CZconnoisseur
Active member
Took some vacation time this week and went to a place I've visited many times over the last 20 years to "get away from it all". It's always at least 20 degrees cooler at the top of this mountain versus the valley below, and during the summer months many people go to the general location, and those willing to hike another hour or so get rewarded with spectacular views, cool breezes, and the sweet smell of hemlocks and spruce trees - which normally grow in the Pacific Northwest.
I drove up there on Tuesday and finally got to the parking area shortly after sunset. It was 52 degrees when I parked the car, but I knew the weather at this place can change in an instant, so I packed plenty of cold weather and rain gear specifically for this purpose. There is a cabin on the way to the site, and hikers (including myself) use it while making their way through the countryside. I got up to the cabin and peered inside - there was a hiker who was already asleep in his sleeping bag, so I carefully unloaded all of my gear and set up my bag without waking him up. From the looks of his gear he was hiking for several weeks and wasn't just a day-hiker. I got everything ready for the next day, and brought along a portable power source (fancy name for a battery) to recharge my phone and the Deus. Everything was fully charged when I parked the car, and I was ready to find some long-lost coins, but it would be ME that was the limiting factor!!!
The rain started around 5:00am Wed morning, and it was a windy, relentless, blowing rain that sounded angry on the cabin's roof. Was really hoping it wouldn't stay like this for the rest of the day after all the driving and preparation. Around 7:30 it was still raining, and the hiker fellow awoke and didn't expect to see me in the same room! He was an older gentleman, and found 2 weeks of personal time to hike through some of NC and VA before his wife picked him up at the endpoint. Lucky guy! We talked about spots in the mountains that both of us had seen, and I told him what to expect on the next 10-15 miles of the trail ahead of him. The temperature was about 45 degrees now, the rain finally stopped, and I was getting ready to hunt. I bid him farewell, as both of us were travelling in opposite directions. The hunt site is 30 minutes by foot beyond the cabin, and I got there around 915 or so. The wind was howling at 30 mph or more, the fog was soup, but I was ready. Turned on the Deus to an 8K program, GB manually at 82, and started hunting.
The first hour or so I found some clad at 2-3 inches deep, then I figured the tall grass would be a better place to hunt since it was indeed tall grass. Turned sens to 93, 8K, reactivity 1, silencer 0, and ground notch only had "87" blanked out. Nothing for 20 minutes, then I got a scratchy faint signal...a deep corroded bottlecap. Got a slightly stronger signal, but not scratchy - an old rectangular pulltab came up. The grass was 18 inches tall, but it rained overnight (hard), and I was determined to find one old coin. Just one.
I got to an area that for some reason the grass was trampled down and somewhat barren. There were pieces of broken glass and I could see some nails laying on the surface. Figured this was likely a better spot since the Deus could see further into the ground here. Turns out the nails were very thick, but I was able to pull a couple copper pennies at 2-3" deep, but still nothing was old.
Then I remembered a recent post here about someone trying Deus Fast vs another program in a nail bed. So I changed to Deus Fast and listened to all the nails looking for the high tones. Found a couple more clad coins in an area I hunted just previously with the other 8K program - Deus Fast really separates the wheat from the chaff - and I have a couple places I will be trying it out in the next few days. I didn't change a thing - just used the factory 18 kHz setup and found coins right away. Both coins I found in this area were clad dimes, and in each hole I saw square nails. I knew I was in the right area. Later on I found a piece of iron - not sure what it is but I know it is a period piece. Looks like cast iron, and it cleaned up quite well.
After thoroughly searching the bald spot, I moved on to another area of the site which was the old mountain road. Unused for about 50 years now, I was surely going to find some goodies here. I found a modern day Jeff nickel practically laying on the surface, and not 2 feet away there was a clad dime virtually on the surface. Then more scratchy signals turned out to be bottlecaps at various depths. I was almost about to leave the area when I got a nice, clear dime hit. It read "77-78" and sounded great, about 5 inches deep. I carefully cut a plug and pulled up a 1967 clad dime, expecting a silver to show itself. Then I scanned the hole again..."77" again. OK - so maybe a pocket spill with mixed clad and silver...ANOTHER 1967 clad dime comes out. Rescanned and got a "75". OK - maybe a THIN silver dime...nope, how about a 1981 Memorial!!! Kind of disappointing, but I was finding coins nonetheless.
