What is one or so of the comical things that has happened to you while detecting??

[jim tn]

With our weather here less then ideal of late for doing much serious detecting, I have been glancing over some of my previous year's treasure logs and journals and have come across a few notations I made concerning sites I had hunted, a better then norm find, ect. and a couple pertained to some rather funny occurrences.

One such instance took place during a four year business stint that took my wife and I from here in Tn over to Columbus, Ga while I was hunting the old local fairgrounds. My practice with this grand old site was to hunt on it early mornings right after first light for 1 1/2 to 2 hours or so, before going back home and getting cleaned up and rushing off to get our shop open for the day. This particular morning I had worked my way a pretty fair distance away from my vehicle when the sky promptly opened up and it began raining like a monsoon was taking place. Since a covered livestock arena was closer then my car, I scampered into it to wait out the shower. After about a minute of so, the excitement of watching falling raindrops ebbed and I decided to venture out into the arena area, which was covered in woodchips, and see if there might be anything there. After but a couple minutes, two things quickly became quite evident. One, there seemed to be coin hits with almost every swing. Two, it was almost impossible to retrieve them. Besides the woodchips being dry, they were also deep, 20 plus inches, or so. I tried moving the chips with my hand trowel, all to no avail. The coin would just keep dropping deeper among the chips. I then went to scrapping chips away with my hands, hoping all the while nobody would venture by and see a grown man down on his knees digging like a dog. I did recover 4 or 5, time consuming to get, coins from among the woodchips that morning, but unless I came up with a better mode of retrieval, it could be a career effort getting all the coins.

Ya, some of you are probably already ahead of me. It took me all that same day of racking my brain to figure it out, but I finally did and returned to the arena the next morning with my beach scoop in tow. I would scoop up a scoop full of woodchips and shake, scoop and shake,until I heard the coin (or trash item) clang in the scoop. Upon leaving the arena the second morning of my scooping and shaking and walking across the grounds towards my car, I ran into two fellow treasure hunters who had just pulled up and were getting out of their car. I could tell by the smirks on their faces what they were thinking upon seeing me out on the grounds with my beach scoop in hand, so when they asked me if I had found anything, I replied, "a little bit, but digging is kind of tough."

Oh, by the way. the woodchips in the arena ended up yielding me $12.00 plus in clad and a silver ring. HH jim tn

 

[Elton]

While detecting an old 1880 school..I was approached by a young man. He handed me two dollars
I asked whats this for? " with much surprise". He said his Momma told him to give it to me so I could get something to eat.

I asked where his "Momma" was and he pointed across the street. and there she was..standing on her porch.Watching like a Hawk.
I crossed over and handed her the money..Said thanks for the thoughts but I am doing a Hobby of mine. In fact this machine cost $800.00 dollars.
I showed her how it worked and we both had a good laugh..mine was with a little embarrassment of course. I assured her I wasn't hungry, and wasn't homeless.

She explained since I was so grubby looking and picking up what she thought was Pennies (HAHAH It was) she felt sorry for me.

I never went detecting again in the last twenty years looking "Grubby" again. No matter what I try to not look needy.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

I was detecting the site of an 1860s-80s stage stop, which is currently the yard of a modern home's fenced-in yard. As my buddy & I were detecting in this fenced in country-road yard, a truck pulled up, outside on the other side of the fence. I pulled off my headphones to hear him, as I could see he was motioning me to come over and talk to him.

He rolls down his window and asks "can you do that in my yard after your done here?" I thought "wow, here's some guy inviting us to come metal detect his yard!". So I replied "sure, we can maybe do that when we're done here. How old is your house?" He looked at me with a puzzled look, and said he figured his house was 50-ish years old. And then he asked "how much do you charge?". I told him "we do it for FREE, as a hobby, but that we normally only do it at older yards/sites".

This confusing conversation went on, and back & forth for a minute or so more, until it became evident that he thought we were WEED WACKING, and he wanted hire us to come over to his yard to work. Of course he drove off when he too realized we weren't weed-wacking, but I had to stop and chuckle that here I was, telling him "we do this for free, for our own pleasure", and he was probably thinking "what kind of nut does this yard work for pleasure and free?"

 

[GRAY GHOST]

oh my lord, jim, where should i start? there have been so many. many years ago, i was detecting the front lawn of an old house and wasn't finding much. out of the corner of my eye, not really paying attention, i vaguely noticed a little old lady hobble out the front door of the house next door and sit down on her front porch. man, i thought. that's an old house she has too. i'm not finding squat over here. when i get done in a few minutes, i'll go over and ask if i can detect her yard. sure that the lack of signals was my fault, i tried every trick in the book to get a beep in the yard. the backyard had been good. nothing! i finally shut the machine off and leaned it up against the porch.

i didn't even have time to turn around, when the little old lady on the porch next door cooed to me, " young man, that sure is a fine weedeater you have there. i'll give you a dollar if you weedeat my yard for me." almost stupefied at her request, i quickly recovered and answered, " yes ma'am! be right over. do you want the back and sides done too? it's only a dollar." hh!

