REVIER
Well-known member
A lot of you know I hunt with at 3 detectors, a Vaquero, a Compadre and an F2.
Maybe one day I will get some higher end unit that can do it all, not that I really believe there is such a beast, but until then I have gathered a few different types, done pretty well and I enjoy hunting with all of them immensely.
The Vaq is versatile with my 3 different coils and is my deep seeker when I need that.
The Compadre was purchased because of the extreme sensitivity and it still surprises me on what it can find.
The F2 was bought as a back up/guest/take on vacation only but because I ended up spending more time with it than I thought I would I seemed to have gotten pretty good with it because on some detectors we just "click" and on this one I did, plus like the others it is just a blast to use.
A member with an F2 tried a Tesoro the other day and he said he loved it and asked me for advice on using one because I guess he made up his mind to do get that and now he tells me is expecting it by Friday this week.
I am more than happy to give others tips on what I know about using Tesoros and I always will, but I also gave him some other advice about keeping and hunting with both and my reasons why.
It occurs to me I might have mentioned why I hunt with all 3 in the past but I don't think I have ever gone into detail so I will re-post this reply here for any that want an insight into my reasoning and way of thinking.
Everyone is different, others might not think the same at all, but for me using all these different tools I am lucky enough to own seems to be the right way to do this for my sites and the way I hunt and I can't imagine doing it any other way...for now.
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I tried a Silver last weekend and I loved it. Can ya offer any advise? I am looking to sell my F2 to get one. Do ya think I am crazy...lol can ya offer any advise on the silver umax?"
I own both a Compadre and a Vaq so mine pretty much bracket that Silver which is also a great detector, and I love hunting with Tesoros and I have always said learning to hunt with sound only is one of the best training you can ever have and I can give you some great tips on hunting with that silver if you get one, but...
The best advice I can give you is don't sell the F2, keep it and use both because I can't imagine hunting any other way.
I say this for a couple of reasons but you might not hunt sites like I do or think the way I do or even want to, but I will try to explain my reasoning and thinking.
First, everyone needs to understand that nobody ever knows 100% what is in the ground till you dig it, ever, so I dig trash, and lots of it.
Not everything in the world, mind you, but a ton, and I do this because I hunt for jewelry more than coins and just about every piece of gold I have ever dug, (23 to this point), and just about every chain I have found both silver and gold has come in as a trash signal.
All solid repeatable signals but they were in areas that are usually trash 99.9% of the time.
All ranges of foil, nickel areas that are usually not actual nickels but trash, all ranges of tabs and even zinc signals that are nowhere near real zinc pennies.
I have gotten good with all my detectors and I think by now I am good enough to avoid lots of trash and never worry about missing the great targets because lots of trash just act different than good targets do on both the F2 and my Tesoros and after digging up a ton of that I have learned what I could safely avoid.
Lots of trash, however, does not act the same way, that stuff will present itself as solid and as stable as a coin target would so until I develop x ray vision I have to dig all of those because even though there is so much of that out there all the great jewelry targets I have found have come in exactly the same way and only because I dug these solid trash signals was I able to find the great amount of silver and gold that I have to this point.
I also believe this is a volume business and the more you dig, good and bad, the better chance you have of finding that next great thing and many others think this same way.
My thinking is I want to dig a lot of targets but I would rather concentrate on the higher percentage ones that might surprise me than wasting my time and energy on digging real trash...the lower percentage stuff.
As good as I am with my Tesoros the fact is I still tend to dig more trash with them than with the F2 because the screen on the F2 does help at extremely trashy sites to sort out more of that.
If you actually want to beep and dig everything that is your choice to make, but I have just so much time and energy to spend on my hunts so I need to draw the line somewhere and the F2 can help with that because it has that screen.
If you get as good as I am with the F2 you will be able to tell a lot about trash because of those numbers on the screen and how they behave.
I used to dig more trash with that one but after digging hundreds if not thousands of trash targets I do know that I can avoid a lot of it now and never have a case of the "what ifs".
I have also figured out ways to tell most trash on my Tesoros by thumbing that knob up and down and I also have confidence that I am not wasting my time digging so much of the real trash I come across out there.