I returned to the square nail "bald area" and re-consulted my old maps. There was a structure that was torn down in 1918 but everywhere I figured that I would do well was covered in about 18" of tall grass and blueberry bushes. Went back to Deus Fast and hit the adjacent areas of the "bald spot" and found some pulltabs, a couple more bottlecaps, and a few zincolns. My spirits were starting to fade and my feet weren't doing well. Time for a break....
Had some canned-food lunch and right as I was finishing, the fog lifted and the sun came out, revealing a DEEP blue sky. The temperature, however, DROPPED and the winds continued to blow 25-30 mph nearly constantly. I took to the adjoining wooded areas and continued hunting. On a previous trip there was a wooded area that completely scrambled my CZ6 - I couldn't make heads or tails of any signal - it was all smeared and inconsistent signals here. So with the Deus I flipped to 8K, reactivity of 2 and started looking around. Got the same type of signals with the Deus, and scratched my head for a couple of minutes.
There was a large granite boulder next to me, and something told me to scan it. Right away the Deus made a bunch of little blips and beeps, and I recalled a recent post here about the same thing. First thing I did was change frequency. No effect. There is no EMI at this site, so that eliminates a few possibilities. Then I tried lowering sensitivity and re-ground balancing. Still got the beeps on the large granite boulder. I walked over to a car-sized solid chunk of granite and scanned it - same thing. Then it hit me...I needed to try the pumping method on this boulder and then set manual GB from there. Got a reading of 80-81 on three pumping sessions. Then I set manual GB on "84". I scanned the large boulder again, and it was a tad better; but the surrounding area was still "unhuntable". What am I missing here....GROUND NOTCH!!!! I checked it and only had one black box shaded, which means ground readings of only "87" are notched out. I added "84-90" which is only three more clicks positive to the total ground notch and this cleared the "granite falses" right up. This wouldn't make much difference in the tall grass, but now to stay out of the wind I was on rocky ground looking for targets.
Unfortunately all the trouble I had with the CZ6 due to mineralization would repeat itself in the form of no good targets for this rocky area. I spent about 90 minutes in here, out of the wind for the most part, and only dug recent pulltabs and bottlecaps. As I was walking out of the woods I got a fairly decent signal in the middle of the walkway - only 2" deep was the only old coin found - a 1950 Wheat. A thorough 10ft radius search of where the Wheat was found turned up more pulltabs, a clad quarter, and plenty of bottlecaps - everything was 4" or shallower due to a solid rock base.
I tried one more area - the tall grass itself. Changed to 4Khz, reactivity 1, silencer 1, audio response 6, and no notch whatsoever. Disc at 2.0 and full tones. There were areas where the tall grass was only about 12" deep, and I concentrated on them, hoping to "just catch" an old coin at depth. Got a very faint signal, bottlecap. Got another faint signal, bottlecap. And another - pulltab. Nothing old, nothing really that deep below the actual ground surface. Tried this for an hour, wind howling through the headphones but I was patient and determined. Seemed like it was getting colder but the sun was still out. I went to one more area of the tall grass, consulted the old map, and tried to put myself where the back door of the structure was located. Deep signal - another bottlecap. And another. Pulltab this time...then another bottlecap. My guess is that I was scanning about 6-7" above the ground surface, trying to push the grass down as far as possible and still swing. This limited my working scan depth to maybe 4-5" at the most, and was simply not deep enough to reach the goods. After almost 12" below the surface it's solid rock - as evidenced from a few fallen trees nearby.
