At some point, its gotta be me

Bayou & Dew have excellent advice. Don't rule out those "exclusive" homes. If they are old , could have had some turnover. These times are different. But if you are hunting trashy beaches and aren't finding anything , something is wrong. Could be detector setup.

Since day 1 , I always make it a point to NEVER leave a beach without finding something of value. Even 1 penny. It's a great morale booster and I can say I've NEVER been skunked ! Around the beginning of the year , I went about 2.5 months without finding any gold. It was depressing. I would go to the beach knowing within 30 seconds of looking up and down the beach it was going to be bad. But I knew I would get fresh air and exercise. Plus - you never know ! Those 2.5 months were 2-3 times a week , but then I started getting lucky and have been killing it of late. I have 3 or 4 beaches that are close that I can checkout quickly. But typically hunt 2 a day. Learn the machine and keep at it.
 
Yup Slow Down and really grid the area, years back I use to find at least 5 gold a day, and like Beechnut says they have other interest like tattoos and phones, and stainless steel , and other stuff, now we have a lot more detecting and it makes it harder, when the tides were right and the wind I was down their almost every day, now I havn't been in three years, got bad knees and a-fib , and some other stuff too so it kind of slowed me way down, but I still have my Excalibur 1000, wish you a lot of luck and just slow down and if you can run your machine in all metal mode and switch over to disc.
 
I appreciate all of the suggestions and ideas from everyone. Been out there about 20 hours in the last four days but didn't come up with much. I'll keep at it with the new suggestions and hopefully find the gold soon. Thanks guys.
 
Hello everyone

Last year was my first year in this quite addicting hobby. I live in South Jersey, not too far from the shore.. I spent well over 100 hours on the beach last year and found 3 small pieces. I've read as much as I could on here about hunting the beach, but I've got to be doing something wrong at this point. This year has started right where I left off and I don't want to quit... but the frustration is mounting.

I walk the water line, both in the water and the wet sand near the water line. I also look for any erosion and check those areas out. Sometimes I get these weird readings and I dig with no results or it eventually disappears, or I typically find a coin or bottlecaps.

The beach usually has people but I don't usually try to dig dry sand, as I pretty much am seeking gold and silver. I will check it out now and then as a last resort.

I see people posting gold and platinum ring counts for just one year... so I know that it's me at this point. These guys don't just get lucky. Its not time spent either, because I put the time in. I'm clearly missing something here.


I live in OC and there are a ton of detectorists down here. What type of machine are you using? I don’t find a lot in the wet sand due to only having a Garrett AT pro but I find quite a bit in the dry. I’ve only been detecting regularly since October ‘19 and I hunt the beach all year. There are tons of small pieces of metal that wash up and sound amazing but are junk. That might be what you are hearing but not seeing. They will fall through your scoop. There haven’t been a lot of people in the water due to the mild weather so far. More swimmers equal more jewelry finds. My advice would be to hunt the beaches with life guards as they will have the most people. You may also want to go at night because they rake the beaches with machines in the morning and stuff gets moved around. I’ve found gold and silver back by the dunes. Hope this helps.

http://www.ocnj.us/index.cfm?fuseaction=content.pageDetails&id=70353&typeID=157


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I'm using the Equinox. Those machines that rake the beaches... do they pick up the dropped trash and things too? Could they be picking up rings?
 
Hello everyone

Last year was my first year in this quite addicting hobby. I live in South Jersey, not too far from the shore.. I spent well over 100 hours on the beach last year and found 3 small pieces. I've read as much as I could on here about hunting the beach, but I've got to be doing something wrong at this point. This year has started right where I left off and I don't want to quit... but the frustration is mounting.

I walk the water line, both in the water and the wet sand near the water line. I also look for any erosion and check those areas out. Sometimes I get these weird readings and I dig with no results or it eventually disappears, or I typically find a coin or bottlecaps.

The beach usually has people but I don't usually try to dig dry sand, as I pretty much am seeking gold and silver. I will check it out now and then as a last resort.

I see people posting gold and platinum ring counts for just one year... so I know that it's me at this point. These guys don't just get lucky. Its not time spent either, because I put the time in. I'm clearly missing something here.

