A note of inspiration for new folks - Long and boring

We have a lot of new people on the boards. Heck, I have only been seriously swinging since June and I already feel like a vet around here. I had an interesting weekend detecting I learned a very valuable lesson and wanted to share it with our newest members.

Our hobby has a very high turnover rate. In my opinion, most attrition is caused by people getting discouraged when they fail to find anything during a couple of outings.

I don't know how many hours I've detected but it's a lot considering my length of experience. In addition, I have a couple of things working against me. I am in a small town, that while old, has always been small. My wife and I recently moved here, so I havent had enough time here to develop a sound understanding of town history. Still, I am learning.

Saturday I headed out with TNHunter. He obtained permission for us to hunt a farm where CW relics have been found, including a plate. We know that there was civil war activity in the area. We even had the find are pinned down to a 1/4 acre of pasture.

We spent 6 hours detecting non-stop. We hunted hard. In the end, my take for the day was a potentially old fired mini ball and a 2005 memorial cent !

I got home and decided to head back out. I have a partner in the contest and he is is responsible for the majority of our score. I know I don't have the experience that he does. Still, I have been pouring my heart and soul in to my hunts to support the team in whatever capacity I may.

I went to the lot down the street from my house. I have found a number of wheat cents and also my first liberty dime (1942). While pickings are slim, just a few older coins here can help with our score.

Four hours later, I had a few clad and nothing else exciting. I went home pretty dejected. Ten hours of hard hunting, digging every signal and I had little to show for it.

I woke up Monday morning really sore. Explained to my wife that I needed to head out again as I had to put some points on the board or die trying. I decided that I had beat down many of my regular sites and needed to try some new locations. I perused the net and my notes and saw a couple of old schools that I had never gotten a chance to check out. Popped a few aspirin and headed out.

I hit three locations. The first two were very clean. It was clear that someone regularly worked the area. Heck, I wasn't even finding can slaw which told me that the person or persons detecting were very thorough. I did have to silently tip my hat to them. Any time a site is this thoroughly worked, I smile. You learn a lot going over previously detected spots. You get an excellent feel for the level of experience of those that have detected before you. You recognize the good detectorists.

The third location was the same. Nary a quality target. I had a box full of trash but my pull tab count was 4 times higher than my clad count.

I was done. I walked back to the truck beat up and filthy. As I sat in the car scratching my mosquito bites and enjoying the air conditioning, I spied a small set of bleachers not 20 feet from the car. I just wanted to go home and get a shower. I remember thinking that a serious detectorist would drag those bleachers over a bit and have at it. Still, the thought of crushing three vertebre to find a few more pulltabs did not sound like fun.

Grumbling under my breath, I dragged my sorry carcass out of the truck and grabbed my detector. I meandered over to the bleachers. Just as I had suspected, someone had already moved the bleachers. I could clearly see the drag marks in the grass. I started to head back to the truck and then decided to move it anyway.

So I huffed a puffed away, bent over, dragging each side of the bleachers six inches or so at a time. Even though I was out in the field, I was embarassed by the fact that my shorts were slipping and I was sunning waaay too much butt crack. And we all know that crack kills ! :lol:

I fired up the detecter yet again. Swing, swing, beep, pull tab. Swing, swing, beep, can slaw. Swing, swing, beep, WTH ? I got an 89 VDI reading. Silver. Now an 89 doesn't ever show on my VDI. If you spend enough time with your detector, you become very familiar with common readings.

I swung at 90 degrees assuming that someone had buried a large VW in the field. 89 again. Interestingly, the signal was coming from the exact spot where one of the bleacher skids rested.

I dug a plug, peeled it back and looked in disbelief at a ring staring up at me. I just sat there dumbfounded. I picked up the ring to get a better look. It was a man's ring and large. It said DAD. I cleaned the dirt off and saw that it was stamped inside 925 and India ! Finally, some redemption !

