It depends, if they're fanning the sand away it's quicker and easier at times to just duck down in the water to grab sun glasses a dropped phone or other fresh drop, and there's no chance of damage. You'd be surprised at how many times I've eye balled a target like a gold ear ring which you'd struggle to detect. If you're digging crusty pennies then a scoop is definately easier.
I went out for a 4-hour hunt yesterday with NuBlu. We’ve had, as many of you have seen in the news, tons of rain for most of the week with some gusty winds causing rough surf conditions. The surf began dying down on Friday. When I got to the beach, the section I started off had what I would actually call a cut for South Beach.However, the wet sand I would’ve hunted in that area had a 2’-3’ foot layer of seaweed almost looking like a big haystack.
Not huntable. Getting in the water nearshore was not workable either due to the seaweed. It was 3 hours before low tide so I went further out but there was not much I could hunt as the water was still a bit deep. It was very frustrating and annoying.
As I moved north, there were openings near shore I tried to explore. I went back and forth trying to find something! I pulled more can slaw and “can bracelets” in the first 2 hours than I think I have on any hunt there ever. I was considering that if huntable conditions at some point did not improve for me I was going to drastically cut my hunt short. I was also supposed to meet up with Sexton who had started north of me.
It was over an hour when I got my 1st coin.I got off to do a little patch of wet sand that looked promising and came up with a “me” penny. At around the 2-hour mark, I thought I saw Sexton in the distance. and maybe another 2 pirates.
As I continued to work north, they were all gone by the time I got to my halfway turnaround point. I had imagined that they packed it in and left. My strategy on the return was to work the deeper water. It was here where almost all the few good targets I got came from at the lowest point of the low tide. I was at my “Buoyancy Retrieval Limit” for most of those coins. At home, I was surprised at the Sacagawea dollar coin and my 1st Wheatie of the year.
I had 2 hunts last weekend. One on Good Friday at another beach on my rotation where I pulled a silver ring and a fake Cartier. Last Sunday, I had a similar hunt on South Beach, but I was able to pull in better goodies; another Samsung phone and a pair of semi-toasted Ray Bans with good lenses. Interestingly, I also pulled a Sacagawea in deep water on that hunt. On that day, I had seen some Sargassum come in, but I still felt it was normal. We are now at abnormal levels. The sargassum near shore is still not the 1-2’ carpet it was a few years back, but it is enough to make swinging a coil through it unworkable. I noticed a young couple that was about to go into the water get deterred by the seaweed and just head back to their lounge chairs. I am going to go back and look at my notes for the last time we had this Sargassum Invasion and see what I did. However, I feel that the next few months does not bode well.
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I was down there Saturday. 23rd street. I went down the water. It smelled and looked like coffee. I packed up. Went home. Waste of two hours!I went out for a 4-hour hunt yesterday with NuBlu. We’ve had, as many of you have seen in the news, tons of rain for most of the week with some gusty winds causing rough surf conditions. The surf began dying down on Friday. When I got to the beach, the section I started off had what I would actually call a cut for South Beach.
It was over an hour when I got my 1st coin.
I had 2 hunts last weekend. One on Good Friday at another beach on my rotation where I pulled a silver ring and a fake Cartier. Last Sunday, I had a similar hunt on South Beach, but I was able to pull in better goodies; another Samsung phone and a pair of semi-toasted Ray Bans with good lenses. Interestingly, I also pulled a Sacagawea in deep water on that hunt. On that day, I had seen some Sargassum come in, but I still felt it was normal. We are now at abnormal levels. The sargassum near shore is still not the 1-2’ carpet it was a few years back, but it is enough to make swinging a coil through it unworkable. I noticed a young couple that was about to go into the water get deterred by the seaweed and just head back to their lounge chairs. I am going to go back and look at my notes for the last time we had this Sargassum Invasion and see what I did. However, I feel that the next few months does not bode well.
You may have been one of the other guys I saw north of me that left.
Miami got a Starbucks flowing to the ocean? We get seaweed it usually smells like krapachino instead of coffee.
My part of Florida people are still barely going swimming except for kids. I just now started water hunting. Rare to see a water hunter. Plus the current flowing either North or South is too risky to try and use dive weights. You'd need a boat anchor to stay in a spot if you drop down. I usually feel sunglasses hit me in the ankles as they go flowing by under water. I've only seen two divers at the beach over the last fifty years and one was just testing a dry suit he was struggling with. He said a few choice curse words when he got out of the water after he got flipped over about 15 times. West coast is a swimming pool. East coast we just had another person drown when they got swept out at one of my hunting spots. I know when to keep my behind out of the water.
I think I've posted enough sunglasses and phones on here in good shape to speak for knowing how to to center my targets and not damage them. I also have a hybrid scoop that picks up the small stuff in the back. These small targets will initially slip through the bigger holes, but once I realize what's going on I will lift the scoop perpendicular and find it in the back. These targets are far and few in-between for me. For 10 targets in a given area I am sure I will recover them in half the time of a snorkel guy fanning. Will he get to deeper targets? Yes. Will he be able to recover as many targets a I do? No. How I hunt and my success speaks for the area in which I hunt.
I want to invite you to come here to Connecticut and try fanning compressed mud
Not gonna happen...You need a sifter to throw the tube of compressed mud intor then claw it apart looking for the target....a lot of spots I hunt are nothing but mud...
Oh yeah, mud/clay is out for that method. Sometimes I hit the original orange beach sand and it also hangs in the water like a cloudI want to invite you to come here to Connecticut and try fanning compressed mud
All I have to do is walk on this mud and a fine layer of silt clouds the water and it doesn't clear...very little water movement at this spot.. its awful..
There's spots like like that here in the rivers. Old bathing house locations, I've given a few of them a go but it seems it's now silted over and the good targets are buried too deep. I tried both diving and wading. When I waded the mud was knee deep, I nearly had to abandon the waders! Out deeper where I dived it wasn't as silty, but it still turned muddy fast and the best I ever did was silver.
Wasn’t me! I’m a friendly metal detector guy.Hey Fishnchips - are you "red shirt guy"?Maybe we need to work on your social skills?
Well its a good thing then you didn't run into Sexton who was near you as he is a bit cranky and likes to steal other pirate's gold!
