What's meant by "hunt by sound, not by numbers"?

[mudpuppy]

I too have to recalibrate my ears after the long New England winter. My thought on this and some of the replies would be does any of the audible signals change based on one person using one set of conditions and someone else using another set of conditions? I think part of my problem may be playing with my settings too much?? I don't know if I'm learning or confusing myself by doing this?

I think thats the trick...you have to find some settings that you are confident and comfortable with and stick to them for a long time...I've been in the same settings for 4yrs, hunted from GA to Michigan and all points in between including Salt Lake and into Idaho...without changing a thing except sens...

Had my biggest day in early Dec, 316 coins for 57.85 in 7hrs... did a post titled 'Field of Dreams' on the Fseries site...of course, I'm a quick broomer, clad stabber, this type of hunting doesnt apply to what y'all are wanting to do with your rigs, its a valid reply to your question though, hunting by tones with comfortable and familiar settings, a guy can get real good knowing whats under the coil..go take a read, a guy knows immediately a D from a Q...its a few pages in...
Mud.

 

[ironsight]

Hey Mudpuppy, you had a great clad'n December not to mention that Benny half.
What are the odds you found a medal with the words Mudd!

Yeah, i can hunt the shallowish clad by sound alone, no problemo.
Its the real deep goodies walked over in the pounded parks around here whereby tones only?...not so much! At least for me.

 

[Dale(Ia)]

The problem using multi conductive (or even multi ferrous) settings is there are a lot of tone variations and sometimes subtle harmonic tone variations depending on the target's conductivity and other variables such as nearby junk, depth or soil conditions that will affect tones.

Along with excellent hearing and pitch recognition, to hunt by tone-alone, IMO one would also need an excellent pitch memory.
Both of which i don't have. So after the headsup tone, the digital ID, depth indicator and ultimately my digging tool are my friends.
After years of using the eTRAC, i still cannot tell the difference between some corroded nails and a silver coin and neither can the VDI most of the time.

For those that can hunt successfully by sound-only with the eTRAC, thats great. In the final analysis its whatever works for the individual.

Excellant post, Ironsight!
I've gotten to where I don't dig very many nails........just occasionally!

Iowa Dale