However, as good as I am with both kinds it is just a fact of life that without that screen and that little bit of extra information I still end up digging more trash with the Tesoros because of how they work.
It might be a small percentage more but it is more, and percentages are numbers and I am all about the numbers in this game we play.
There are plenty of trash targets out there that you can tell for sure are trash on those Tesoros, and many more of the more solid ones you can learn to avoid if you learn these units well and use them the way I do, but there is still a certain amount of on the border trash signals that I believe I could recognize on the F2 with a screen that I wouldn't with the Tesoros and that means I have to dig them and to me that is a waste of precious energy because I don't have an unlimited supply of that.
There are no jumpy targets or numbers on the Tesoros, and without those numbers lots of things get lumped together and you really don't know what you have down there as accurately because of that.
Here is one great example.
http://www.findmall.com/read.php?91,1965996
This gold ring came in at a 48-49 on the F2...numbers I ALWAYS dig no matter how tired I am because I have dug three other class rings that came in between 48 and 51 and I want to dig more...every one I come across.
On the Tesoros this ring comes in at pretty much exactly the same place as most zinc pennies do, there are no different numbers to tell the difference like on the F2 where these class rings come in that those lower numbers and zinc pennies come in at more like 59-61...higher numbers.
Now once you get good at those Tesoros I can tell you a ring this size does sound different than a zinc penny so most owners that have experience would have heard that and dug this signal no matter what, but new users with the Tesoros would probably not have heard the difference and gold at lower levels to me still sounds solid and clear but no different than any other good signal would.
If you were new with your Silver and came across this target and were not digging zincs that day for whatever reason you would have passed this by, but if you were using your F2 and you saw that same 48-49 number on the screen you might just dig it and find that ring because you read a post of mine that said huge class rings come in at these numbers and you remembered that.
I do use that F2 the first time at real trashy sites to get the lay of the land and try to picture in my head what is down there and what numbers the trash comes in at because it can be different at every site.
Tabs come in for me at slightly different numbers at different areas I hunt, pop tops and screw on tops too, don't ask me why but they just can and sometimes do.
Using the F2 and that screen I think it gives me a more accurate idea of what the tabs are, what the screw caps are and other junk, also, my first time at any site.
Not only that, but more importantly when I am at the end of a long hunt and tired it is important to me to spend what ever energy I have left digging high percentage good targets
When I am tired at the end of a long hunt I want to avoid digging the junk and concentrate on the best ones so that is another reason I like that F2 so much.
Here is another example of this.
This park was new to me but an old park in a not so great area.
This place had a million targets, tons and tons of them good and a zillion high tone targets, too.
This tells me that this place has not been hunted much in the past because high tones are what every hunter digs no matter what but here it seemed like not one was ever dug.
There were also a ton...and I mean a ton of tabs of all kinds and pop tops and screw tops in numbers that were hard to believe.
I spent a long time here that first day and as I got more tired I used that screen to avoid a lot of that high tone trash like big screw on tops because I dug many to that point and I knew the numbers well.
Again, on the Tesoros this might have been not as cut and dried because they would have blended in with the other high tones especially if I was using a DD coil which has even more trouble with these things.
Because I could avoid spending energy digging junk I had some left, barely enough left to dig a few last signals and one of those signals turned out to be a 32.
A 32 could be a nickel on the F2, my regular number is usually 33, but I dig all numbers around that area because I like to dig all nickels and also because this is a prime area where gold rings come in.
I have found those at 27, 28, 29,30,34, 35, 37 and more, and just 2 months before I found my best target ever, a white gold and diamond ring that also came in at a solid 32.
If I was using a Tesoro that day I would have left before I searched this area one last time...I would have depleted all my energy digging a little more trash.
Because I used my F2 that day I avoided a little trash and had enough energy left to wander over to a this area one last time and found something great.
http://www.findmall.com/read.php?91,1876390,1876390#msg-1876390
You are not me and might think completely different about all this and maybe hunt different kinds of sites than I do and have way more energy reserves than me so all of this might not matter.
If you do than just use whatever you want, try to dig a bunch of everything and have fun with it.
For me this is a numbers game and for all these reasons I stated above and more I think I edge the numbers over to my advantage at least a little by using both kind of units, with screens and without.
