I am wondering how much of your success is related to your location as well as your experience with your machines and the lessons you have learned from over the years...?
In my first year of the hobby, I found 5 gold rings, digging primarily every single solid signal I could find. In relation to your first month of 2015 with 3 gold rings, how would you rank location as a factor?
HDD
Knowledge of my machines is paramount, I couldn't have done 1/4 of what I have accomplished in the last 5 years if I wasn't so anal about learning my machines as well as possible...a process that never ends for me.
As far as location....
These are just public parks, pretty large and hunted well by myself and many others, I assume.
I do have some higher percentage sites where jewelry might be found, basketball courts and grass islands dividing up large parking lots at high schools and colleges have been very good to me in the gold and silver departments, but I do seem to find an unusual amount of gold in these everyday ordinary parks I target more often than not.
I believe the reason I find more than my share has to do with 2 things.
Some luck for sure, the fact that I got my small coils over these small targets in mostly very large areas has me thanking the MD gods every time that happens.
However there is another reason.
I really love to find jewelry and gold most of all so for the past few years I have endeavored to learn all I can about that special and rare metal, exactly how it acts and behaves in the wild, its behavior under the coils of all my detectors and some out of the box methods and techniques when hunting in very heavy trash to enable me to dig less trash than ever before all to give me a slightly better shot at spending quality time finding it instead of spinning my wheels digging more trash than necessary to do it...something I think I have accomplished as the years went on.
I have actually had a few others on these forums scoff at my volume of gold targets and post I am successful at this because I just happen to hunt sites where gold can be found so anyone can have success if they do that.
They can't find gold because their parks just don't have any and I am so lucky that mine do.
I have also had a few other hunters locally talk to me at sites I hunt when they see me and tell me, (good naturedly), not to waste my time because they and many others have pounded these areas in the past and they are positive there is nothing left to find...but I still managed to find some silver and sometimes gold at a few of these so called hunted out sites.
Is it all luck, or all just due to the fact that I just happen to have better sites to hunt than others that never seem to have luck finding much gold?
I ain't buying that premise...at all.
I have done this for the last 5 years since I started, especially in the last 4 or so after I went to school and decided to specifically target and spend time learning to specialize in hunting for and actually digging this metal.
Also, I have done this in 2 completely different states with wildly different soil types, in many different cities and at parks in locations that differ immensely with regards to income levels from inner city to medium to high end...and I have done it with 4 different detectors, my Compadre with one coil, my F2 with 3 coils, my vaquero with 3 coils and now my F70 with 3 coils available to me.
I have found gold with each one of those detectors and every coil I have for each one.
It is not what I use or just the luck of the draw on where I hunt that gives me a slight edge, the numbers just don't hold up when you crunch them if you think I am just the luckiest sob on the planet.
It is what I
know that makes the difference and I truly believe that and I have freely shared my knowledge on these forums for several years.
Many have tried some of my ideas and techniques and became successful in the gold biz too and publicly thanked me...something that thrills me to no end when I can help someone else enjoy this hobby more than they did before.
I do what I do to make me happy in this hobby, and just having the opportunity and good health to do it all satisfies me to no end.
If I happen to find a few great things along the way mixed into all the more mundane targets that is wonderful.
If I happen to find more than my share of gold due to knowledge, luck, moon phases, lucky rabbit's feet or whatever other reason I am going to take it all in and just smile.
I am a land pirate after all...and that is what we do.
