Hunting Like a Beagle Produces 3 Gold Rings & 1 Gold Crucifix
Last Tuesday, I dug up a respectable 14k diamond ring from an inland park, along with an interesting 925 ring. I was hunting with real intensity that day. It later occurred to me, while watching my young beagle frantically following a scent, that hunting for gold rings was very similar. Friday, I consciously "hunted like a beagle" on Miami Beach and found a nice 10k class ring in my scoop.
14k Diamond Ring, and 925 ring found in the park within 20 yards of each other
Class Ring found amid rocks in a hole at the beach
Sunday, I went out the the same beach to find conditions had changed drastically, and where the seas had been essentially flat, there were now steep 3' breakers knocking over tourists , and a 60 or 70 yard cut had developed in front of a lifeguard tower. I tried hunting the water, but it was too difficult to be productive.
So, I searched the wet sand. At first I went striding up the beach swinging my wand like a normal metal detectorist does, paying a bit more attention to the area of the cut, but when that failed to produce anything much, I continued on my way.
After awhile of walking in pretty mushy sand, I remembered what the Zen Master had told me concerning the Zen* practice of Gold Ring Hunting:
"Hunt like a beagle".
Hunt like a beagle? What had the Master mean by that? How does a beagle hunt?
So, I watched videos of beagles hunting rabbits, and I was surprised to see that they go over small patches of ground frantically sniffing the earth over and over and over again, back and forth, and back and forth, it seemed endlessly. This is how they locate the path and direction of a rabbit. It's not a simple thing like in the cartoons where they strike a scent and head off running flat out, baying, after the rabbit. Usually, the hound has to decipher where the rabbit went while it was just bouncing around here and there. And that is a complicated activity that can take a long time. Usually, the rabbit is hiding right in that patch, and flushes when the dog gets too close.
That must be what the Zen Master meant. That is how to hunt like a beagle, to assume the "beagle position." First one learns the best places to hunt for gold rings. We can call those the "rabbit patches". Then, intensively work the rabbit patch. And do it with the energy and optimism of a beagle with rabbit scent in her nose; keep going, going, going, pushing through fatigue or negativity.
So, I did that in front of the cut, because the cut and the eroded sand in front of it was the rabbit patch. It needed more than a normal sweep down the beach with a detector. It needed to be hunted intensively. The sand was firm there, actually hard to dig into with the scoop. Then I saw something, something shiny and golden sitting right on top of the concrete-like wet sand in front of the cut. I didn't find it with the detector, I eyeballed it. I picked it up. It was a small gold figure of Christ, only an inch tall. Judging by the dark solder at several points on the back, it had been attached to a cross. It weighs .76dwt, pretty heavy for such a small item. It is definitely solid gold, but will have to be tested to determine the karat.
I eyeballed this tiny 1" figure on top of the wet sand in front of a cut.
That was the second gold item in the month of September that I had eyeballed on the surface of the ground. See my post of 9/17/13 for the other:
Small Golds Better Than No Golds, Sept. 17th entry.
I continued beagling the length of the cut, which was only about 60 or 70 yards long. The next find was a very thin, very narrow gold band marked 500 which I found in the usual way, with the metal detector, and digging. It was in one piece when I found it, but later, when I tried slipping it on my finger while taking video, it came apart at the seam.
The 500 mark indicates it is a European piece. 500 is the same as 12k. This piece weighs 35dwt.
This thin band was not broken when found and gave a pretty good signal.
So, hunting like a beagle, I found gold, and not just one but two pieces, even if they weighed altogether scarcely more than one pennyweight. And one of them was lying in plain view. That's really something.
*I made this up. There is Zen archery, but as far as I know, I'm the only one who practices Zen Gold Ring Hunting.
