Cherry Picking vs. Digging it all

[longbow62]

I am pretty much a cherry picker. I have found over 10 years of detecting and using the top detectors and also digging with friends that also use top detectors that "digging it all" is a waste of time. Now in certain places you can clean up sites a bit of shallow nonferrous if you have the time and patience but it is so rare that I get any surprises when I dig a target that I have come to the conclusion digging it all is not at all worth the trouble. I cherry pick targets by I.D. and depth. I'm a coin hunter so cherry picking deep coins is what I do in yards and parks. In iron infested farm fields I still dig almost all nonferrous regardless of depth. In 10 years of digging I can count on one hand when the target I dug had an I.D. pulled down by iron. In my experience with state of the art SMF detectors 99% of the time the detector either gives you a correct I.D. or does not see the mask target at all. At a certain site that has produced many pre-Civil War coins and buttons when we find them the I.D.s are correct. Cleaning the site of big iron and scrap nonferrous has not upped or finds either at this site. I'll save my time and effort concetrating on looking for targets with good I.D.s.

 

[Silver_Seeker]

Interesting.

If you cherry-pick and only dig "good signals" then yes, you're likely to only find good items. This becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, but does not make it true that modern machines can eliminate junk and only find good targets, it just doesn't work that way.

Now, I'm not going to tell you that I always dig it all, because I don't. But I do dig it all often. On my most recent hunt, I dug a shallow pull-tab signal - because it was shallow - and was rewarded with a 10K ring. If I'd ignored the shallow pull-tab signal and only cherry-picked the good targets, then I could have incorrectly deducted that my machine was great at cherry-picking the good signals from the bad. And I would have left gold in the ground at $4,500 oz.

There are not a lot of "dig it all, every time" guys out there. But to suggest it is a waste of time is intellectually dishonest. Just my 2C.

 

[Rattlehead]

When I was younger and in better health, I’d dig most tight repeatable targets regardless of ID or depth. Of course it depended on the site. On some spots like trashy curb strips or parks, it just doesn’t make sense to dig it all due to the sheer amount of trash in the ground.

Now that I’m old with health problems, I have no choice but to cherry pick, usually discriminating by size and depth. I’ll spend about 45 minutes scouting a new site to get an idea how deep the older stuff is running, then concentrate on tight non-ferrous targets at that depth or deeper. It’s not perfect and I’m sure I miss some good stuff, but I can only dig so many holes nowadays before I’m in too much pain to continue. It is what it is.

 

[FreeBirdTim]

If I cherry picked, I would have missed out on so many great finds. The 14k gold watch I found last year rang up 72 on my AT Pro, due to all the copper and brass gears inside the watch. And my rarest find was a 1785 copper bar cent, which would be worth at least 10k if it was in better condition. Not to mention all my great iron finds, like a Rev War era stirrup, late 1700's flintlock plate and early 1800's trade axe.

 

[Cherry Picker]

There is always going to be a chance you may miss something good, ALWAYS. Even digging it all doesn't assure you didn't miss that something special. That is why the fact remains that no place is completely cleaned out.


When you have medical issues, digging it all isn't always an option anyway. I spent my time digging it all, and I don't regret it one bit, but I did learn from years of it.

 

[Iggyks]

I've found a shallow Barber half and a shallow Walking Liberty on public ground I've always figured were passed over by cherry pickers.

 

[LovestheShiny!]

Doing mostly people's front yards, I do cherry pick to some degree. I do not want to pepper the yard with spots where I've disturbed the turf, even though I do a very good job on that. That is my guideline for detecting a home from the early 1950s thru the 1940s, I do cherry pick quite a bit as chances of something really old are most likely just not there. As the date of the home gets older, I expand my strike zone and chase any solid signal above iron. Have found some rings, odd costume jewelry, and other neat stuff, early nickels, etc by doing that.

 

[BUCKETMOUTH]

I have only been metal detecting for 10 weeks, vs your 10 years. Using my Legend 2, I got aggravated digging "21"s because it was ALWAYS foil. My wife took her dads 14k #1 DAD charm that she got when he passed and buried it shallow in our yard, and put a stone near it as a marker so she could easily recover it as a safety measure and told me she thinks there is something in the area, could I use my machine and try to find it cuz her machine was acting up. Well, she set ME up. Swung over it and refused to dig it cuz it ID'ed at 21. She asked me to try anyhow. Well,,,,, she taught me a good lesson. I learned the right 14k target could ID at that #. Looks like I will be digging foil again, lol.

