Observations on beach hunts with data

SirFrancesDrake

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I recently have been hunting several different beaches and have noticed that the popularity of a beach is definitely not; in and of itself, a guarantee of success.

In the SECOND image, is a more local beach with few tourists and a long expansive beach with a relatively long sloped tidal surge. There, i find a TON of stuff. But it is definitely a low-key place.

The FIRST image is a super high-traffic beach with thousands of visitors a day. Bit it has a relatively high encompassing tidal surge that takes up a large portion of the beach between high and low tides. On this beach i usually strike out or find very little.

Now, it doesn PROVE anything, but my correlations lead me to believe that altough pedestrian traffic is necessary for finds, its possible that tourists tend to leave more objects in their room than locals (who wear items and bring coins as a matter of habit) AND that the tide taking over much of the beach is detrimental to finds.

The tracks you see are not the only ones ive done in these spots. Each pin indicates a find of some value (coin or otherwise) and each different colored line shows a walking path i took.

When i take these paths i am slow and methodical.

In short: There are far fewer finds per mile on the far more popular beach. In time, i hope to nail down the variables for stat-driven hunts.

If this was helpful or interesting please comment. If not, and im way off base then i wont post my nerd stats in the future 😘
 

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The major factor in finding targets is beach conditions. Subtle changes in sand movement can lead to boom or bust.
 
Interesting post. And great use of technology and mapping. Thanx.

In our area, some of my highest target count days have come NOT from the touristy packed beaches. Have instead have come from the dumpy locals dog-walker type beaches. But that could also just be luck of the draw for where erosion happened to be occurring.

One trend I HAVE seen, in the "high-end touristy" versus "locals-only" beaches, is that the high end touristy beaches have better jewelry ratios. And the caliber of jewelry is higher too (eg.: Plat vs 10k, etc...). But as for target counts, you're right: Sometimes the heavily trafficked beaches don't necessarily pork out higher counts.

Competition from other md'rs factors into this. Most md'rs around me tend to flock to the glamor beaches, not the locals-plain-Jane beaches.
 
Competition with other detectors is a great point. I never see any where I am, so i had discounted that one.

It also makes sense that tourists going to high end resorts would be wearing (and losing) their best jewelry.

Thanks
 
My beach abuts another small neighbor beach, that beach abuts the town beach to the west, to the east is another private beach club, most all the traffic are seasoned "swamp yankee" beach goers, they don't take jewelry to the beach. Most finds are tin foil balls and just loose change and the charming large signal buried Budweiser can. Wish it were more Jersey like, guys in wife beaters with gold chains, bling etc.... LOL
 
at MY freshwater beaches, the more popular with traffic equals more popular with detectorists. my golds this year came from beaches with less than 200' of total lake frontage and little to no people on them. the big beach where I go, a woman asked if I found anything. 2 silver rings. she and 11 of her friends detect it every week. this is in the middle of nowhere. it changed my views of MY beaches that I thought I had to myself.
 
Don't hunt much but have had good luck in the volley ball courts....and of course a good wind storm is good hunting. hh

ps don't forget the rubbish spot the sweepers dump the trash, hard as heck to detect but worth a few minits.
 
I don't live by the ocean or a big lake. We have campgrounds and a few parks with a beach and I cover them good during the summer. Never seen anyone at the campgrounds I beach and water hunt in. The one park with a beach, only one time I seen someone their that I knew. So far over the years I have done good on gold and silver. Some I do better on coins than others.
Keep out of my spot... KEN :D
 
There are just to many factors to say which will and wont pay off for the day. You can narrow the odds some.....it also depends on how you want to hunt and rather you are looking for recent drops or old gold. Timing...... amount of time spent/days, knowing whats changed, the activity and amount of people, and i could go on. I read these books ..... do this do that but sometime you just have a lucky day and happen to look where someone didnt.

Dew
 
I went out again in a reliably good spot for me - got almost nothing. I think this is all caused by the very high tides were getting in the Atlantic right now. Ive noticed it on the beach. I think its actually washing everything away.
 
The major factor in finding targets is beach conditions. Subtle changes in sand movement can lead to boom or bust.

I agree 100%. It doesn't matter if you have tons of traffic and tons of drops. If the lower beach is building or sanded in, all those targets will be below your detector's range. Also what brand and model detector are you using? Using an AT pro will find you less targets than a good PI machine.

