:usaflag: New Year's Day Hunt!! :detecting:

[Cupajo]

The local temperatures were in the mid to high 40's this afternoon (not bad for the Ct shore on the first day of January) and allowed me to test my new 5 Mil neoprene chest waders.

About the only thing I can brag about concerning this hunt is that I can't remember ever hunting on the first day of the year and the waders didn't leak!

The area I hunted was badly sanded in with a narrow strip of stony bottom maybe ten feet out from where the water washes ashore.

Curiously I was able to find a coin drop where the sand was very deep maybe a hundred feet from shore and recover nearly a dollar's worth of clad.

One small silver "nose" ring and lots of bottle caps and aluminum bits and pieces rounded out the finds.

I got out there late today and only had two hours of hunting before the sun went down. Tomorrow, weather permitting, I hope to start earlier and broaden my search area.

CJ

 

[Micheal_R]

n/t

 

[Kelley (Texas)]

into one area? I am glad you got out into the fresh air and hunted for a few hours. Happy New Year! Kelley (Texas)

 

[Cupajo]

Hi Mikie and fred,

It felt great to be in the water again after all the weeks of terrible weather and rough water.

It was a bit disapointing to fiind sand at least three feet deep where I was walking on cobble-stones the last time I was there.

Years ago this whole area was a field of cobbles for several hundred yards only twenty feet or so from the water's edge.

It extended out for fifty feet or so and was prime hunting even though the digging was hard in the large stones.

Fred the coins were in a small area of only a couple of feet as if someone had them in a pair of jeans pocket and lost them when goofing around in the water.

It happens a lot.

I hope to find an area un-sanded next time out so I have a better shot at finding some goodies,

CJ

 

[Kelley (Texas)]

it would be easy digging the coins, but you say they are cobble stone beaches. I guess that by not being a beach hunter it is difficult for me to visualize a beach being something other than sand. Kelley (Texas)

 

[Cupajo]

Hi Fred,

I'm sorry for the confusion I've caused you Friend!

I wade out into the water to hunt from close to the water's edge and on out until (hopefully) just before the water spills into my chest high waders.

I wear a waterproof pull-over rain jacket to help keep out the odd wave, but usually end up with getting a little wet anyway.

The cobbles are exposed when the sand has washed away allowing access to any targets that are unavailable when covered with over a foot of sand.

Heavy jewelry, coins etc. settle down through the sand, due to wave action and shifting sand, to the cobbles (at "rock bottom") and nestle there among the stones waiting for me and my "Poor Man's Backhoe" digger to pry them out and recover them. It's hard work, but so far my heavy digger and I have been up to the task.

I must say though, that lately the 25 year old digger is handling the job better than I am. Two hours of hard digging yesterday really turned loose the aches and pains in my hands and wrists last night. I hope a few hours more today will loosen up the joints etc.

One beach not far from here has boulders, some quite large, that no doubt hide wonderful rings and things, but once they settle into the deep crevices between the large stones, they are lost forever. Some of these stones have to weigh half a ton or more. I can only hope to find the treasures before they are no longer accessible.

Much of the local area is littered with these stones from the ice-age glaciers grinding away at the stoney ledges and outcroppings miles away from where they ended up when the glaciers melted.

I hope this explanation has cleared up your understanding of where and how I hunt Fred.

All the best to You and Your Family,

CJ

 

[Kelley (Texas)]

that someone would lose the ring either on the beach or not too far out into the water. If lost in the water, would the waves not wash it up onto the sandy beach? Around here, on occasion, you will hear about someone finding an old Spanish coin washed up on the beach, many times after a major storm. You have me interested in this subject and time permitting, I will search Google and read about the subject. Many thanks for your reply. Kelley (Texas)

 

[Cupajo]

Fred, the Long Island Sound waters rarely have waves large and powerful enough to toss anything onto the beach. It's a fairly protected body of water with very little heavy current or wave action unlike the open ocean exposure that many beaches have.

Since I have been hunting I have found if memory serves only seven or eight gold rings on the beach and over 300 in the water.

Several of the ones found on the beach were for people that called me to find them and often they knew within a few feet where they were lost.

Finding ones I was called to search for in the water has always been more of a challenge.

On the Texas shore the Gulf of Mexico waters are very rough too. When I lived in Tampa, Florida I didn't notice such wave action there.

I stood on Matagorda Penninsula as a teenager and watched a huge Gulf shrimp boat literally disappear when it was in the trough of a wave except for the top of his net boom that stuck up way above the boat!

Rings getting lost usually happens when a swimmer slathers sun-screen lotion on themselves and then wade out into the seasonally cold water here. Their fingers shrink in the cold water and the rings fall off, even those that the person would not be able to remove ordinarily.

The most common lament is from men who were throwing a ball and watched in shock as their ring went flying after the ball!

CJ

 

[Wayne in BC]

i also had insulated waders but mostly for goldpanning and i had to glue another piece of material off an old pair plus a piece of tough neoprene on top of that to the knees or they did not last long, plus it was a pad for rickety old knees
We always carried a tube of "shoe goop" glue with us to patch the little holes quickly.

 

[Cupajo]

Shoe Goop is amazing stuff. I use it diluted with touline until it spreads easier for sealing leaking wader seams and a few years ago I used it full strength to seal the seams of a Royalex Foam Plastic fishing Kayak I built by cutting apart an old canoe and reshaping the hull.

Today was a repeat of yesterday except that I found a few more coins, a silver toe ring, fewer bottle caps and two fishing sinkers.

It's been overcast with mid 40s temps all day.

CJ

 

[George-CT]

Had to do some work on the tractor in that nice weather. Next nice day I will head for Watch Hill Rhode Island and give it a shot. Even if I don't find anything, I sure enjoy the sound of the surf there exposed to open sea....

 

[mudpuppy]

Had a warm weekend here, got out fri, sat, sun. and a little today too...got nearly 18 bucks in clad, two necklaces, (junk) two rings (junk) though one was a big gold AVON that made my heart jump a little..found a '53 rosie today at a very old and trashed up boatramp, where people have been fishing and camping forever. and now its snowing...if it keeps up, I'll head South for a while. gotta swing that coil! cant help it! theres so much ground to cover, and so little time!

 

[Cupajo]

Hey George,

In the past three days I have run into three other hunters at Sound View Beach.

I guess we aren't the only ones fighting off the winter blues!!

Yesterday one of the hunters was in the water for a short while and then I saw him messing with his machine.

I then saw him back at the water's edge going slow.

I was on my way home so I hunted my way to where we could talk and he told me his new AT-Pro had quit on the second time he used it.

He checked everything he should check including new batteries and no go!

He is a long time hunter and couldn't figure out what the problem was, so he started hunting the water close to the edge in maybe two feet of water at low tide.

He was using a White's land machine and got tired of the falsing and headed up on the beach.

It would have been a shame to have two detectors go bad in one short hunt, but when winter fever sets in we don't always use our heads.

He told me Hamanassett was swamped with hunters on New Years Day!

I don't know how he made out, but this small beach area has been hammered by some fine hunters for a long time.

No-one gets it all, but I think a hunter would need a bulldozer to get at whatever is there these days,

CJ