Now we all know that the ring has no real material value. Still, you'd have thought I just found a cache of double eagles. Oh yeah, I did the dance.

A little Fred Astaire followed by a Gene Kelly Singing in the Rain move off the bleachers. I then had to bust a move on some MC Hammer, and close with a little Icky Shuffle. There where far too many ant piles or I would have surely closed with a little Rock Lobster roll on the ground.

I told this stupid story about a mediocre find as I learned a very valuable lesson. Everyone has lulls. The successful folks on our forum work through those lulls. They change locations grind through it. That's what separates those that find from those who don't.

I hope this helps someone. Hang with it. Your next find is just a swing away. Or 5 swings, or maybe 500. Still, your treasure is there. Quietly buried and waiting for you to shine a little light on it.

Here's the only pic I have right now. Camera died.

001-13-1.jpg

Nice story! Never dawned on me to pull the bleachers out while detecting.:no:
Thanks for the tip and congrats on the ring!:grin:
 
Hey Tinfoil,

Excellent post and oh so true. In addition to the slumps, this hobby does have a learning curve and getting through it means a lot in terms of your success rate.

For example, I bought my first detector (Fisher CZ-70) 5-6 years ago. In the first 2 years of using it, I found only 1 ring (plated and nothing special). You wanna talk about discouraged. Obviously I didn't speak my detector's language and probably wasn't hunting in the right places.

Fast forward to the present and my success rate these days is much better. I attribute that success to spending lots of time swinging my detector and spending the rest of the time reading posts on this forum. It's called studying and it's not just for school kids.

We've all had days like TinFoil described. It's all part of the adventure and how you deal with the bad days is key to your success in this hobby. My advice to people new to detecting is to be doggedly persistent and study the habits of those who are successful. There are hundreds, if not thousands of tips on this forum site alone - and any one of them can make the difference between a good day and a bad day out detecting.

Learning to speak your detector's language is no different than learning any language. At first, everything sounds foreign, then little pieces start to make sense, and eventually you understand the data stream and subtle nuances coming through your headphones.

Happy hunting!

Well Said....
 
I agree with someone saying great story. Nice find. I don't know what kind of ring I found smashed just under the dirt up close to a tree root but it doesn't get drawn to a magnet. No .925 on the inside. Mens ring and has a nice weight to it. Little bands of the same metal running around the main band of metal. Its scrap whatever it is as I wouldn't pay to have it fixed.

M6 by White's Greenville Michigan Mike
 
Sounds like me all over.I was angry all the time and was asking myself what the point was.Family members would poke fun of me with my pockets full of scrap aluminum.Then I found a couple very productive spots and it has sparked my desire to detect all over again.:D
 
Part of the hobby

Thanks for the story. As I am new and about to dive I am fully aware from what I have read to expect this. I already have some experienced in this from my other hobby of fishing. I have been skunked on the Missouri River more times than I can remember. But I keep coming back to try because I love what I am doing and enjoy being outdoors away from the normal daily grind that is life. It is stories like yours that let me know that everyone has good days and bad days and it is the really good days that make up for all those bad ones.

Dan
 
Good post

I'm a newbie with around 5 weeks. My search areas have been so bad it took me 3 days to find my first pull tab, and four days to find my first (only one) Zinc penny. Yesterday I searched my first Tot Lot, its a very small fairly new area. I found 8 newer coins, 1 nickle, 2 dimes, and five zincolns. Oldest was in the late 80s. I needed those finds and Your story to bring some enthusiasm back... Thanks,,, Good Luck and Happy Hunting...:digginahole:
 
You speak the truth. It's been 15 years off and on for me and only a few noteable coins. The research is what keeps me going. I love finding that hot spot only to be disappointed. My kids are getting interested but want old coins. Our first trip yielded 5 wheats and a buffalo nickel. My best day ever. I just don't have the days like some people post. I think the hype of these incredible finds is bad for the hobby. Do people really have those kinds of finds consistantly like they lead you to believe?:?:
 
