Essentially skunked

[TheFrood]

Despite seemingly wonderful conditions, and a deeper cut than I have ever seen on this beach, decent finds were a few and far between. Just check out the attached pictures for everything I found worth mentioning… Yep, that’s right! Essentially a skunk. I know that my detector wasn’t broken because I did find tons and tons of trash. Just absolutely nothing worth keeping lol I ran into a more experienced hunter on the beach with their detector, and they mentioned how it looked sanded in… Just goes to show how much I have to learn about reading the beach. A big cut doesn’t necessarily mean good detecting conditions. I did remove about 2 pounds of various sized aluminum blobules, some of which were so small that I had to sift through the sand that came out of the holes in my scoop to find them. So I know the detector is working well. I also found multiple sizes of metal tent, stakes and enough nails to build a small shed. There was various bits of copper wire, a 2 inch piece of crushed copper tubing, and a grand total of three coins. One copper penny that had been smashed flat, one that had been chewed up almost beyond recognition, and a crusty clad dime. After seven hours on the beach, I had hit peak frustration and decided to drive over to Doheny Beach, which has much better barbecue and picnic facilities.

Instead of barbecuing, I wound up getting takeout and eating it at a picnic table. I figured I would hit the beach for an hour or hour and a half before it got unpleasantly cold. Despite being southern California, and not raining, the weather was indeed a bit chilly, and was getting colder as the sun set. The site that greeted me on the beach was a mess. I had apparently been beaten to the beach by another detector. Normally this wouldn’t bother me, but there were massive holes dug all over the intertidal zone. Not all of the holes were this massive, but there were plenty of them that were. This in itself wouldn’t really bother me, because the tide would fix it once it hits its Highpoint. What did bother me is that in a significant percentage of the holes there was a piece of metal trash, either inside the hole, or lying right beside it. That’s right. The detector who hit the beach before me didn’t bother to even clean their trash up off of the beach once they had dug it up. They just threw it back into the sand. For some reason this really irritated me and just soured my mood. I wound up, leaving after only about a half hour, rather than staying as long as I had been expecting. Aside from that, though, it was still a wonderful day on the coast.

 

[CalReg]

I feel for you my friend. I too went out a few times this past week with not much to show for it. Meanwhile, some others managed to dig seated dimes, gold rings and silver. Now the beaches up my way are sanded in, so I have to wait for the next storm. Oh well, there's always the next erosion event!

 

[Diga]

The site that greeted me on the beach was a mess. I had apparently been beaten to the beach by another detector. Normally this wouldn’t bother me, but there were massive holes dug all over the intertidal zone. Not all of the holes were this massive, but there were plenty of them that were. This in itself wouldn’t really bother me, because the tide would fix it once it hits its Highpoint. What did bother me is that in a significant percentage of the holes there was a piece of metal trash, either inside the hole, or lying right beside it. That’s right. The detector who hit the beach before me didn’t bother to even clean their trash up off of the beach once they had dug it up. They just threw it back into the sand.

I came across a small beach like that last summer.

There were numerous small holes left unfilled, with the trash right beside them. There were also giant holes dug down up to about 2 feet deep, with a can right beside them. I cleaned it all up.

So not only was this "hunter" an inconsiderate jerk, but they didn't know what the hell they were doing if they couldn't realize they were chasing a can.

 

[Bklein]

This is kinda funny - Saturday I hunted Newport, wedge, corona Del Mar, and Laguna main and didn’t even find the junk you did. I had an AQ and Manticore. Probably walked over 7 miles. The cut at Laguna was huge but a bit old and nothing left. I ran out of time but would have gone to Doheney next. I hate that beach as it is so trashy. Parking expensive too. So I suppose you hit that pretty good and I don’t need to try it nearterm. What a bummer of a season so far.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

The moment you start finding aluminum on a supposedly eroded beach, is the moment you know it's no good. Because mother nature groups like-targets together (in a "riffle board" effect). So if you start getting aluminum, with zero heavy targets (coins, sinkers, etc....), you know that sand is coming "in", or was never eroded in the first place.

And yes there can be deceptive "cuts". For the following reasons :

1) You might be in a gully-wash cut that simply cuts that same path EVERY year during rain. So it's only recent sand (from the preceding summer) that is being eroded back out. And simply fills and erodes continually in a single spot.

2) It could be a beach where it erodes and fills all the time, because of some upstream man-made dredging. We experience that at Twin Lakes beach , just south of the Santa Cruz yacht harbor. Where towering cuts are routine. But only because it's dredged sand that is easily taken back off with the slightest disturbance. As opposed to Santa Cruz main beach, where if the SAME SIZE cut had happened, it would be Christmas come early. The only teacher here ^ ^ is to know what the normal "lay of the land" is, for the look of the particular beach you're at is.

