio Shack. My primary interest is relic hunting and never found the first cw relic with the Radio Shack model, but did find lots of clad coins. I got a chance to hunt with a friend of mine who was hunting with a Tejon and I saw very quickly that what I was using was a toy compared to his Tejon. I then bought a Cibola and really liked that machine and began finding some relics with it. After a couple of months with the Cibola I bought a Vaqeuro and love it so much that I would sleep with it if the wife would let me. It was a little bit of a learning curve for me, but I found it well worth the effort put in to become familiar with the Tesoro's. The Vaquero does all I want it to do while relic hunting, and when I can't relic hunt I will hit the school yards or church yards and have found that it preforms equally well on coins. When you get your machine I hope you will like it as much as I do mine..........I cannot think of one bad thing to say about the Vaquero.
Best Wishes and Happy Hunting,
Scott

 

[colt]

Hi Flint

I bought my Vaquero from Chuck, he is a great guy to do business with. I also have a RS 3300 that I use for hunting new parks and sports fields, I bought the Vaquero for hunting deep targets at old sites and relic hunting and so far I am very happy with it's performance.

I have used about every high end detector on the market and feel that the Vaquero is as deep as anything that I have used, short learning curve and weighs 2.2 pounds. I took the Vaquero for an 8 hour hunt last weekend and I am learning what it is trying to tell me, listen for the short smooth beeps in DISC mode, that is a deep good target 8" or deeper.

colt

 

[flint]

That's all very nice to hear.

I checked out your 'first hunt' post and was very impressed with your amount of coinage... I'm primarily a coinshooter, but I want to find the deeper stuff. We live in an agricultural area, so most of the fields have a lot of deposition over the years.

I do great in the top 4-5" of soil with the BH 1100, but now I want that lower 6".

 

[flint]

Thanks a lot for your input... this is all music to my ears.

The 1100 I have is a decent-enough machine for shallow finds, but I'm looking for something to get down deeper where the really valuable stuff is. I'll settle for clad, but would much rather have silver.

Thanks again.