If a beach is being stripped of sand then almost any detector will find targets that have been uncovered by the stripping away of sand. A stripping lower beach will have lots of rocks exposed and can literally remove a foot or more of sand. Get the best detector you can afford for lower beach work and learn to read the beach conditions. Don't waste your time on the dry sand. Remember the lower beaches accumulate heavy targets every single day and hide them from most detectorists. Get out there on the proper days with the proper equipment and spend 6-8 hours hunting and you will find the gold jewelry. This is what the professional beach hunter do. From my observations 90% or more of the beach hunters use land searching techniques hoping to find beach treasures and thus leave the good stuff for the professionals who know how to read and hunt beaches and put in the hours.
 
...It doesn't matter if you have tons of traffic and tons of drops. If the lower beach is building or sanded in, all those targets will be below your detector's range.

Great post, good info. My strategy has basically been:

1. Go as close to low tide as I can

2. Zig-zag down beach from upper-beach to surf-line to look for the portions of the beach where I get the most, or best finds

3. Stay on "all metal" mode to locate items unless its gets trashy near a beach entrance path - then i switch to eliminate iron, scan the spot again. This is for max depth.

4. Dig everything

Is there an agreement here that the towel line isnt so great for quality finds and that we should stick to the surf?

I prefer not to go into the water, this is because I really only hunt after sunset and it makes it imposible to see what im doing or gauge the depth of water, see finds(does that make me a vampire hunter? haha). That being said, I also find some decent stuff on the towel line.

Finally, different beachgoers behave differently. Here, people don't go into the water so much, they prefer to hang out in large groups, rather distant from the water, and drink on the beach (which is totally legal here.)

Any recommendations you guys have for testing variables would be helpful too. Like, a few hunts/miles of surf only vs a few miles of upper-beach. I'm still new to detecting and just trying things out. I'm going for a data approach, just because it keeps me going when im having a !!!! day. I think to myself "Well im not finding anything, but this is great data!"
 
If you are noticing the current is stripping items from the beach and pulling them out it sounds to me that you might want to get in the water...
 
lower beach is better than towel line

Great post, good info. My strategy has basically been:

1. Go as close to low tide as I can

2. Zig-zag down beach from upper-beach to surf-line to look for the portions of the beach where I get the most, or best finds

3. Stay on "all metal" mode to locate items unless its gets trashy near a beach entrance path - then i switch to eliminate iron, scan the spot again. This is for max depth.

4. Dig everything

Is there an agreement here that the towel line isnt so great for quality finds and that we should stick to the surf?

I prefer not to go into the water, this is because I really only hunt after sunset and it makes it imposible to see what im doing or gauge the depth of water, see finds(does that make me a vampire hunter? haha). That being said, I also find some decent stuff on the towel line.

Finally, different beachgoers behave differently. Here, people don't go into the water so much, they prefer to hang out in large groups, rather distant from the water, and drink on the beach (which is totally legal here.)

Any recommendations you guys have for testing variables would be helpful too. Like, a few hunts/miles of surf only vs a few miles of upper-beach. I'm still new to detecting and just trying things out. I'm going for a data approach, just because it keeps me going when im having a !!!! day. I think to myself "Well im not finding anything, but this is great data!"

the reason I think the lower beach is better than the towel line is that due to tide, currents and winds and storms these effects are constantly moving things according to their specific gravity. Thus when a beach is stripping and you find heavy items like lead weights you are very likely to find gold and silver jewelry if you slow down and hunt those areas carefully. If you are finding only zinc pennies, other light junk then you are in the wrong area. Move to a try and locate a better area. Remember on some days beaches are just not giving up their treasures easily because they are too deep in the sand for most detectors. That can change overnight. Remember the towel line is pretty much a constant in terms of location of dropped jewelry. The lower beach changes the location of drops every couple of days.
In my opinion the most successful beach hunters know their beaches and have high quality PI machines with large coils.
 
the reason I think the lower beach is better than the towel line is that due to tide, currents and winds and storms these effects are constantly moving things according to their specific gravity. Thus when a beach is stripping and you find heavy items like lead weights you are very likely to find gold and silver jewelry if you slow down and hunt those areas carefully. If you are finding only zinc pennies, other light junk then you are in the wrong area. Move to a try and locate a better area. Remember on some days beaches are just not giving up their treasures easily because they are too deep in the sand for most detectors. That can change overnight. Remember the towel line is pretty much a constant in terms of location of dropped jewelry. The lower beach changes the location of drops every couple of days.
In my opinion the most successful beach hunters know their beaches and have high quality PI machines with large coils.
size quality PI coils can not be more than 11 " ;)
large coil size = large coil capacity and it will not be possible to analyze the rapid decay of the signal from gold :D
 
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