Talked to a few curious hikers who told me that more rain and cooler weather was moving into the area that night, and by this time my feet were not happy and cramps were trying to set into my calves. Hated to do it but I cut short the expedition and came home a day early. My footwear wasn't up to the task and the next day (today) it rained all day long...May need a PI machine to reach those coins for a future hunt!
I drove up there on Tuesday and finally got to the parking area shortly after sunset. It was 52 degrees when I parked the car, but I knew the weather at this place can change in an instant, so I packed plenty of cold weather and rain gear specifically for this purpose. There is a cabin on the way to the site, and hikers (including myself) use it while making their way through the countryside. I got up to the cabin and peered inside - there was a hiker who was already asleep in his sleeping bag, so I carefully unloaded all of my gear and set up my bag without waking him up. From the looks of his gear he was hiking for several weeks and wasn't just a day-hiker. I got everything ready for the next day, and brought along a portable power source (fancy name for a battery) to recharge my phone and the Deus. Everything was fully charged when I parked the car, and I was ready to find some long-lost coins, but it would be ME that was the limiting factor!!!
The rain started around 5:00am Wed morning, and it was a windy, relentless, blowing rain that sounded angry on the cabin's roof. Was really hoping it wouldn't stay like this for the rest of the day after all the driving and preparation. Around 7:30 it was still raining, and the hiker fellow awoke and didn't expect to see me in the same room! He was an older gentleman, and found 2 weeks of personal time to hike through some of NC and VA before his wife picked him up at the endpoint. Lucky guy! We talked about spots in the mountains that both of us had seen, and I told him what to expect on the next 10-15 miles of the trail ahead of him. The temperature was about 45 degrees now, the rain finally stopped, and I was getting ready to hunt. I bid him farewell, as both of us were travelling in opposite directions. The hunt site is 30 minutes by foot beyond the cabin, and I got there around 915 or so. The wind was howling at 30 mph or more, the fog was soup, but I was ready. Turned on the Deus to an 8K program, GB manually at 82, and started hunting.
The first hour or so I found some clad at 2-3 inches deep, then I figured the tall grass would be a better place to hunt since it was indeed tall grass. Turned sens to 93, 8K, reactivity 1, silencer 0, and ground notch only had "87" blanked out. Nothing for 20 minutes, then I got a scratchy faint signal...a deep corroded bottlecap. Got a slightly stronger signal, but not scratchy - an old rectangular pulltab came up. The grass was 18 inches tall, but it rained overnight (hard), and I was determined to find one old coin. Just one.
I got to an area that for some reason the grass was trampled down and somewhat barren. There were pieces of broken glass and I could see some nails laying on the surface. Figured this was likely a better spot since the Deus could see further into the ground here. Turns out the nails were very thick, but I was able to pull a couple copper pennies at 2-3" deep, but still nothing was old.
Then I remembered a recent post here about someone trying Deus Fast vs another program in a nail bed. So I changed to Deus Fast and listened to all the nails looking for the high tones. Found a couple more clad coins in an area I hunted just previously with the other 8K program - Deus Fast really separates the wheat from the chaff - and I have a couple places I will be trying it out in the next few days. I didn't change a thing - just used the factory 18 kHz setup and found coins right away. Both coins I found in this area were clad dimes, and in each hole I saw square nails. I knew I was in the right area. Later on I found a piece of iron - not sure what it is but I know it is a period piece. Looks like cast iron, and it cleaned up quite well.
After thoroughly searching the bald spot, I moved on to another area of the site which was the old mountain road. Unused for about 50 years now, I was surely going to find some goodies here. I found a modern day Jeff nickel practically laying on the surface, and not 2 feet away there was a clad dime virtually on the surface. Then more scratchy signals turned out to be bottlecaps at various depths. I was almost about to leave the area when I got a nice, clear dime hit. It read "77-78" and sounded great, about 5 inches deep. I carefully cut a plug and pulled up a 1967 clad dime, expecting a silver to show itself. Then I scanned the hole again..."77" again. OK - so maybe a pocket spill with mixed clad and silver...ANOTHER 1967 clad dime comes out. Rescanned and got a "75". OK - maybe a THIN silver dime...nope, how about a 1981 Memorial!!! Kind of disappointing, but I was finding coins nonetheless.