Hope this helped.
HH
Maybe one day I will get some higher end unit that can do it all, not that I really believe there is such a beast, but until then I have gathered a few different types, done pretty well and I enjoy hunting with all of them immensely.
The Vaq is versatile with my 3 different coils and is my deep seeker when I need that.
The Compadre was purchased because of the extreme sensitivity and it still surprises me on what it can find.
The F2 was bought as a back up/guest/take on vacation only but because I ended up spending more time with it than I thought I would I seemed to have gotten pretty good with it because on some detectors we just "click" and on this one I did, plus like the others it is just a blast to use.
A member with an F2 tried a Tesoro the other day and he said he loved it and asked me for advice on using one because I guess he made up his mind to do get that and now he tells me is expecting it by Friday this week.
I am more than happy to give others tips on what I know about using Tesoros and I always will, but I also gave him some other advice about keeping and hunting with both and my reasons why.
It occurs to me I might have mentioned why I hunt with all 3 in the past but I don't think I have ever gone into detail so I will re-post this reply here for any that want an insight into my reasoning and way of thinking.
Everyone is different, others might not think the same at all, but for me using all these different tools I am lucky enough to own seems to be the right way to do this for my sites and the way I hunt and I can't imagine doing it any other way...for now.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
I tried a Silver last weekend and I loved it. Can ya offer any advise? I am looking to sell my F2 to get one. Do ya think I am crazy...lol can ya offer any advise on the silver umax?"
I own both a Compadre and a Vaq so mine pretty much bracket that Silver which is also a great detector, and I love hunting with Tesoros and I have always said learning to hunt with sound only is one of the best training you can ever have and I can give you some great tips on hunting with that silver if you get one, but...
The best advice I can give you is don't sell the F2, keep it and use both because I can't imagine hunting any other way.
I say this for a couple of reasons but you might not hunt sites like I do or think the way I do or even want to, but I will try to explain my reasoning and thinking.
First, everyone needs to understand that nobody ever knows 100% what is in the ground till you dig it, ever, so I dig trash, and lots of it.
Not everything in the world, mind you, but a ton, and I do this because I hunt for jewelry more than coins and just about every piece of gold I have ever dug, (23 to this point), and just about every chain I have found both silver and gold has come in as a trash signal.
All solid repeatable signals but they were in areas that are usually trash 99.9% of the time.
All ranges of foil, nickel areas that are usually not actual nickels but trash, all ranges of tabs and even zinc signals that are nowhere near real zinc pennies.
I have gotten good with all my detectors and I think by now I am good enough to avoid lots of trash and never worry about missing the great targets because lots of trash just act different than good targets do on both the F2 and my Tesoros and after digging up a ton of that I have learned what I could safely avoid.
Lots of trash, however, does not act the same way, that stuff will present itself as solid and as stable as a coin target would so until I develop x ray vision I have to dig all of those because even though there is so much of that out there all the great jewelry targets I have found have come in exactly the same way and only because I dug these solid trash signals was I able to find the great amount of silver and gold that I have to this point.
I also believe this is a volume business and the more you dig, good and bad, the better chance you have of finding that next great thing and many others think this same way.
My thinking is I want to dig a lot of targets but I would rather concentrate on the higher percentage ones that might surprise me than wasting my time and energy on digging real trash...the lower percentage stuff.
As good as I am with my Tesoros the fact is I still tend to dig more trash with them than with the F2 because the screen on the F2 does help at extremely trashy sites to sort out more of that.
If you actually want to beep and dig everything that is your choice to make, but I have just so much time and energy to spend on my hunts so I need to draw the line somewhere and the F2 can help with that because it has that screen.
If you get as good as I am with the F2 you will be able to tell a lot about trash because of those numbers on the screen and how they behave.
I used to dig more trash with that one but after digging hundreds if not thousands of trash targets I do know that I can avoid a lot of it now and never have a case of the "what ifs".
I have also figured out ways to tell most trash on my Tesoros by thumbing that knob up and down and I also have confidence that I am not wasting my time digging so much of the real trash I come across out there.
However, as good as I am with both kinds it is just a fact of life that without that screen and that little bit of extra information I still end up digging more trash with the Tesoros because of how they work.
