What's your strategy for hunting a "hunted out" site with your Etrac?

[TrpnBils]

I have had my Etrac for about a year and a half now and my quality of finds have increased over my other detectors I have used, but I feel like I'm not reaching the full potential of using this detector. I live in a very historic area that produces good, old finds for other detectorists in the area so I know there's stuff here (I'm a coin guy). As this is a historic area and other people have been detecting here for decades, a lot of places are "hunted out", but I know the Etrac should be producing things that other detectors have missed.

I'll do research and find a good place, such as an old school, old home site, old post office, old park etc....something that SHOULD hold old coins (at least one or two anyway), but I usually come home empty-handed. I feel like where my issue is has to do with the types of signals I dig. I would be willing to bet that I'm skipping ugly signals that could be keepers mixed in with iron because I'm looking for clean signals. When you hunt sites like this with a lot of iron but with potential, what types of "iffy" signals do you look for? How do you approach a site like this to maximize your finds that other people have missed? For reference, I usually hunt in TTF or with Andy's program. I have the stock coil but I have been using it less lately in favor of the 6" Coiltek I got in January.

 

[EtracTom-AdirondacksNY]

Well try different settings maybe like not using High Trash, but do run Ground Difficult. Raise the Volume GAIN to like 29 for the deepies so they sound off like shallow targets. Open up the disc. screen. Grid from different directions and on different soil condition days like moist and wet or dry. Your already using a small coil after using the big Pro coil. Turn Fast and Deep off. I use Fast only never deep as it is supposed to help smooth out the ID reading but I don't see it so off it stays.

Lastly you answered your own question YES dig those targets that are left even if they read crummy. I never try to cherry pick to me it's waste not want not and makes you wonder if you missed something. I find here that Wheaties and Indian heads corrode really bad to a green blob in our soil and will read really bad because of that. I take a small area and constantly go over it in CO 50 then TTF then change settings and directions and such and dig till no more signals. I'm in no hurry to find an supposedly newer better area and waste time only to drive far and be disappointed. I still haven't gone more than a mile from my house and still get goodies in these 3 main parks near me.

 

[TrpnBils]

Interesting that you mention the Fast:Off setting. I have run it with Fast:ON, Deep: OFF since I got the detector but just read something yesterday about the idea that Fast:ON muddies good tones. I'm going to turn it off next time I go out and see how it goes. There's one site I was at this year (the only very good site I have ever been on) where I pulled 5 or 6 big coppers and a few other old coins (no silver though). It is LOADED with old square nails and even the veteran detectorists of 20+ years won't touch it. I had one guy stop me back in February or so and tell me that he had hunted all over the place near there but never went into this particular location because of how junky it was and said I either had the patience of a saint or was completely nuts for getting in there. I'm really curious to see if turning Fast recovery off pulls anything else out of there. I've gridded that so many times, but I know there's stuff still under the nails.

 

[ironsight]

I have many times declared a site 'hunted out' only to return and find silver and other keepers another day.
As you mentioned, most of these sites are heavily infested with nails, screws and other pieces of iron junk. At these iron sites, i sometimes get skunked and/or dig my share of iffies which turn out to be corroded nails. Once in a while it will be a coin on edge or near iron.
The two way test is a great method for determining an iron target if its shallow-moderately deep, long and not too corroded. In my experience the two way test does not work well with deep severely corroded stubby nails. In other words, the deeper, the more corroded, the more the iron junk has a coin form factor, the less the two way test will work.
Just got to dig those.

Here's what usually works for me at 'hunted out sites'.
1. Persistence

2. Research

3. Hunted-out sites might have some deep targets that have been walked over.
Years ago when i first got my eTRAC at one of my declared hunted-out sites, i always used auto sensitivity because of the dense iron junk. One day i decided to go full out before i finally gave up on that site. Maximum sensitivity without severe falsing and an open screen.
First time i used an open screen, at first it took a little getting used to. Got a few foot deep 2-way coin indication tones but the IDs were nowhere near any coin ID so i walked over those indications. Finally, i dug one of those goofy foot deep IDs and low and behold it was a merc around a foot deep. Start digging those IDs and walked away that day with a bunch of mercs all 10" and deeper. That hunted out site now became one of my most productive sites where i pulled out dozens of silver coins including many Barbers.