3) The cut you are looking at might be, say, 3 or 4 ft. tall and look impressive. But what you don't know is that it had been 4 or 5 ft. tall a few days earlier, and a foot of sand has since come in at the base. So you have to be there when the cut first forms.

 

[KOB]

Guys who don't pickup their trash doesn't bother me like it once did. Few and far between now. Occasionally it's a guy who for some reason forgot his bag. More often it's a rookie and doesn't know any better , try talking to them and see what's up. I carry several extra pouches in my car and have given them to those in need. As for the lazy ones , the only way they learn is digging the same item up again.

 

[TheFrood]

I feel for you my friend. I too went out a few times this past week with not much to show for it. Meanwhile, some others managed to dig seated dimes, gold rings and silver. Now the beaches up my way are sanded in, so I have to wait for the next storm. Oh well, there's always the next erosion event!

Lol. In my case, there's always next Saturday or Sunday... and hopefully there was some erosion the night before

 

[TheFrood]

This is kinda funny - Saturday I hunted Newport, wedge, corona Del Mar, and Laguna main and didn’t even find the junk you did. I had an AQ and Manticore. Probably walked over 7 miles. The cut at Laguna was huge but a bit old and nothing left. I ran out of time but would have gone to Doheney next. I hate that beach as it is so trashy. Parking expensive too. So I suppose you hit that pretty good and I don’t need to try it nearterm. What a bummer of a season so far.

Actually I only hit Doheney for about 20 minutes before I got too annoyed at cleaning up someone else's dig trash and left. It's
definitely very trashy there, but give me enough time and I'll get it cleaned up. Since I found out how to actually use the settings
on my legend my all metal mode is actually giving tones for all metals.... So I'm removing a lot more trash now.

 

[KOB]

Actually I only hit Doheney for about 20 minutes before I got too annoyed at cleaning up someone else's dig trash and left. It's
definitely very trashy there, but give me enough time and I'll get it cleaned up. Since I found out how to actually use the settings
on my legend my all metal mode is actually giving tones for all metals.... So I'm removing a lot more trash now.

Your last sentence is troubling. The whole idea of treasure hunting is just that. Not digging up more trash. Surfrider foundation and others have periodic trash pickup events if your desire is to be Capt.Trash.

Since you are so in love with Doho , here ya go. I can guarantee 100% there is silver & gold in "The Boneyard". You just got to go get it. Don't bring your scoop. Just your Legend , a handheld pinpointer is a must and a long sturdy screwdriver. Kneepads are a bonus. I've done it in the past at very low tides.

 

[TheFrood]

Your last sentence is troubling. The whole idea of treasure hunting is just that. Not digging up more trash. Surfrider foundation and others have periodic trash pickup events if your desire is to be Capt.Trash.

Since you are so in love with Doho , here ya go. I can guarantee 100% there is silver & gold in "The Boneyard". You just got to go get it. Don't bring your scoop. Just your Legend , a handheld pinpointer is a must and a long sturdy screwdriver. Kneepads are a bonus. I've done it in the past at very low tides.

Lol. Not in love with Doho for detecting but it is one of my favorite OC beaches overall.

My goal isn't to pick up trash, but I'm not leaving the aluminum blobules and pull tabs for next time either... on any
of the beaches I visit for that matter.

I do appreciate the tip though! I'll give it a shot next time there's a nice minus tide I can hit.

 

[Crumble]

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[Crumble]

Despite seemingly wonderful conditions, and a deeper cut than I have ever seen on this beach, decent finds were a few and far between. Just check out the attached pictures for everything I found worth mentioning… Yep, that’s right! Essentially a skunk. I know that my detector wasn’t broken because I did find tons and tons of trash. Just absolutely nothing worth keeping lol I ran into a more experienced hunter on the beach with their detector, and they mentioned how it looked sanded in… Just goes to show how much I have to learn about reading the beach. A big cut doesn’t necessarily mean good detecting conditions. I did remove about 2 pounds of various sized aluminum blobules, some of which were so small that I had to sift through the sand that came out of the holes in my scoop to find them. So I know the detector is working well. I also found multiple sizes of metal tent, stakes and enough nails to build a small shed. There was various bits of copper wire, a 2 inch piece of crushed copper tubing, and a grand total of three coins. One copper penny that had been smashed flat, one that had been chewed up almost beyond recognition, and a crusty clad dime. After seven hours on the beach, I had hit peak frustration and decided to drive over to Doheny Beach, which has much better barbecue and picnic facilities.

