Should I take my F70 to the beach?

Well, yeah! I would add...go all retro on this strategy...focus on the dry sand areas that do not get hit by the waterbabies with their heavy gear...We call it the 'High Dry'...thats where the F70 really shines on account of its so light..

Off to the side high sand swales, little private pockets in the dune grass where lovers like to set up shop...Generally they are downwind from the main beach entrance, but you sort of got to try to find them...the condom wrappers, cig butts, screwoffs, will tell you if you are in the pay...

People walk down that entrance and generally head in a direction with the prevailing wind at their back...Folks that lay out grocery stores study and know that people like to travel in certain directions...so thats how you do it to find those travel zones..think about Human behavior and it becomes a very fun way to hit a place to see if your 'read' on it is correct...

All you need is a light weight sandscoop and some sort of nail apron...just back off from the obvious main areas a little that you know have been swept...look for those areas that get some traffic, but seldom see a coil...the trash will tell you right away...

Regarding coils, I use the 11"dd on the F70, so probably something like that...the Thunder may be too big? Unless you are covering the towel line...If so, sort of hunch down, wide legged like, swaying side to side with your upper body....Get a good rhythm going on the swing, see how wide a swath you can cut with a big steady arc...

I cut an honest 12' swath down and back, with a 270 degree wrap around...Nice and comfortable, let the momentum of the coil do the work...when you get some hits, of course slow down and work that area...Delta Pitch! 1 disc ...

You wanna hear foil! Iron for knives, bobby pins...you really wanna pull all signals, no matter what they sound like...you have to follow those little trails up into the dune grass...you gotta find those High Dry little nests!

So yeah..cutting a big arc until you get into some paydirt....in DP you can hunt heads up and keep a lookout for where you need to be going...

My first big gold find was with the F70 doing exactly what I outlined here....paid for the rig about a month after I bought it...

Mud-puppy said:

Well, yeah! I would add...go all retro on this strategy...focus on the dry sand areas that do not get hit by the waterbabies with their heavy gear...We call it the 'High Dry'...thats where the F70 really shines on account of its so light..

Off to the side high sand swales, little private pockets in the dune grass where lovers like to set up shop...Generally they are downwind from the main beach entrance, but you sort of got to try to find them...the condom wrappers, cig butts, screwoffs, will tell you if you are in the pay...

People walk down that entrance and generally head in a direction with the prevailing wind at their back...Folks that lay out grocery stores study and know that people like to travel in certain directions...so thats how you do it to find those travel zones..

All you need is a light weight sandscoop and some sort of nail apron...just back off from the obvious main areas a little that you know have been swept...look for those areas that get some traffic, but seldom see a coil...

I use my 11"dd on the F70, so probably something like that...the Thunder may be too big? Unless you are covering the towel line...If so, sort of hunch down, wide legged like, swaying side to side....Get a good rhythm going on the swing, see how wide a swath you can cut with a big steady arc...I cut an honest 12' swath down and back, with a 270 degree wrap around...Nice and comfortable, let the momentum of the coil do the work...when you get some hits, of course slow down and work that area...Delta Pitch!

Click to expand...

Thanks for the tips Mud! I'm excited to try it out on a real beach even if it's not the ideal machine. I'm of the mind "run what you brung"

According to the manual this thing supposedly GB's all the way down to salt but I myself have never tried.
If you can get that thing balanced way down, 10 or under would be great, and turn the frequency up to 7 that might surprise you.
Wet black sand is your enemy, dry regular sand should not be a problem.

Here is some old advice using an F75 in this thread that seems to work from Tinfoil...
http://www.findmall.com/read.php?37,617795,618873#msg-618873

The flagship can manual GB down low but the F70 cannot, still, it is possible to fool it into balancing low if it won't go that far using the regular pumping method.
If you can find something around the ol' homestead that you can balance over, maybe a small piece of iron that is not rusted, I have a hot rock I found once that can do it, it might be possible to get into single digits fairly easily using something like this.
Then you can get into the wet and hopefully get deep.