4. Don't expect deep or on edge silver coins to be a perfect 12-47 ID. That ID is just a reference point for shallower coins under pristine conditions. See no. 3 above.

5. Pay attention to that depth indicator. If its near or bottomed out ignore the ID, if its iffy 2-way non-ferrous tones, i dig them all.

6. Every time i return to a hunted out site, i try something different. Different coil, settings, sweep rates, sweep directions, etc. In other words experiment, usually pays off.

7. Try areas of the site that most detectorists might have not ventured into....heavy brush, etc. Been hunting an old park with a history for a couple years finding only the occasional wheat and once in a great while a silver dime. Got skunked there more often than not.
This park has been heavily detected because of its history drawing detectorists from all over the map. I always stayed clear of the hi-voltage towers that cross through the park due to unbearable EMI. Then it dawned on me, so did others.
Dialed in my detector the best i could to counter the EMI and in only a few minutes of sweeping found a seated dime only a 4 inches deep. Long story short, i eventually pulled out 2 seateds, 3 Barbers, a few mercs, a bunch of Indians not to mention a handful of wheats under and around those towers.

8. See number 1 above.

 

[TrpnBils]

I remember your post about the seateds from under those power lines...that was a good call for sure. You mentioned a couple of times that in junky sites the IDs are sometimes not close to what they should be. In the case of the mercs you mentioned (or any of the times you've seen this, really) how far off would you say they are?

 

[ironsight]

Most of those foot deep dimes and Indians had an iffy extremly bouncy typical ID of 1-low 30's to mid 40's. The 2-way tone always indicated non-ferrous in those cases. This was while using an open screen with no discrimination. The thing to keep in mind with deep targets is that the eTRAC can resolve the non-ferrous ID parameter more accurately than the ferrous parameter. In other words, the deeper the target, the less accurate the ferrous parameter of the ID.
Initially i walked over those readings as the ferrous number was nowhere near the 'much acclaimed' 12. Live and learn!

One thing i forgot to mention that has helped me a lot in iron fields is using sometimes multi or preferably 4 tone ferrous settings. I know i missed some coins using 2-tone ferrous because i found coins using an open pattern with a ferrous in the low to mid 20s where 2-tone ferrous would of flagged them with an iron grunt.
Be sure to keep the discrim. pattern open down to ferrous 35 to hear all iron tones and pay real close attention to that depth indicator. The deeper the target the less you want to pay attention to the ID numbers and concentrate more on the tones and gut feelings. Might want to give 4 tone ferrous a try.

 

[TrpnBils]

I have always wondered about the 4TF settings. Some people seem to swear by it but others, including some heavy-hitters here say 2TF is all that is needed. The thing that's always made me wonder though is the instability of the ferrous numbers at depth, and I've been digging more low tones lately if the conductive number is still hanging in a good area and the ferrous number was just over the threshold of what would constitute a low tone versus a high one. I've tried the 4 Tone before, but never for any real length of time because it didn't really "click" to me, but I'd be interested in giving it a shot again.

So when you're talking about using an open screen, are you completely open? When I use the 2TF settings, my disc pattern is (I think) what G4E uses where it's just a small area in the bottom right corner that is disc'd out.

 

[ironsight]

I'll typically use a wide open screen with max manual sens. usually in areas where i suspect or had found deep targets in the past. In those areas i want to see the whole picture.... junk, deep iffies and all with absolutely no nulling. I think think the less discrimination the less the uprocessor has to work. Its a matter of preferance, detecting style, tolerance, the site and the targets one is after.

When hunting a trashy park with no history for the first time, i'll use a coin discrimination pattern typically using multi-conductive depending on the iron junk density. Then the next times out at that site i'll ratchet up the ante by getting more aggressive stepping up the settings and coils.

4TF was more or less a natural for me. What did take some getting used to was using an open screen. Had a few nerve wracking false starts with that.
If someone has been using only multi-conductive for years, i think for some it would be a hard habit to break.