Instead of barbecuing, I wound up getting takeout and eating it at a picnic table. I figured I would hit the beach for an hour or hour and a half before it got unpleasantly cold. Despite being southern California, and not raining, the weather was indeed a bit chilly, and was getting colder as the sun set. The site that greeted me on the beach was a mess. I had apparently been beaten to the beach by another detector. Normally this wouldn’t bother me, but there were massive holes dug all over the intertidal zone. Not all of the holes were this massive, but there were plenty of them that were. This in itself wouldn’t really bother me, because the tide would fix it once it hits its Highpoint. What did bother me is that in a significant percentage of the holes there was a piece of metal trash, either inside the hole, or lying right beside it. That’s right. The detector who hit the beach before me didn’t bother to even clean their trash up off of the beach once they had dug it up. They just threw it back into the sand. For some reason this really irritated me and just soured my mood. I wound up, leaving after only about a half hour, rather than staying as long as I had been expecting. Aside from that, though, it was still a wonderful day on the coast.

This is kinda funny - Saturday I hunted Newport, wedge, corona Del Mar, and Laguna main and didn’t even find the junk you did. I had an AQ and Manticore. Probably walked over 7 miles. The cut at Laguna was huge but a bit old and nothing left. I ran out of time but would have gone to Doheney next. I hate that beach as it is so trashy. Parking expensive too. So I suppose you hit that pretty good and I don’t need to try it nearterm. What a bummer of a season so far.

Can we stop naming the beaches guys... I know it is sanded in now, but if you name a beach in a post where you find gold, the next day there will be 10 guys there that poached the spot from your post. There are people that just scan this forum and look for any clues on where the gold is being found. Don't help them.

The trick is to not stick to one beach. If you are only digging aluminum for 30 minutes straight, you aren't going to find gold. Well you may get super lucky and find a really light piece, but most likely not. Jump in your car and try another beach. I will often try up to 5 beaches in a day, and if they all are full of light junk, I go home and try another day.

 

[TheFrood]

Can we stop naming the beaches guys... I know it is sanded in now, but if you name a beach in a post where you find gold, the next day there will be 10 guys there that poached the spot from your post. There are people that just scan this forum and look for any clues on where the gold is being found. Don't help them.

The trick is to not stick to one beach. If you are only digging aluminum for 30 minutes straight, you aren't going to find gold. Well you may get super lucky and find a really light piece, but most likely not. Jump in your car and try another beach. I will often try up to 5 beaches in a day, and if they all are full of light junk, I go home and try another day.

Actually if we send all the lurkers to Doheny then it just means fewer of them on other beaches... So I hereby put forth that we call every beach we talk about on this forum Doheny, except when we are talking about the actual Doheny beach. Then we should call it Fred.

Seriously though, even though the detecting there isn't great except under perfectly ideal conditions but the picnic, firepit, and bbq areas in the day use area here are top notch. The campgrounds pack you in like sardines, but what else do you expect from any of the camping areas nestled in super densely populated areas? Kind of wondrous that there's a campground right on the beach in the middle of a city at all.

 

[KOB]

Can we stop naming the beaches guys... I know it is sanded in now, but if you name a beach in a post where you find gold, the next day there will be 10 guys there that poached the spot from your post. There are people that just scan this forum and look for any clues on where the gold is being found. Don't help them.

The trick is to not stick to one beach. If you are only digging aluminum for 30 minutes straight, you aren't going to find gold. Well you may get super lucky and find a really light piece, but most likely not. Jump in your car and try another beach. I will often try up to 5 beaches in a day, and if they all are full of light junk, I go home and try another day.

You can put the blame on alot of those Youtubers for all that. Need to make these guys work for it on their own. Unless it's a very close friend , and THEY SARE AS WELL. Otherwise spots I speak of , sheesh...I'm actually hunting in a different county. Lol

 

[Bklein]

Just post some photos of how areas are completely stripped clean by storms. Hard to believe there are any targets after it later gets sanded in. For the last several years my posts naming beaches are complaining of no targets rather than any good finds. I’m saying “stay away no targets” :-)

 

[hoser]

Just your Legend , a handheld pinpointer is a must and a long sturdy screwdriver. Kneepads are a bonus.

I know a screwdriver takes up less real estate in your equipment, but if I know I will be doing a lot of rubble digging I have a brick layers hammer I use. Yeah, it's bigger but a lot more durable than a screwdriver. Easier to pry between rocks and leverage is better as well. JMHO