This is the one environment I haven't had a chance to try my F70 in so far so curious on how all this stuff would actually work.
Confidence is high that you would do a bit better than that Compadre...maybe a lot better but the Compadre would still be fun but with less depth.

Beach sweeping is very tough Work! Miles and miles between pings sometimes...Go out early before the heat comes on...I'm barefoot and in shorts on account of thats the most efficient way for a Hominid to travel dry sand...at least for this Hominid..

Use all your senses...look for heavy recent activity like cooler tracks, diapers, whatnot...anything that can lead you to the pay...search via satellite even...find the nearest beach access close to a bar....hotels, whatever...its a lot of work and a guy has to travel light and cover a LOT of productive ground in a hurry...You know right away if you are on the pay...

Last Fall, a guy up here hunted the parking lot edges at a very heavily hunted main beach......The Big Lake was too rough to water hunt, so he dikked around hunting the dry sand at the parking lot edges...He hit a big Gold Class ring! Right there in all that trash! So yeah...get on the foil and tabs if you can find them, in dry sanding, they are your FRIEND!

Small light sandscoop with @ a 3' handle...Like that yellow one in the attached picture...just perfect for the Ricky Bobby beach Shake and Bake!

DIGGER27 said:

According to the manual this thing supposedly GB's all the way down to salt but I myself have never tried.
If you can get that thing balanced way down, 10 or under would be great, and turn the frequency up to 7 that might surprise you.
Wet black sand is your enemy, dry regular sand should not be a problem.

Here is some old advice using an F75 in this thread that seems to work from Tinfoil...
http://www.findmall.com/read.php?37,617795,618873#msg-618873

The flagship can manual GB down low but the F70 cannot, still, it is possible to fool it into balancing low if it won't go that far using the regular pumping method.
If you can find something around the ol' homestead that you can balance over, maybe a piece of iron that is not rusted, it might be possible to get into single digits fairly easily.
Then you can get into the wet and hopefully get deep.

This is the one environment I haven't had a chance to try my F70 in so far so curious on how all this stuff would actually work.
Confidence is high that you would do a bit better than that Compadre...maybe a lot better but the Compadre would still be fun but with less depth.

Click to expand...

Thanks Digger! I read and then bookmarked that link. That gives me hope! In the manual, it says you have to ground balance in All metal mode and turn the sense down below 30. You can then run in disc mode with the disc set above 20. We're only going for 4 days so not sure how much time I'll actually have to detect, but hopefully I'll find something.

If you want to try your F70 on the wet salt, or even sweeping the riffle or shallows, use a tab or nickel and set up accordingly...Once you know the limitations you are dealing with, both in depth and target feedback, hunt away!

The F70 has so many features, (Thresh, HZ, Tones)...do a little practice to find the optimal settings for the situation at hand....You should be able to find some settings that allow you to hunt better than any other single freaker who didnt take the time to do this obvious parameter evaluation.......

At least it will give you an idea of your machines limitations so you can hunt accordingly....It might only be 3" effective depth, but what the hell?..You gotta better chance of finding Gold than some armchair expert sitting at the house typing away on the computer!

"Gold is no respector of effort or Intelligence'....

We have seen some pretty nice big chains posted here that were eyefinds by the multifreak guys, laying right on the deck, ...yet their 'Top O the Line' rig was completely blind to them...so yeah..Take your F70 and give it a go...Report back what you learn ....

Just know this, GOLD is a Cruel Mistress! She often rewards undergunned and stupid prey, just to embrace you in her icy grip, capture your Soul and kill you later at Her leisure...Thats what She has done to me anyway!...

So yeah, take your F70...try to appear as stupid as possible, stumble around in flip flops...and you got a great chance of finding Gold...!

I used my f70 in dry sand and it worked well. It has a beach program built in.