 

[TrpnBils]

Went back to my funeral home site yesterday and hit it with 4TF and Fast: Off for an hour and a half and managed to pull a buffalo and wheat. I got curious with the wheat and before I dug it and I switched back over to 2TF. Didn't even register in two-tone. I went to two other sites and got skunked there, but that definitely says something. One thing with 4TF I know I'm going to need to get used to is the mid-low tone and the fact that it's more likely to be junk than anything good, but it can still hold keepers there. I've had this thread on my favorites menu for awhile and it was my setup yesterday: http://www.findmall.com/read.php?71,1881345 . Next time I go out I'm going to do what's suggested here and disc out the 29-30 line and see if that helps anything because I dug about 30 nails in the yard too. I did experiment a bit with an open screen, but it's definitely going to take some getting used to, as you say.

 

[Phillip_in_NM]

I am loving this thread. Hoping to see a lot more strategies!

Even anxious to get out there and try 4TF.

Thanks to all for the input!

 

[ChicagoJohn]

Go slow and keep eye for target number that is pretty close to coins. I went to park near my home many times so find coin is harder and harder to find. When I have 2 hours free time then I do slow and keep eye for deep coins. Found just one and its 1902 Indian head cent at about 9 inch deep!

 

[Southwind]

In our city park there are a lot of really deep old coins and a lot of rusted iron. We've cleaned out all of the easy clean repeatable signals and now its down to the iffy's. If I get that sweet sound in only one sweep and the rest sound bad I still will recover it and most of the time it is a deep old coin. Key being deep. If the target shows as being deep I don't pay much attention to sound but instead I watch the VDI. If the FE stays 22 or less and the CO jumps in the 36-40+ range I recover it. Odd that I use the sound on the clean easy stuff but can't trust it on the deep masked stuff, but I can trust the VDI to be more accurate than the sound.

 

[ironsight]

......Odd that I use the sound on the clean easy stuff but can't trust it on the deep masked stuff, but I can trust the VDI to be more accurate than the sound.

For deep coins, I can trust the ID to some extent only if i've already dug a deep keeper and know what to expect in the present soil conditions. But thats only the non-ferrous parameter of the ID which will be jumpy at best but still staying or trying to stay in the coin range. Forget the ferrous ID component for coins 12" and deeper.

Case in point. My deepest silver dime to date was 14" maybe more if the grass is factored in. The ID was swinging wildly in and out of both the ferrous and non-ferrous ID parameters, basically all over the map. That ID made absolutely no sense even compared to the 10+ inch deep dimes i just previously found but the depth indicator was bottomed out. What did make some sense was the faint 2-way non-ferrous tones that were somewhat consistent. The only reason i dug was because of that depth indicator accompanied by those non-ferrous tones.
I was just about elbow deep in the hole with pin-pointer silent. I was ready to abandon the dig. Decided to sweep one more time over the hole and the tones were still there. Dug a couple more inches and the pin-pointer finally came alive. Was surprised when i seen the rim of a merc on the side of the hole.
Why so deep especially for a merc? That park was filled in some decades ago. In addition, that dime was buried under an old baseball field's elevated pitcher's mound.

 

[kt]

This thread has me wanting to try 4tf. All the tips are appreciated.

Coil question. What are you all using to find the deepies? Stock coil, something else? I'm tempted to try an aftermarket twelve or thirteen incher and see if it gets me better vdi info on deep coins, but don't know if it would make a big difference over the stock coil.

 

[ironsight]

4TF is only useful in iron infested areas where IMO it shines.
Don't expect that silver squeak as all target tones (nickels, aluminum, coins) in the ferrous 12ish coin range will sound the same. Digesting the ID, tone and target depth reading determines whether i dig the target or not. Might take some getting used to coming off multi-conductive.

The advantage of 4TF in most cases will eliminate that false silver squeak from deep corroded stubby iron as this so often happens when using multi-conductive.
4TF also allows hunting more by tones.

Edit: The coil i used to find these deep keepers is the NEL Tornado!

 

[TrpnBils]

4TF is only useful in iron infested areas where IMO it shines.
Don't expect that silver squeak as all target tones (nickels, aluminum, coins) in the ferrous 12ish coin range will sound the same. Digesting the ID, tone and target depth reading determines whether i dig the target or not. Might take some getting used to coming off multi-conductive.

The advantage of 4TF in most cases will eliminate that false silver squeak from deep corroded stubby iron as this so often happens when using multi-conductive.
4TF also allows hunting more by tones.

Edit: The coil i used to find these deep keepers is the NEL Tornado!