Excellent post. I guess the lack of finds sometimes also depends on your self motivation which is true for success in anything in life. I've been doing this for about 6 years now and I have a museum room full of goodies to show for it. Having found what I did early on in detecting drove me further and harder for the next detecting session. Even if I got skunked on a couple of 6 hour hunts, I knew the stuff was out there because I had found it before and I knew there was still plenty to be had.
Case in point for yesterday: I had hunted for about three hours with nothing to show for it. I could have gone home frustrated right there, but I wasn't about to go home while the sun was still shining. Suddenly after three hours, in quick succession-- Bam-- old religious medallion, Bam-- 1892 Indian head, ---Bam-- My first US box plate in great shape--Bam Bam-- my second musket butt plate. I knew stuff was there but had to wade through three hours of nothing before being rewarded generously. It's definitely a hit and miss hobby, but just stick with it and you WILL be rewarded.
 
I keep displays on the walls of neat finds from the years. Then when I get downhearted , due to not finding much, I look at my displays and it gets me going again. Good post Tin, Steve in so az
 
Great story! And it is true, the other day i was about to stop digging nickel signals and just as i was about to head out i found a V nickel.
 
Thanks again. I needed this. Started to lose motivation. After weeks of research, I thought I was wasting my time. I guess it takes more patients than I thought.
 
If i could get 10 cents a pound for my nails id be rich, or even 5 cents a pound for my ring pulls and ive only been detecting for less then a month, but every time i even pull out a memorial it gives me a 5 hour energy, let alone getting some old wheatie or even something i cant tell, even getting happy at finding a fish hook at 10" in wet sand because at least it means my MD is running right and doing its job.

Digging up nails when youve walked half a mile into the trees and uphill might seem like its not worth it but a simple mini ball or something even quarter decent can make your day, i was happily digging away for two hours in the rain because my finds were no longer foil or ring pulls...even days like that are good days for the hobby...you feel like your digging with a purpose and not just collecting the trash.

Tip though even after only a few weeks...when doing parks get a smaller coin...i can walk the park on my knees cos theres only ever a couple of feet between pings...its the experience that says "Dont dig this one", something i still havnt learned and have a trash can full of ring pulls and rusted nails to prove it..:D
 
Liked your post..........the thing with metal detecting is you never know what you're going to find , or where you're going to find it. Every single beep is filled with anticipation of what's down there. For me , every pull tab I find means one less I'll have to dig for in the future LOL. I wear a gold ring on my finger that I found metal detecting and if I ever get tired and discouraged, I glance down at it and see the diamonds sparkling back at me and I receive a new surge of hope that lifts my spirit. Never give up!!!
 
Now that is funny! I was laughing so hard people came into my office to see what was happening. I don't even know you but the dancing visual was great!
I'm very new to this, and I got discouraged by my second day. But it was mostly due to the extreme heat and horrid bugs.
And once I learn what all those sounds on the machine are.....I will post some pictures of my great finds!
 
Very good story, Tin. It's inspiring, and so true. You always have to keep looking, your treasure is out there somewhere. Great post, and congrats on the silver ring.
 
best hobby ever!!!

next time you do the MC hammer dance you should film it.. lol Yeah Iv'e been detecting less than a year.. I love this hobby! My girlfriend even thinks Im crazy how I go out 4 to 5 hours aday just to find clad. I dont really care because I have fun doing it. I love the feeling I get when I dig something cool. Whether it's iron junk or clad. I have fun doing it. The only frustrating thing I came across is understanding your metal detector. But with much practice Im begining to understand it. I have a coin master pro that was hard to understand at first being that it has no ground balance. But now I seem to understand it. I have also a garretts seahunter marks II that I love. But still I haven't found no gold or silver rings. But I know one surprising day it will happen..
 
Weeper

Score? Points? Metaphorical I guess. Wow, what a story. And in the end, dead batteries.

That was a weeper.
 
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