You be on a low slope shoreline. I've found that wet sand works great if it's got a fairly steep drop and/or there is a big difference in the shoreline distance between high and low tide. THAT's what makes the wet sand a valuable target point. It's when the water where people play is receded and exposes the wet sand. Basically, where you're finding targets in the wet sand, during low tide, is where people were playing in the water, at high tide.

Check the Jersey shoreline at low and high tide, and if you see that people are going out further to "play" you're not likely to find many targets in that wet sand area.

Targets drop down, not up the slope, even with wave action. Gold just doesn't float around like aluminum.

Additionally on dry sand, targets don't migrate "down slope" very much, except in storms. So if targets dropped on the sand all summer are just basically sitting in the sand, there' not going to migrate to the wet sand area, if that makes sense. No storms = drops going down, not down slope.

Personally, I LOVE the towel line. I find more stuff there, than I have in wet sand. People are always dropping change, losing jewelry, etc. You'll find plenty of stuff in the dry sand, if the wet isn't producing for you! Once you figure out bottle caps sounds, too, you can skip those, anyway! Dry sand is very predictable that way.

Cheers!

Skippy
 
Since day 1 , I always make it a point to NEVER leave a beach without finding something of value. Even 1 penny. It's a great morale booster and I can say I've NEVER been skunked !

HAHAHA! I have the same goal. Keeping the bar low = lots of success. :shock:
 
You be on a low slope shoreline. I've found that wet sand works great if it's got a fairly steep drop and/or there is a big difference in the shoreline distance between high and low tide. THAT's what makes the wet sand a valuable target point. It's when the water where people play is receded and exposes the wet sand. Basically, where you're finding targets in the wet sand, during low tide, is where people were playing in the water, at high tide.

Check the Jersey shoreline at low and high tide, and if you see that people are going out further to "play" you're not likely to find many targets in that wet sand area.

Targets drop down, not up the slope, even with wave action. Gold just doesn't float around like aluminum.

Additionally on dry sand, targets don't migrate "down slope" very much, except in storms. So if targets dropped on the sand all summer are just basically sitting in the sand, there' not going to migrate to the wet sand area, if that makes sense. No storms = drops going down, not down slope.

Personally, I LOVE the towel line. I find more stuff there, than I have in wet sand. People are always dropping change, losing jewelry, etc. You'll find plenty of stuff in the dry sand, if the wet isn't producing for you! Once you figure out bottle caps sounds, too, you can skip those, anyway! Dry sand is very predictable that way.

Cheers!

Skippy

I do agree with just about everything you say here. Just about....
What THE KOB knows with definitive certainty is that targets , especially light weight women's engagement rings , get "thrown up" or "puked" up by crashing surf , high on the slope. Then they will settle back down only to be churned up at some point by another storm.

As an experiment , get a few light junker rings or even some thin washers. Tie a small piece of dental floss to them. Wade out and throw them. Remember the location. Check everytime you are there , you may be surprised.
 
.... but didn't come up with much. .....

Re-read post #18.

It is NOT about "how much time you put in swinging". It is NOT about "which beach you hunt". It is ALL ABOUT TIMING.

Dry sand hunting s*cks. Just random foil, bottle caps, current clad, etc.... Oh sure, an occasional ring, but it still s#cks per the time you'll put in .

You have to do beaches after storm erosion. Mother nature can put so many targets into tight confine zones, that you can dig 100 coins per hour, at times (I've actually seen those conditions, where it's essentially "as fast as you can dig").

Granted , those days aren't *frequent* doh ! That's when I go land hunting.

You have to learn to read the wet beach. Google "Tom's beach tips" . The very first hit you'll get is an article I wrote on the subject. Granted, it was centered/focused on the west coast. But there is info there that can be applied to Atlantic seaboard, as far as I know.
 
Thank you, Tom. Some of that 20 hours was after a storm, but most of it was addiction to metal detecting, lol.

I have been looking for the slopes, storms and shells.. trying to tell if its sanded in or not, etc. I've definitely learned from this topic.
 
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