CZconnoisseur
Active member
I Spent 5 hours yesterday in Knoxville at the site of a little-known Civil War skirmish and was able to dig a couple nice relics. My absolute first find at this site was over 10 years ago, and it was a piece of a Hotchkiss sabot that really made the detector sing! Yesterday was no different - I fired up the Deus in my 8K "RELICMODE" program and took to the hillside trying to stand upright without sliding or falling down the front! The newly discovered sabot fragment was a real boomer in the headphones - it was only about 5-6" deep but it's solid lead. Once I saw the rifling on the outer surface I knew what I had...this hunt started out good but the finds and signals dwindled after a couple hours.
There were two cabins on this site over the years - one dates from the 1850s while the other one was built around 1910. I spent maybe 30 minutes at the older cabin, never had used the Deus at it before. Only finds were a couple of pulltabs and one bottlecap. After finding the sabot I moved closer to the 1910 cabin site, and turned up a crushed aluminum thimble dating from the 1930s or 1940s among a few Mason jar lids. I searched the site where the cabin stood, and found deeper Mason jar lids - the deepest one was 16" down, and for some reason the soil was easy to sink a shovel into. I found the bottle dump, and some shards of late 1800's glass, but nothing else came from the place except for a couple 12-gauge shell bases. Maybe at some point (wintertime) I can dig up the bottle dump and find some keepers - but that's extra gear to hike the half mile through somewhat thick vegetation down to the cabin...and then to hike all the supposed goodies 200 vertical feet up to the car. The alternative is to park 1.5 miles away and there's only a 50 foot vertical difference, not much of an option though!
After hunting the second cabin - there was a lot of swinging but no "beep". I must have swung for 90 minutes before I got anything at all - which was a partially whittled 3 ringer found on the way back to the car! There's a lot of poison ivy here as well as snakes, yellowjackets, and mosquitos - but yesterday was a cool day for once which slowed down the aggression of the aforementioned critters. Possibly next hunt I can hit the Confederate site of the "night before the skirmish" location which has turned up some nice dropped Gardner 2-ringers. But modern development has destroyed most of the hillside where I found the goodies - but there's plenty of remaining acres that could still hold some keepers. I will get that chance in two weeks! Hope the weather holds!!!
There were two cabins on this site over the years - one dates from the 1850s while the other one was built around 1910. I spent maybe 30 minutes at the older cabin, never had used the Deus at it before. Only finds were a couple of pulltabs and one bottlecap. After finding the sabot I moved closer to the 1910 cabin site, and turned up a crushed aluminum thimble dating from the 1930s or 1940s among a few Mason jar lids. I searched the site where the cabin stood, and found deeper Mason jar lids - the deepest one was 16" down, and for some reason the soil was easy to sink a shovel into. I found the bottle dump, and some shards of late 1800's glass, but nothing else came from the place except for a couple 12-gauge shell bases. Maybe at some point (wintertime) I can dig up the bottle dump and find some keepers - but that's extra gear to hike the half mile through somewhat thick vegetation down to the cabin...and then to hike all the supposed goodies 200 vertical feet up to the car. The alternative is to park 1.5 miles away and there's only a 50 foot vertical difference, not much of an option though!
After hunting the second cabin - there was a lot of swinging but no "beep". I must have swung for 90 minutes before I got anything at all - which was a partially whittled 3 ringer found on the way back to the car! There's a lot of poison ivy here as well as snakes, yellowjackets, and mosquitos - but yesterday was a cool day for once which slowed down the aggression of the aforementioned critters. Possibly next hunt I can hit the Confederate site of the "night before the skirmish" location which has turned up some nice dropped Gardner 2-ringers. But modern development has destroyed most of the hillside where I found the goodies - but there's plenty of remaining acres that could still hold some keepers. I will get that chance in two weeks! Hope the weather holds!!!
Sounds like a valiant effort, but sorry you didn't get as many finds as you probably hoped. 