 

[Beale]

Not really funny but anyhow. I was hunting a park area hoping for a find or 2. This older feller walks up to me and starts talking. I am wearing full cup earphones so they have to come off for me to hear. He is telling me that some of his buddies had hunted the park back in the 60's and that they had found it all. I said thanks for the info, but I think I will try a bit more. I continue to hunt finding clad and lots of it. I also had just dug a very nice silver ring. I turned around and he had kinda been following at a distance. He was still talking to me. I took the headphones off again. He then says I guess you just like digging trash? I just say yes sir, and continue to hunt. My take that day was around $7.00 in clad and a nice silver ring, Beale.

 

[Elton]

Thats a classic my friend.

 

[Joel-Winnipeg]

Last fall I was detecting a beach and having a great hunt .
Once in a while I check and look up to see whats happening as usually I'm there by my self with no one around.
After a while I again looked up towards the tree line. There a mound between the beach and treeline.
Less than 50 feet out of the treeline on top of the mound was a black mother bear with two cubs standing upright starring at me.
What the &^%$ do I do know ?
I drop the detector and scoop pick up some hardball sized stones yelling and screaming throwing the stones at the bears.
Next thing I see is the cubs running hellbent back in the tree line with the mother yelping and running after them.
Sure glad I wasn't in between the cubs and the mother.
Moral of the experience always look up as much as possible and keep an eye out for two legging predators man or beast.

 

[JB(MS)]

Like some of the others I've had my detector mistaken for a weedeater on three different occasioins. One of them it was on a Sunday and I was detecting near an intersection, an old car stopped and a little old lady who looked to be in her 80's stuck her head out of the window and yelled, "You heathen, you should be in church instead of cutting grass."

My wife didn't think today's incident was funny, and I'm still in the doghouse about it, but after the yelling stopped I think it was. I detected an old homesite for awhile this afternoon. Lots of junk but only a couple of keepers, a silver cross, a 1941 wheatie and an old broach or pin, but the entire time I was there something smelled really bad. The wind was blowing hard and it seemed like the smell was being blown in by the wind as it was everywhere. When I got home my wife had just finished mopping the floors and when I came inside a leaf that had been stuck to my shoe came off in the kitchen. She gave me a good scolding, picked the leaf up to put it in the garbage and let out about an 800 decibel yell. I had stepped in a pile of some kind of animal sh!t when I got out of my truck at the homesite and not only did she get it on her hand from the leaf, I had it all over my left shoe. That's what I had been smelling the entire time at the homesite. Needless to say, I got most of what little was left of my butt chewed off.

 

[Joel-Winnipeg]

Like some of the others I've had my detector mistaken for a weedeater on three different occasioins. One of them it was on a Sunday and I was detecting near an intersection, an old car stopped and a little old lady who looked to be in her 80's stuck her head out of the window and yelled, "You heathen, you should be in church instead of cutting grass."

My wife didn't think today's incident was funny, and I'm still in the doghouse about it, but after the yelling stopped I think it was. I detected an old homesite for awhile this afternoon. Lots of junk but only a couple of keepers, a silver cross, a 1941 wheatie and an old broach or pin, but the entire time I was there something smelled really bad. The wind was blowing hard and it seemed like the smell was being blown in by the wind as it was everywhere. When I got home my wife had just finished mopping the floors and when I came inside a leaf that had been stuck to my shoe came off in the kitchen. She gave me a good scolding, picked the leaf up to put it in the garbage and let out about an 800 decibel yell. I had stepped in a pile of some kind of animal sh!t when I got out of my truck at the homesite and not only did she get it on her hand from the leaf, I had it all over my left shoe. That's what I had been smelling the entire time at the homesite. Needless to say, I got most of what little was left of my butt chewed off.

Man that the best I've had in a long time .HEHEHEHE HA HA HA You heathen.

 

[Deno]

Myself, Jim Weaver and his father in law Herb Slaughter who just happens to be a Baptist Preacher in Bagdad Ky were going to hunt a old school site.
On the way I ask Herb if he had called the lady who owned the farm to let her know we were coming out that morning. He said it wasn't necessary as the
lady had told him just to come out anytime, she & her family were long time church members. We hadn't been hunting but about 20 minutes when
this big ole truck came barreling down the road and slid in the area we were hunting sideways. This big ole hulk of man jumps out of the truck &
comes straight at me saying you %$#@#$ $$#@% sons of $#%@ what the $%^# do you think you are doing you $%^#@ ^%$#$ are on private
property. About this time Herb turns around says (so & so I can't remember his name) do we need to leave. You should have seen the look on his
face, He turned red, he says oh oh oh brother Salughter I didn't know it was you. Herb ask him again do we need to leave, He said oh no, I am so sorry
do what ever you want, hunt anywhere. He couldn't wait to get in the truck & get the hell out of there. I bet I could have ask him to take his truck
4-wheeling & he would have let me. It was one of the funniest things I have ever seen. I love this hobby. Almost forgot, herb was using a $35.00 Radio
shack special & found a Barber dime (I have never found one) he skunked me & Weaver.