I haven't been away for a couple of days and just got logged back on here. Good stuff!

One thing I noticed with 4TF is that it makes me go slower because of having to look at all the stuff you mentioned above, rather than just going off of tone alone...especially those mid tones that could be either/or. I have found though that I DEFINITELY dig more iron nails with that than with 2TF or conductive. That's probably due to a lack of experience with 4TF though.

 

[ironsight]

Obviously there are 4 tone levels with 4TF from ferrous top (1) to ferrous bottom (35).
The ferrous tone breakdown:
1 to 7 hi tone = large coin, etc. area
8 to 17 hi mid tone = smaller coin, jewelry area
18 to 30 lo mid tone = iffy iron/possible keeper area
31 to 35 iron grunt = definite iron area

The 2nd hi mid tone is the coin area tone for shallow to moderately deep coins. I typically dig all those tones.
The next tone down, the third from the top is the tricky one, i'll agree. But i've recoverd some coins in that area but also a lot of corroded nails.
Usually if a target is occasionally hitting this 3rd tone but also grunting the 4th iron tone more, its likely iron in my experience.
In addition in one sweep direction these 3rd tones will seem like a diggable iffy but when swept in the other direction it'll almost always grunt -no doubt about it- the bottom iron tone. I pass on those.

Also once getting used to those 4 tones and what they might represent, hunting by tone is a little easier than using 2TF which involves constant verification of target IDs.
If you think 4TF is hard to learn try mult-ferrous! I sometimes use that too as it gives more target tonal resolution but its sitll a work in progress for me. I think if one can master multi ferrous tones that would be the ideal setting for an iron infested area. Using ferrous tones might not be for everyone but for me if any remaining deep or on side oldies are still left in a hunted-out-iron-infested park this is my goto setting.

There is no getting around digging iron junk using any setting either ferrous or conductive as i dig my share also.
The good news is the more iron dug will eventually lead to less iron dug.

By the way i used 4TF for only an hour or so today on my way to pick up supplies for re-storing my Jeep in an iron infested area and dug up a merc, couple wheaties and a few copper pennies. Only junk dug up; one tiny corroded nail and a copper/brass buckle or fastener of some kind.

 

[E-Trac-Ohio]

Hunt the site coming in from two or three different directions - swing low and slow and listen for the deep ones !

 

[IDXMonster]

In our city park there are a lot of really deep old coins and a lot of rusted iron. We've cleaned out all of the easy clean repeatable signals and now its down to the iffy's. If I get that sweet sound in only one sweep and the rest sound bad I still will recover it and most of the time it is a deep old coin. Key being deep. If the target shows as being deep I don't pay much attention to sound but instead I watch the VDI. If the FE stays 22 or less and the CO jumps in the 36-40+ range I recover it. Odd that I use the sound on the clean easy stuff but can't trust it on the deep masked stuff, but I can trust the VDI to be more accurate than the sound.

Interesting to read on this,I'm an Explorer2 user and also find the CO number to be more of a reliable indicator than the tone at great depth,for me that's in the 10" range right now. However,there's a lot of jumpy stuff I oughta be digging but the ground is so hard and dry right now as it is in many parts of the country that it's a chore just getting TO the 10" range. Carry on....great info throughout for me as well,just had to butt in...

 

[ironsight]

In our city park there are a lot of really deep old coins and a lot of rusted iron. We've cleaned out all of the easy clean repeatable signals and now its down to the iffy's. If I get that sweet sound in only one sweep and the rest sound bad I still will recover it and most of the time it is a deep old coin. Key being deep. If the target shows as being deep I don't pay much attention to sound but instead I watch the VDI. If the FE stays 22 or less and the CO jumps in the 36-40+ range I recover it. Odd that I use the sound on the clean easy stuff but can't trust it on the deep masked stuff, but I can trust the VDI to be more accurate than the sound.

Interesting to read on this,I'm an Explorer2 user and also find the CO number to be more of a reliable indicator than the tone at great depth,for me that's in the 10" range right now. However,there's a lot of jumpy stuff I oughta be digging but the ground is so hard and dry right now as it is in many parts of the country that it's a chore just getting TO the 10" range. Carry on....great info throughout for me as well,just had to butt in...

I can just about guarantee people relying solely on IDs for some deep tricky oldies are walking right over them for me to find.