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Equinox 800 Is Way Too Nose-Heavy....

AirmetTango

Forum Supporter
Joined
Apr 14, 2017
Messages
3,111
Location
NW Ohio
...with 3 lbs of mud slathered onto the coil like half-hardened concrete!!

CoilMud.jpg


:laughing: Ok, ok...sorry for the shameful click bait! :lol: But such was my hunting conditions today (Friday, 12/7)! Ever since I got my EQ800 early last week, I've been dying to get out to one of my favorite farm fields to see how it would handle the conditions and what it could find. It was always either too wet, too cold, not enough time to make the drive and still hunt, or a myriad of other things would prevent me from getting out there. Well, this morning was 28 degrees, but bright and sunny for the first time in what seems like forever. There was a vague dusting of snow on the ground from a snow shower late yesterday, but I had the day off and I thought, "Today's the day...I'm hitting that field!". After taking care of some Honey-dos, I didn't get to the field until about noon - temps were still hovering in the vicinity of freezing, but the sun beating down made it feel warmer than it was...and that dusting of snow had melted right into the field. The impact of that fact didn't truly hit me until I got about 10 feet into the field and realized that my feet felt 10 lbs heavier :lol::

BootMud.jpg


So, yeah, basically the field was a mini-quagmire :roll: Not only did the muck bio-accumulate on my boots, but on the coil too, as evidenced by the pics!

I kept at it for about an hour though, because 20 minutes in I got over a sweet sounding 25-26 signal. I've only been running the EQ800 for a short time so far, but I know this site - I was certain this was a silver dime! I carefully dug a plug with my Sampson, and eventually isolated a clod the size of an apple with the pinpointer. I broke the clod down gradually with my hands, and there it was - unmistakably a silver dime! It seemed a little thin, and I was hoping that thinness meant Seated! Too much muck on the dime to ID it in the field, so into the pouch it went. But I was excited no matter what kind it turned out to be...it's my first silver score with the EQ800 :thumbsup:

I continued to hunt for another 40 minutes fueled by the silver find, but didn't turn up anything else except a couple old shotshell headstamps and a bullet casing. It was slow going in all that muck, and by the one hour mark, I was tired of shaking the mud off my boots after every step like a cat walking on a sticky floor :lol:

At home, clean up confirmed it as a well-worn 1877 Carson City Seated Liberty! Cool to have a Seated as my first EQ silver :cool: There's a ding on the front which I'm sure I didn't do - the dime was safe from my digger/shovel in it's dirt clod, and I broke it out with my hands. The ding looks weathered, too, so it either got scorched by a plow at some point or it gained some character prior to getting dropped a century or so ago :grin: I may have put a couple scratches on the back during clean up though...they look a little fresher. I'm usually pretty careful, just running it under water until the dirt lifts away, then using a soft bristle toothbrush with Dawn after it's pretty clean. Might've been a bit of dirt stuck on one of the bristles...won't do that again! Anyways, she's a beauty in my book either way! :D

Pics below show the dime in the field, front and back of the dime before and after cleaning, plus a close up showing the CC mint mark. The first C is a bit covered in tarnish, but is more visible in the close up:
 

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Nice find for the first time out with your Equinox, I love mine. I could skip the mud but hey any day out detecting is a good day.
 
Great hunting report Tango .
That mud reminds me of a 180 lb dressed out deer I hauled out 150 yards out of a cedar swam onlybto hafta cross a plowed field in that same condition.

The venison was good but your dime is amazing.
Congradulations on your new toy and your successful hunt .
Looking forward the the next.
,Dew
 
Congrats and well done on finding a coin that is still a bucket lister for many of us! Your efforts playing in the mud payed off nicely.:)
 
Congratulations on pulling out your first EQ silver from the mud of the Great Black Swamp! That goes to show you that even big boys still play in the mud.
 
Because of those same conditions Ben I prefer to keep a grass carpet between my feet and the dirt. Still after a few plugs the dirt still finds a way to build around the boots. Congrats on the Seated CC Dime and your first "Nox" Silver. Trapper
 
Hey Dummy! You could always bag your coil as well as your shoes!..then just step out of the mud blobs and leave them behind? You know this! :laughing:
 
Nice find for the first time out with your Equinox, I love mine. I could skip the mud but hey any day out detecting is a good day.

Thanks, cptbill - I’m enjoying mine so far, too! But to be clear, it wasn’t my first hunt with the EQ, just my first chance to get out to my favorite field permission :cool:

Nice find.
Thanks for sharing.

Thanks TNSS!

That's a great first silver with your nox! What mode were you hunting in?

Thanks, NC! I couldn’t be more thrilled to have a Seated be my first silver with the EQ! On all of my previous hunts (a couple parks, a home site, and even a different field), I was using Park 2 with some modifications to the tone breaks and volumes. On this hunt, I was just playing with out-of-the-box Field 2. I needed to turn my sensitivity down a bit in this field to get rid of some chatter that was left over after noise canceling - turned it down to 17, if I remember right. No ground balance...I just left it at 0.

Great hunting report Tango .
That mud reminds me of a 180 lb dressed out deer I hauled out 150 yards out of a cedar swam onlybto hafta cross a plowed field in that same condition.

The venison was good but your dime is amazing.
Congradulations on your new toy and your successful hunt .
Looking forward the the next.
,Dew

Thanks, Dew! No doubt my dime was far easier to carry out, but definitely wouldn’t taste as good :lol: And clean up after the hunt was brutal, especially since I couldn’t use my hose bib at home since it was too cold. How long did it take you to haul that deer out while keeping the meat clean?

SWEET Find Tango!! You wont have to deal with the mud much longer! Here comes the cold!:laughing:

Thanks, Mud! I know - don’t remind me!! It was 15 degrees when I woke up this morning :cold1: That’s the downside to sunny, clear skies - no cloud blanket to keep the temps up overnight. Might be my last hunt for the year - not a bad way to end the season!

Congrats and well done on finding a coin that is still a bucket lister for many of us! Your efforts playing in the mud payed off nicely.:)

Thanks, Waveoff! I’ve been fortunate this year - not only managed to get over 3 Seated dimes, but 2 of them are Carson City mint marks! The payback yesterday was in the cleanup - took well over an hour to clean the detector alone! Had to do it all with a bucket and sponge since it was too cold to use my outdoor hose bib :roll:

Congratulations on pulling out your first EQ silver from the mud of the Great Black Swamp! That goes to show you that even big boys still play in the mud.

Thanks, Dan! Great Black Swamp mud sure likes to stick to everything! Took forever to clean off the detecting gear. I haven’t even gotten to my boots and the footwell of my car yet - I guess we can see where my priorities are :lol:
 
Hey Dummy! You could always bag your coil as well as your shoes!..then just step out of the mud blobs and leave them behind? You know this! :laughing:

Lol, good idea...especially since my wife has 100's of Walmart bags. Some cheap tape and a bunch of bags (probably would last long), and I'm off to the mud! Of course I'd sling the mud off the bags and toss them in the trash afterwards. Kudo's for your efforts and congrats on the silver! I wish my area had that history here....
 
Ha lol! Man I hate hunting in the mud but it looks like it paid off for you! Nice finds! Congrats
 
Very cool dime and good write up....I do have to admit that I couldn’t wait to watch the rabid Equinox users tear you limb from limb in a wild frenzy. That was not nice and I feel the moderator should censure you at the very least....:mad:
 
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