Obviously I am a newb, but newbs sometimes think outside the box and have good luck with different things because they aren't restrained by prior information. To each there own. Do what makes you happy.

 

[The Bushwhacker Detectorist]

Digging it all. Whenever I get a permission, I always start with no discrimination, because a lot of people who only dig for the good signal's, miss out on the cool historical iron stuff, like old steel knives etc. recently, I was detecting some woods, and I hit a super solid -19. So I dug it up and it was these cool, 1915-1930s safety goggles.

 

[sube]

If I cherry picked, I would have missed out on so many great finds. The 14k gold watch I found last year rang up 72 on my AT Pro, due to all the copper and brass gears inside the watch. And my rarest find was a 1785 copper bar cent, which would be worth at least 10k if it was in better condition. Not to mention all my great iron finds, like a Rev War era stirrup, late 1700's flintlock plate and early 1800's trade axe.

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I would be digging a lot more where you live compared to where I live . sube

 

[sube]

As far as digging it all go for it the more trash and foil you dig the less time you have to find good targets .
When the good targets are gone there will be plenty of time to dig the thrash numbers .sube

 

[The Bushwhacker Detectorist]

As far as digging it all go for it the more trash and foil you dig the less time you have to find good targets .
When the good targets are gone there will be plenty of time to dig the thrash numbers .sube

I also say learn the machine. Alot of times, in my experience, foil and crushed cans, have a very bouncy number. Secondly, in woods, when there’s little to no plowing, the old stuff, tends to be deeper, like 3 arrows deep. Anything on top tends to be modern junk. Just my experience though.

 

[stetam]

Different locations equal different schools of thought. I live in the country and mainly hunt fields and woods so I dig it all. I luckily don’t live in or hunt a city where you have to cherry pick more often.

 

[TexasDigs]

I cherry pick and dig it all. The question is when to use either strategy. For me if I am looking for old coins at a site I can return to and work for weeks I start off cherry picking the site with multiple coil sizes then as things dry up I start digging iffy signals and last the very iron mixed signals. its fun and it works for me. Jewelry on the beach is mostly dig it all but not every time because of conditions or time. Jewelry in the park is both but location withing the park matters a lot.

The great part of it all is I can follow other hunters and still find stuff because you dont know the strategy they are using. There is no perfect way.

 

[markinmichigan]

Here's the ugly truth, if you don't dig every "semi" decent tone you hear you WILL leave keepers in the ground. When I started I dug every single signal. And got lots of coins, rings and cool sh*t. As my life got more complicated with family issues, my digging time has gone way down. I'm finding myself "cherry picking" for silver as my time detecting is so limited. SO, dig it all until you know your detector inside and out. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Vethraxx]

How bad do you want all those gum foils people roll into little balls.

 

[sube]

Never had that problem it was just gum wrappers the paper rots off and your left with a micro thin piece of aluminum disappears when you dig . sube

 

[longbow62]

On an iron infested relic site where good finds can be of a big range of I.D.s I do dig it all, but was saying even though I have dug thousands and thousands of targets in the iron I dig very few valuable targets where the I.D. was pulled down by trash or iron. Does that make sense? Also digging for gold is not what I do, but I totally understand people who want to find gold have to dig almost everything.

 

[Big Boys Hobbies]

If I cherry picked, I would have missed out on so many great finds. The 14k gold watch I found last year rang up 72 on my AT Pro, due to all the copper and brass gears inside the watch. And my rarest find was a 1785 copper bar cent, which would be worth at least 10k if it was in better condition. Not to mention all my great iron finds, like a Rev War era stirrup, late 1700's flintlock plate and early 1800's trade axe.

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Great post here! And agreed... gotta gable sometimes....

 

[longbow62]

I've found a shallow Barber half and a shallow Walking Liberty on public ground I've always figured were passed over by cherry pickers.

This is absolutely true and I have seen it happen on an ultra shallow Barber quarter a buddy found, but when the trend is 95% of silver is much deeper I'll still pass on the shallower targets and be cool with missing out on a few odd silver coins. Like others have said it depends on the site. One of the main things I was trying to emphasize was I have had so few good targets/coins come up because their I.D. was obscured by another close target I don't think digging it all is worth it in the long run when I could be concentrating on finding and digging good I.D.s.