Two silvers today...

[REVIER]

One shallow...a 43p nickel, the other deeper about 6-7" a 1920 merc.
That deeper one was a challenge in this soil, I liken it to finding one at 13" in normal good soil.
A nice victory for my blast through method, but I picked it up in disc too.
Good to know in case I want to cherry pick sometime.
Still learning to hunt in this devil dirt but making headway little by little.

 

[Dekeyser68]

Looks like a 1921 Merc to me

 

[E-Trac-Ohio]

Nice digs !

 

[REVIER]

Looks like a 1921 Merc to me

Well both pretty much look the same but there is a 0 on the end of mine in the date.
I moved in July and still haven't found or unpacked the box that has my good Panasonic camera in it.
A cell phone is the only tool I have so the pic quality is not great but passable.

 

[Thompson44]

Love those War Nickels!!

 

[JimmyCT]

I had to blow your picture up to take a better look. Sure looks to be a "1" at the end on your merc. Either way you made some nice finds!

 

[Ed Steinhoff]

Nice info on your new hot soil. I live in the high mineralization belt in the southern Colorado mtns. and my ground balance numbers always run between 82 to 93. Even a chiplot with 12 to 16 inches of wood chips will be 78 to 85. I very rarely get a signal with my f-70 at 5 inches. Everything is 1 to 4 inches. I always thought that the lack of any deeper silver was that it just wasn't there, but what you are saying is the heavy mineralization in the ground has "bounce back effect" that is blocking the deeper signals, and if so, what settings do you recommend, if any, to penetrate deeper?
HH Ed in co.

 

[REVIER]

Nope, still a 0.
The rim is worn and intrudes a bit onto the number so in that crummy pic it looks like a 1.
I am tired of this low res camera pic stuff so I am making a bigger effort to go through boxes as fast as I can and find my great Panasonic camera.
These pics I have posted lately are embarrassing.

 

[metalfun]

You de man!!! I knew that Alabama dirt won't as tough as you Rev Nice job.Now its time for some bling.HH

 

[REVIER]

g
Nice info on your new hot soil. I live in the high mineralization belt in the southern Colorado mtns. and my ground balance numbers always run between 82 to 93. Even a chiplot with 12 to 16 inches of wood chips will be 78 to 85. I very rarely get a signal with my f-70 at 5 inches. Everything is 1 to 4 inches. I always thought that the lack of any deeper silver was that it just wasn't there, but what you are saying is the heavy mineralization in the ground has "bounce back effect" that is blocking the deeper signals, and if so, what settings do you recommend, if any, to penetrate deeper?
HH Ed in co.

Here is what I have learned so far so maybe it will help.
Most of it is somewhere in these threads.

http://www.findmall.com/read.php?37,2229950

http://www.findmall.com/read.php?37,2232767


Then I kept practicing and now I can do this pretty easily...

http://www.findmall.com/read.php?37,2233081


I am getting tips and advice from lots of hunters on several forums about hunting in heavy mineralization.
Using smaller DD coils seem to work the best with all methods.
I was told that the deeper you go the higher the numbers on targets is normal in heavy iron mineralization.
My mid 70's wheaties and that merc all came in at low 90's numbers at 5" or deeper...consistently.
Where deep quarters, halves and dollars will be I have no idea.
I was also told there is a wraparound effect possible.
Very deep silver dimes could come in at iron.
Joy.
I have worked on methods to get screen info on targets past 4"...audio seems to go deeper.
On factory settings and even bumped up I couldn't get screen info much past 3"...maybe up to 4".
I have found several settings that seem to get me decent screen info at 6" regularly now and that is an area that lots of good older targets seem to be hanging out.
It might be the same in your area, you never know.
I wonder what those short, sharp blank screen targets at 8" or deeper really are so I am going to start looking for and digging those.

Two WV brothers are using 0 disc, 4 tone, 80 sense, not sure about the thresh and listening for good tones, watching for flashes of coin numbers and having some success.
I have tried 0 disc, 1 disc which is a bit quieter and I suspect just as deep, maybe, 1 or 1F tones and thresh at 0 or higher, SL speed.
My soil is heavy with iron causing those high numbers.
Evidently theirs is not and the numbers are normal but their bad soil still limits depth.
This method is what I am trying the most now and I am growing fond of it.

