sanded beach

This usually comes with experience on a particular beach. Once you know the beach you'll become familiar with its moods. I've seen as much as 15 feet of sand at one beach here on Oahu come and go depending on time of year, surf and prevailing winds.
 
For the most part:
1. When targets are few and far in between.
2. When most of the targets are light like PT's & bottle caps.
3. Any or most of the coins found are nice and shinier fresh drops.
4. You don't see, (or very little), any heavier sediments such as rocks and shells.
5. Lack of scallops or cuts along the beach.

Like Numil says, it takes experience to "read" a particular beach.
 
Thanks for the info

The beaches in south floridas east coast have been horrendous. Very little. Lots of junk, foil scrap metal, an occasional coin. Hope it gets better soon.
 
I agree .... a lot comes from experience or just knowing your beach. Targets tell the story. Also, most machines run really pretty smooth in new sand... the closer to hard pan (black sand) the more unstable it gets and chatty. We've got a ton of it now from outer sand bars... it just takes the top off them and theres nothing in the sand. Winter sometimes changes that.......with a larger tide difference at low tide you get heavier waves...... where it cuts and where the targets move or get uncovered can change daily. Hard to get our normal near shore cuts because of all the sand pushed up...... but that makes hunting those normally high bank areas better..... it pushes the sand more onto shore.
 
Salt water beaches that are flat, smooth and have few shells or rocks are probably sanded. Dig a large scoop and see how many shells are in the scoop. If there are no shells then that is your clue. If there are lots of shells, especially old crusty shells with barnacles then you are in the right place.
 
If you dont see any other detectorists,...Its sanded in! :laughing: Drive around until you see three or four of them in one stretch...then go out there and introduce yourself...make sure you drop a lot of pennies, thats sort of the polite way of saying 'hello' in detectorville...:laughing: Thats what I do...just look for the other hunters that appear to know what they are doing and join right in! Why re-invent the wheel?:laughing:
 
They have all described it pretty well,,,,,,two best points is Imma saying if you aren't getting many targets, test scoop the sand and look for shells,,,,,but as Dew says,,,,learn and know your beach,,,,just because that one area where there is no shell, knowing how your area of beach reacts to different wind directions, you may just need to take a little walk and find some hard pan and digging,,,,,GL HH
 
Here's a few ways to know if it's sanded in:

If you walk on the wet intertidal zone, esp. down at the ebbing surf's edge, and you notice that your footsteps "sink" in (ie.: spongy to the walk), then you know it's sanded in. But if it's firm and hard to the step, that's sanded "out". Firm to the point that you can almost imagine riding a 10-speed racing-tires bicycle on it.

Also: If the waves are glassy blue, that's a bad sign. But if the waves are brown, that's good. Brown waves means the sand has been being pulled OFF the beach.
 
Larry they are...... keeps trying to recover, but about time it does.... here comes the Summer wind shifts that stops all the sand from moving South. Another thing that creates issues here in Fl with all these wind shift is sea weed. It pile up in the low spots and collects black sand. That causes a lot of falsing and lose of depth.
 
Thanks for all the tips. South Florida ocean beaches must be really sanded in.:(

If you are in South Florida and the area still has lots of tourist traffic, then its fair game for finding fresh drops. If you wait for perfect conditions, you'll be elbow-to-elbow in competition with hundreds of other locals and snow birds that also waiting for "perfect" conditions.

My last three golds were found only a few inches from the surface during "Sanded-in" conditions.

Also, the more you visit a beach, the better you'll be able to read the beach.
 
Truth is you CAN find good stuff anywhere, any time at the beach. Its just that the odds of finding what you want are usually poor to worse. The few great days a year will require lottery level luck, a spy or near daily hunting. At least that's my experience hunting the same beach 3 to 4 days a week year round for 6 years.
 
Truth is you CAN find good stuff anywhere, any time at the beach. Its just that the odds of finding what you want are usually poor to worse. The few great days a year will require lottery level luck, a spy or near daily hunting. At least that's my experience hunting the same beach 3 to 4 days a week year round for 6 years.


Completely agree...... but in doing so you learn the beach, how it behaves, hot spots, and you'll notice when things change.......

Your neck of the woods is prime for year around hunting - just accept that you'll find more when the beaches are slammed and less during the winter.

If all else fails just grab your passport and jump over to the Bahamas for a weekend..... you're only a 3 hour (or is it 4) boat trip right?
 
On the wetsand if you dig a hole and the walls almost start caving in immediately them there is likely an abundance of light sand that would typically move with ocean currents. Typically items lost in the past will be sitting under this layer.
That light sand might still hold some items such as flat pendants, coins, some 10k/14k.
Best to hit the spots where people are swimming when it was highest tide in conditions like that
 
Get yourself a drone, fly it out and up and down the beach above the water, look for dark areas..could be a low spot or seaweed but it does give you a idea of whats going on faster and you can move to the next if you don't see what your looking for..or sharks, a good reason to move on also..
 
just a clue

biloxi ms is a man made beach. they dredge the off shore channel and pump it on the beach to maintain the 300 ft with for federal funding. back in the eightys before i played with detectors the derdged the biloxi small craft harbor and pumped it to the east end of deer island. deer sits 75 to 100 yds off the mouth of biloxi bay. in the process they ran over the ludlow, a mail ship that sank at port. a friend and i walked the discharge area and found clay tobacco pipes sea cocks and iorn bits laying on top. if your over that way check with the bureau of marine resources, it used to be privately owned
 
Back
Top Bottom