I returned to the square nail "bald area" and re-consulted my old maps. There was a structure that was torn down in 1918 but everywhere I figured that I would do well was covered in about 18" of tall grass and blueberry bushes. Went back to Deus Fast and hit the adjacent areas of the "bald spot" and found some pulltabs, a couple more bottlecaps, and a few zincolns. My spirits were starting to fade and my feet weren't doing well. Time for a break....
Had some canned-food lunch and right as I was finishing, the fog lifted and the sun came out, revealing a DEEP blue sky. The temperature, however, DROPPED and the winds continued to blow 25-30 mph nearly constantly. I took to the adjoining wooded areas and continued hunting. On a previous trip there was a wooded area that completely scrambled my CZ6 - I couldn't make heads or tails of any signal - it was all smeared and inconsistent signals here. So with the Deus I flipped to 8K, reactivity of 2 and started looking around. Got the same type of signals with the Deus, and scratched my head for a couple of minutes.
There was a large granite boulder next to me, and something told me to scan it. Right away the Deus made a bunch of little blips and beeps, and I recalled a recent post here about the same thing. First thing I did was change frequency. No effect. There is no EMI at this site, so that eliminates a few possibilities. Then I tried lowering sensitivity and re-ground balancing. Still got the beeps on the large granite boulder. I walked over to a car-sized solid chunk of granite and scanned it - same thing. Then it hit me...I needed to try the pumping method on this boulder and then set manual GB from there. Got a reading of 80-81 on three pumping sessions. Then I set manual GB on "84". I scanned the large boulder again, and it was a tad better; but the surrounding area was still "unhuntable". What am I missing here....GROUND NOTCH!!!! I checked it and only had one black box shaded, which means ground readings of only "87" are notched out. I added "84-90" which is only three more clicks positive to the total ground notch and this cleared the "granite falses" right up. This wouldn't make much difference in the tall grass, but now to stay out of the wind I was on rocky ground looking for targets.
Unfortunately all the trouble I had with the CZ6 due to mineralization would repeat itself in the form of no good targets for this rocky area. I spent about 90 minutes in here, out of the wind for the most part, and only dug recent pulltabs and bottlecaps. As I was walking out of the woods I got a fairly decent signal in the middle of the walkway - only 2" deep was the only old coin found - a 1950 Wheat. A thorough 10ft radius search of where the Wheat was found turned up more pulltabs, a clad quarter, and plenty of bottlecaps - everything was 4" or shallower due to a solid rock base.
I tried one more area - the tall grass itself. Changed to 4Khz, reactivity 1, silencer 1, audio response 6, and no notch whatsoever. Disc at 2.0 and full tones. There were areas where the tall grass was only about 12" deep, and I concentrated on them, hoping to "just catch" an old coin at depth. Got a very faint signal, bottlecap. Got another faint signal, bottlecap. And another - pulltab. Nothing old, nothing really that deep below the actual ground surface. Tried this for an hour, wind howling through the headphones but I was patient and determined. Seemed like it was getting colder but the sun was still out. I went to one more area of the tall grass, consulted the old map, and tried to put myself where the back door of the structure was located. Deep signal - another bottlecap. And another. Pulltab this time...then another bottlecap. My guess is that I was scanning about 6-7" above the ground surface, trying to push the grass down as far as possible and still swing. This limited my working scan depth to maybe 4-5" at the most, and was simply not deep enough to reach the goods. After almost 12" below the surface it's solid rock - as evidenced from a few fallen trees nearby.
Talked to a few curious hikers who told me that more rain and cooler weather was moving into the area that night, and by this time my feet were not happy and cramps were trying to set into my calves. Hated to do it but I cut short the expedition and came home a day early. My footwear wasn't up to the task and the next day (today) it rained all day long...May need a PI machine to reach those coins for a future hunt!