What also works for me is all metal, thresh and sense maxed out, DE speed.
I found this merc using these settings.
It is pretty noisy and jumpy but not as much as you might think.
When I roll over good targets my F70 stops and tells me every time.
This is a method that works great for me in extremely heavy iron sites, but it took lots of time and practice to get comfortable with it and understand what I was seeing and hearing.

These methods are different than using normal settings and hunting in normal soil and I have experience with that, too.
It entails learning different numbers, different behavior...pretty much a different language than normal hunting.
I hate dealing with this soil but love the chance to learn my detector better so I can handle it.
When something new I try works and I actually think I am swinging over a deeper coin and then dig one...nothing better.

Now my task is to keep working and find a way to get screen info past 6", or if I can't figure out how to tell deeper coins with audio clues only.
All a challenge but I like challenges...if I am forced into it.

 

[REVIER]

You de man!!! I knew that Alabama dirt won't as tough as you Rev Nice job.Now its time for some bling.HH

Thanks man...strange that I haven't come across anything but junk jewelry so far but it will come when it is ready.

There are hunters here and in other states with problem soils that have no other experience than dealing with bad dirt.
Then there are others that dig in fantastic soil and never had experience in any other.
Unless these guys move or go on vacation somewhere else they all get used to local conditions and almost come to believe it's all normal.
I started here in this nightmare place, moved to a state where it was heaven and saw what "normal" hunting could be like, then came back.
Life throws stuff at you so you deal.

When I was here before I used a a Vaq for several months, eventually got a big DD coil for it and I think it could possibly cut through this crazy dirt to a certain extent and get reasonably deep but I didn't have the patience to really learn how to do it at the time so I was happy scooping up shallow clad and jewelry and the odd shallow relic I came across.
Then I got the F2 and found I loved swinging it but cut out iron most of the time so I never explored most of those signals at all.
Some of them might have been deeper, good non ferrous targets for all I know but I had no interest in those at the time.
The frustration of finding deeper and older coins basically turned me into a shallow jewelry hunter and I studied how to get better at that while I was here and for almost two years while hunting in Kansas with my F2 and a Compadre still not concerned with going moderately or even really deep even though in that great soil it was now possible.
Then I got the F70 and used it for the last year I lived there.
This thing lives at a deeper level and just in normal jewelry hunting at parks I noticed it easily was finding targets many inches past what I was used to digging and some of those were great older coins....and I loved when that happened.
I got the itch and vowed to learn to become a good old coin hunter like I see so many have become on the forums.
Many can do that here too, but notice that most of them are knocking on doors or hunting other private property to do it.
The public areas like the parks I love to hunt had been drained of the shallow easy to get to stuff long ago, but there are still a few good targets around if you learn how to find them.
That merc is one example.
I am pretty sure or at least suspect there is a layer of older targets everywhere at the 6-7-8" level or deeper in some really bad dirt that the older first generation detectors never saw and most of the modern VLF detectors can't easily reach or never could, either.
I seem to be able to get down there with the F70 but the deeper they are the more they are disguised as something else and maybe not anywhere near the coin signals we get used to.
Like I said, hunting here deep seems to me more and more that to be successful I need to learn a whole new language to understand those signals and some way out of the box thinking about settings to be able to get to those signals and gather enough accurate information at hand to make logical digging decisions
Digging every signal I come across is not an option.
Too much iron both shallow and deep, too much trash at all levels too, and then the soil throws off false signals all over the place also so figuring it all out and just digging it all to find those few great nuggets of deeper treasure would frustrate me right out of the hobby quickly.
My skill set with all my different detectors grew immensely in the 3.5 years I have been gone, using all I know and have learned must now transfer over from hunting in almost perfect soil to some of the worst and that is not easy because everything seems to be so different.

So now I study and experiment with different ways to get deeper to where I think I need to be, and at the same time try to learn the new language of those deeper signals I am reaching so I will recognize and recover good targets when I swing over them and still avoid digging huge amounts of useless holes to do it.
Those threads above are records of my journey to do this that and I am slowly making progress a little at a time.
I can now get down fairly easily to about the 6-7" area and that is great because there seems to be a lot of great things at that level but I can't stop there... I will continue to work to get better, deeper with even more understanding.
It is all a challenge but I accept that challenge because all of this work and the progress I see is actually great fun for me and that is what this hobby and life is all about...isn't it?