Critterhunter
New member
Met up with 3 of my buds at sunrise to hunt a beach this morning. This time I figured I'd just take my land rig for the GT and grid out some dry beach. 1 Excal using the old 8" BBS coil, 1 using the old 10" BBS coil, and one with the modern 10" Tornado. Finally drove it into my ones head I think that Excal goes were not weighted for water use. Showed him the lighter 10" Tornado on a newer Excal and said, "See, same 10" coil that came with my GT. The weight of the 8 and 10" BBS coils on older Excals was just because they were heavy coils, and were used on older Sovereigns as well." We've been having that debate for about a year so with the newer Excal showing up with the 10" Tornado it was nice to finally show him that Excalibur coils are not weighted to they sink in the water.
With that small victory out of the way, time for some hunting. Ended up starting to rain pretty hard and was wishing would have had my GT chest mounted with my water rig, because then it'd be sealed inside a zip lock bag inside the Minelab bag for water hunting in case a rouge wave hit me. Luckily one guy had brought a large plastic bag and a smaller on, so I stuck the small one over my meter. Stuck the larger back down over the entire control box and over the arm cup completely, then tore a little hold in the bottom of the bag and forced it open more with my arm as I stuck it through the bottom of the bag and the arm cup. Worked like a charm. No real way for water to get to the control box, and also the bag went down well past the coil connector and the stereo jack and plug for my remote pin point switch which is also on the back of the GT's control box.
I've hunted in a drizzle with the control box and meter not protected before and had no problems. The military half boots on the switches gave me added confidence for doing that, but just the same I don't trust water getting down into the speaker or wicking around the control pots, not to mention the control box has seams in it that water can find it's way into. The few days I hunted in a drizzle the Digisearch meter I was using at the time fogged up from moisture inside. Not good, as that can do some funky stuff to the tuning pot. But once dried out at home it worked perfectly again. Most electronics, even when energized, with be fine after they dry out, so long as you wash off any salt and spray it with a contact cleaner that also prevents rust/oxide.
Either way, I was confident my two bag setup would keep the GT and meter dry, so off I went on my grid pattern to work a large expanse of the beach. Ended up with 4 or 5 nickles, 2 or 3 quarters, 4 or 5 pennies, two zippers, and an assortment of aluminum junk. Almost always knew the odd shaped aluminum was going to be junk because their odd shapes give a rather sick warbly sound where as most gold rings won't, but just the same we are talking hunting a beach with a long handled scoop here. Target recovery is so easy that every signal above iron should be recovered as it could be a gold chain, a tiny gold earring, or even a gold ring that's band is cracked. I don't like to leave any signal behind on the beach.
When I'm land hunting for rings I want a warm, smooth, round, "quality" sound, and the VDI to change by only 1 or 2 digits no matter which way I sweep it. 3 digits or more and you can bet money it's going to be trash. Out of well over 100 random gold rings we scanned a while back, only a small handful, meaning odd shaped fine webbed rings with a ton of holes in them, or rings with broken bands, would give a sick or warbly sound and the VDI would range by 3 digits or more. When I'm being picky on land I want 2 digits or less no matter what angle, and I want a smooth warm around sound.
So speaking of junky signals, I come upon one that mostly nulls but would break through with a slight crackle or sizzle. Large metal objects can do this, but I could tell this was a small item. Often these are the odd bobby pins that find a way to break through Iron Mask, or sometimes a crown bottle cap will do the same thing. But as said, I dig anything that will do anything other than null, even if it mostly nulls, because tiny gold earrings or thin-ish gold chains probably will do the same thing I would suspect. So with that in mind, hoping for some fine gold giving the GT problems, I scoop the sand. Swept over the pile of sand and heard that slight crackle again. Bend down with my Pro Pointer and start moving sand away with the tip. Suddenly I see a glint of gold! Right away I'm thinking it looks to be a small tiny little gold earring, and I would have bet money with anybody right at that second that I've got a small gold earring here. Yoke it out of the sand and it was a blasted bobby pin with gold plating at the very end of it to look fancy.
Should have known it was going to be a bobby pin. Most of those are ignored by the BBS machines, but sometimes they'll break through like that a tiny bit.
About 3 hours into all of our hunts my 3 friends come out of the water and one hands me first a junk ring. Nice big stones on it and must have been plated, but it was obvious by the pealing of the shank it was for sure plated. Too bad, I bet that had his heart going. But we always tell each other "a ring is a ring", as there is a certain satisfaction with digging any ring, so I congratulated him on that find. Then he hands me a solid bracelet. Instantly I think "either it's silver or it's junk metal", because often old silver from the water will take on various colors, this time a battleship gray color with little blotches all over it that would have you suspecting some kind of tin metal perhaps and not silver.
But the bracelet looked old with a very distinct old engraved pattern on it and what looked to be a black onyx stone in the middle, so I flipped it over and say a hallmark and some writing. Yep! Sterling! Wow, now that was a nice find. By the looks of that thing's style and how dark it was there could be a chance that bracelet was lost in the late 1800's or so to perhaps the 1930's by the design. Really good find, and a nice hunk of sterling, but for sure cleaned up that bracelet with worth much more than it's scrap value. The right hallmark and it could be a small fortune to him. I'm going to research it and see when he looks under a loop and tells me what the hallmark looks like.
