fresh water same problems as with salt water?

added note,,,looking at an Ace 250, or uMax,,,,

Those are fine just don't get lift the coil too high or otherwise the water can drain down the shaft and possibly into the control box... the Ace 250 will be fine in the freshwater but salt mineralized beaches are not a great place for them... you can use it their but you would have to turn the sensitivity down meaning loss of depth and most likely out of the range of finding much gold... its why many of us here spend the bucks for dedicated beach machines...

so I'm hearing it's the salt water that gives MD's all the trouble. Freshwater is do-able. Thanks for the reply and heads up on raising the "head up",,,,

An ace will work fine for shallow fresh water. Here's a tip to make it a bit more safe to use...

I started with a Tesoro Bandido II umax and to hunt shallow water I took the control box off the rod and put it in a small pouch which I pinned to the shoulder straps of my waders. To accomodate that I ran the coil wire straight up the shaft which gave me enough slack to swing the coil.This gives you two advantages.. you can go a bit deeper since the box is higher and if you lift your coil up water can't run into the box unless you are silly enough to hold it as high as you can.... (adding an extension wire to your coil wire will also help but you'll need to waterproof the connection)

Another system is to mount the box on a short piece of aluminum or plastic tube, drill a hole in the tube for a cord and hang it around your neck. this puts it where you can see the info on the screen and requires a bit less wire length.

Have fun!

Thanks Scott,,,happy hunting to you