Do you mean SE Michigan or United States?
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Ha!
SE. USA....specifically Birmingham Alabama, although I spent a lot of my growing up years in Oak Park which is near Birmingham Michigan.
We have that red dirt clay all around here, all the components to make iron and steel occur naturally in our dirt which is why the steel and iron industry became so huge here and dominated all industries since the 1800's.
As such we have naturally occurring iron in all our dirt, the black stuff and the red stuff from microscopic to huge.
Most public sites had homes and neighborhoods built on them in the old days so hunting areas even in what looks like clean parks is actually more like hunting extreme trash and iron infested old home sites.
The depth I could get to in good dirt has been cut in half or more here, luckily the density of the dirt prevents targets from sinking real far past 4-7" but there are some real old sites we have hunted that we know have been manipulated and had a few inches of dirt added and should hold some great older targets but we can't reach them with anything but a PI unit which is frustratingly maddening.
I started my career hunting here and until I hunted in Michigan on vacation the first time I had no idea how bad this soil really is...wish I never found out.
I moved to Kansas for 3 years and thanked the MD gods from the first hole I dug to the last for the quality soil...when we decided to move back to Alabama I knew what was waiting for me and I almost cried.
I know our neighbors in Tennessee, Georgia and all around us have difficulties too but because of our history and geographic location we have all of that plus more.
Much more.
It is hard to explain to people exactly what we are up against here, a few have scoffed and thought we were crazy because they also live and hunt here in the SE. and thought our dirt was all the same and hunting in our area just had to be similar to where they live.
Then they came here and tried it and went away shaking their heads.
We still find great treasure here but most is not real deep and mostly everything is masked if not just a little to majororly severe if it is past 2-3" deep.
Everything we do here is to try to find a setting, technique, detector or coil that will help us cut through this mess and notice targets deeper, easier and better.
I have been pretty successful the last few years using my F70 here but I had to learn a whole new, strange outside the box language to do it and I got pretty good at and learned to hunt well mostly in all metal.
I can't count the amount of great things I have found in public hard hunted sites that had been missed for decades by countless others including myself that were only 4" but masked to the extreme.
Most targets past 2-3" in the bad stuff acts really weird which is why we all missed them, luckily in the past few years I have worked hard to increase my knowledge of weird behavior and signals and it has paid off.
Since a picture is worth 1000 words a movie might be worth even more so here is a vid a hunting partner made recently in one of our local parks we hunt.
Sure it looks like normal black dirt that came out of this hole but don't be deceived...it isn't.
This is a flat silver quarter at the bottom of an open 6.5" hole covered up by maybe an inch of our devil dirt.
He tries his AT Max on it and a brand new Eqinox 800 that we had high hopes for.
He tried a bunch of other settings not on camera, too.
That 800 might still work here, we just have to find the best way to set it up and I might get one just to try.
Watch it and read the comments especially from that second guy in Georgia that can hit 8" dimes in his red clay.
Most times that is just a dream for us.
Then you will understand why I tell all that hunt in good, normal soil, (like in Michigan), to thank their lucky stars and really appreciate that they have that opportunity.
You are truly blessed...not all of us are that lucky.