So another great day's hunt even though me and two other guys got skunked. It was still fun to bullsh*t with some good friends and drink coffee and stare out into the horizon and relax a little.
With that small victory out of the way, time for some hunting. Ended up starting to rain pretty hard and was wishing would have had my GT chest mounted with my water rig, because then it'd be sealed inside a zip lock bag inside the Minelab bag for water hunting in case a rouge wave hit me. Luckily one guy had brought a large plastic bag and a smaller on, so I stuck the small one over my meter. Stuck the larger back down over the entire control box and over the arm cup completely, then tore a little hold in the bottom of the bag and forced it open more with my arm as I stuck it through the bottom of the bag and the arm cup. Worked like a charm. No real way for water to get to the control box, and also the bag went down well past the coil connector and the stereo jack and plug for my remote pin point switch which is also on the back of the GT's control box.
I've hunted in a drizzle with the control box and meter not protected before and had no problems. The military half boots on the switches gave me added confidence for doing that, but just the same I don't trust water getting down into the speaker or wicking around the control pots, not to mention the control box has seams in it that water can find it's way into. The few days I hunted in a drizzle the Digisearch meter I was using at the time fogged up from moisture inside. Not good, as that can do some funky stuff to the tuning pot. But once dried out at home it worked perfectly again. Most electronics, even when energized, with be fine after they dry out, so long as you wash off any salt and spray it with a contact cleaner that also prevents rust/oxide.
Either way, I was confident my two bag setup would keep the GT and meter dry, so off I went on my grid pattern to work a large expanse of the beach. Ended up with 4 or 5 nickles, 2 or 3 quarters, 4 or 5 pennies, two zippers, and an assortment of aluminum junk. Almost always knew the odd shaped aluminum was going to be junk because their odd shapes give a rather sick warbly sound where as most gold rings won't, but just the same we are talking hunting a beach with a long handled scoop here. Target recovery is so easy that every signal above iron should be recovered as it could be a gold chain, a tiny gold earring, or even a gold ring that's band is cracked. I don't like to leave any signal behind on the beach.
When I'm land hunting for rings I want a warm, smooth, round, "quality" sound, and the VDI to change by only 1 or 2 digits no matter which way I sweep it. 3 digits or more and you can bet money it's going to be trash. Out of well over 100 random gold rings we scanned a while back, only a small handful, meaning odd shaped fine webbed rings with a ton of holes in them, or rings with broken bands, would give a sick or warbly sound and the VDI would range by 3 digits or more. When I'm being picky on land I want 2 digits or less no matter what angle, and I want a smooth warm around sound.
So speaking of junky signals, I come upon one that mostly nulls but would break through with a slight crackle or sizzle. Large metal objects can do this, but I could tell this was a small item. Often these are the odd bobby pins that find a way to break through Iron Mask, or sometimes a crown bottle cap will do the same thing. But as said, I dig anything that will do anything other than null, even if it mostly nulls, because tiny gold earrings or thin-ish gold chains probably will do the same thing I would suspect. So with that in mind, hoping for some fine gold giving the GT problems, I scoop the sand. Swept over the pile of sand and heard that slight crackle again. Bend down with my Pro Pointer and start moving sand away with the tip. Suddenly I see a glint of gold! Right away I'm thinking it looks to be a small tiny little gold earring, and I would have bet money with anybody right at that second that I've got a small gold earring here. Yoke it out of the sand and it was a blasted bobby pin with gold plating at the very end of it to look fancy.
Should have known it was going to be a bobby pin. Most of those are ignored by the BBS machines, but sometimes they'll break through like that a tiny bit.About 3 hours into all of our hunts my 3 friends come out of the water and one hands me first a junk ring. Nice big stones on it and must have been plated, but it was obvious by the pealing of the shank it was for sure plated. Too bad, I bet that had his heart going. But we always tell each other "a ring is a ring", as there is a certain satisfaction with digging any ring, so I congratulated him on that find. Then he hands me a solid bracelet. Instantly I think "either it's silver or it's junk metal", because often old silver from the water will take on various colors, this time a battleship gray color with little blotches all over it that would have you suspecting some kind of tin metal perhaps and not silver.
But the bracelet looked old with a very distinct old engraved pattern on it and what looked to be a black onyx stone in the middle, so I flipped it over and say a hallmark and some writing. Yep! Sterling! Wow, now that was a nice find. By the looks of that thing's style and how dark it was there could be a chance that bracelet was lost in the late 1800's or so to perhaps the 1930's by the design. Really good find, and a nice hunk of sterling, but for sure cleaned up that bracelet with worth much more than it's scrap value. The right hallmark and it could be a small fortune to him. I'm going to research it and see when he looks under a loop and tells me what the hallmark looks like.
So another great day's hunt even though me and two other guys got skunked. It was still fun to bullsh*t with some good friends and drink coffee and stare out into the horizon and relax a little.