It might be a small percentage more but it is more, and percentages are numbers and I am all about the numbers in this game we play.
There are plenty of trash targets out there that you can tell for sure are trash on those Tesoros, and many more of the more solid ones you can learn to avoid if you learn these units well and use them the way I do, but there is still a certain amount of on the border trash signals that I believe I could recognize on the F2 with a screen that I wouldn't with the Tesoros and that means I have to dig them and to me that is a waste of precious energy because I don't have an unlimited supply of that.
There are no jumpy targets or numbers on the Tesoros, and without those numbers lots of things get lumped together and you really don't know what you have down there as accurately because of that.
Here is one great example.
http://www.findmall.com/read.php?91,1965996
This gold ring came in at a 48-49 on the F2...numbers I ALWAYS dig no matter how tired I am because I have dug three other class rings that came in between 48 and 51 and I want to dig more...every one I come across.
On the Tesoros this ring comes in at pretty much exactly the same place as most zinc pennies do, there are no different numbers to tell the difference like on the F2 where these class rings come in that those lower numbers and zinc pennies come in at more like 59-61...higher numbers.
Now once you get good at those Tesoros I can tell you a ring this size does sound different than a zinc penny so most owners that have experience would have heard that and dug this signal no matter what, but new users with the Tesoros would probably not have heard the difference and gold at lower levels to me still sounds solid and clear but no different than any other good signal would.
If you were new with your Silver and came across this target and were not digging zincs that day for whatever reason you would have passed this by, but if you were using your F2 and you saw that same 48-49 number on the screen you might just dig it and find that ring because you read a post of mine that said huge class rings come in at these numbers and you remembered that.
I do use that F2 the first time at real trashy sites to get the lay of the land and try to picture in my head what is down there and what numbers the trash comes in at because it can be different at every site.
Tabs come in for me at slightly different numbers at different areas I hunt, pop tops and screw on tops too, don't ask me why but they just can and sometimes do.
Using the F2 and that screen I think it gives me a more accurate idea of what the tabs are, what the screw caps are and other junk, also, my first time at any site.
Not only that, but more importantly when I am at the end of a long hunt and tired it is important to me to spend what ever energy I have left digging high percentage good targets
When I am tired at the end of a long hunt I want to avoid digging the junk and concentrate on the best ones so that is another reason I like that F2 so much.
Here is another example of this.
This park was new to me but an old park in a not so great area.
This place had a million targets, tons and tons of them good and a zillion high tone targets, too.
This tells me that this place has not been hunted much in the past because high tones are what every hunter digs no matter what but here it seemed like not one was ever dug.
There were also a ton...and I mean a ton of tabs of all kinds and pop tops and screw tops in numbers that were hard to believe.
I spent a long time here that first day and as I got more tired I used that screen to avoid a lot of that high tone trash like big screw on tops because I dug many to that point and I knew the numbers well.
Again, on the Tesoros this might have been not as cut and dried because they would have blended in with the other high tones especially if I was using a DD coil which has even more trouble with these things.
Because I could avoid spending energy digging junk I had some left, barely enough left to dig a few last signals and one of those signals turned out to be a 32.
A 32 could be a nickel on the F2, my regular number is usually 33, but I dig all numbers around that area because I like to dig all nickels and also because this is a prime area where gold rings come in.
I have found those at 27, 28, 29,30,34, 35, 37 and more, and just 2 months before I found my best target ever, a white gold and diamond ring that also came in at a solid 32.
If I was using a Tesoro that day I would have left before I searched this area one last time...I would have depleted all my energy digging a little more trash.
Because I used my F2 that day I avoided a little trash and had enough energy left to wander over to a this area one last time and found something great.
http://www.findmall.com/read.php?91,1876390,1876390#msg-1876390
You are not me and might think completely different about all this and maybe hunt different kinds of sites than I do and have way more energy reserves than me so all of this might not matter.
If you do than just use whatever you want, try to dig a bunch of everything and have fun with it.
For me this is a numbers game and for all these reasons I stated above and more I think I edge the numbers over to my advantage at least a little by using both kind of units, with screens and without.
Hope this helped.
HH
