First beach hunting trip, and...

steveg · Oct 15, 2017

Well, we just completed or trip to Destin, FL, and my first crack at beach hunting.

First off, it was alot of fun. We arrived Sunday, the day after Hurricane Nate made landfall just west, near Biloxi, Mississippi. I hit the beach for several hours each day, Monday through Saturday morning (this morning).!

I was pleased to find that the E-Trac I borrowed from a friend (while my SE Pro was in the shop for repair) worked well on the beach...dry sand, wet sand, even shallow water, the machine did a good job.

However, I had a real hard time figuring things out. Having never beach hunted before, and having just had a hurricane come ashore, I don't know how much of the conditions i experienced were "normal." It seemed to me like there was a TON of sand on the beach, and huge sand bars just offshore. I couldnt figure out any "pattern," as there didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to where i was finding stuff. I would hunt way up on the dry sand, and dig a 12" deep beer bottle cap, and 5 feet away, dig a 6" deep crusty coin. On the sloping wet sand, I would dig a 6" deep pull tab, and a few feet away dig a lead fishing weight from the same depth. Not many targets in the wet sand, and along the towel/chair line the only "recent drops" I managed were modern coins and bottle caps/pull tabs. The only jewelry pieces were a large junk hoop earring, and a junk pendant.

I don't know what to take from this, as far as "lessons learned" for the next time. Don't know how "normal" or "abnormal" the beach conditions were, bur there seemed to be no "rhyme or reason" as to why things were in the places they were in. All types of targets in all strata and types of sand. Also, was very surprised that in 15-20 hours hunting, and the detector reaching a good 10 to 12" depth, and with several nickels dug plus lots of pull tabs, some foil, pieces of aluminum cans, zippers, lead weights, etc., that I dug no gold, and not even any silver. Seemed unusual to me, with that many hours hunting, no?

In any case, I enjoyed it; just not sure whether I should take any "lessons learned" from the trip, or if conditions were unusual and uncommon such that next trip would likely be totally different. Any thoughts?!

Steve

DaviDs · Oct 15, 2017

steveg said:
Well, we just completed or trip to Destin, FL, and my first crack at beach hunting.
... not sure whether I should take any "lessons learned" from the trip, or if conditions were unusual and uncommon such that next trip would likely be totally different. Any thoughts?!

Steve

Glad you had fun, Steve! Let's be honest, many of us have good equipment and even better "Blind luck". Now the folks that post good stuff on the regular, well, they've put in the time to understand the beach (usually their local beach). They can look at the shape of the dunes, the waves, the time of day or year, and how the targets are buried to discern the probability of finding the good stuff. It's something books can try to explain to help reduce the learning curve, nonetheless, it still takes time.

Anyhow, you brought a very capable FBS machine. If there was a good target within reach of your coil, you probably would have found it. Sometimes, there just wasn't any deposits....or competition beat you to the punch.

steveg · Oct 15, 2017

DaviDs said:
Glad you had fun, Steve! Let's be honest, many of us have good equipment and even better "Blind luck". Now the folks that post good stuff on the regular, well, they've put in the time to understand the beach (usually their local beach). They can look at the shape of the dunes, the waves, the time of day or year, and how the targets are buried to discern the probability of finding the good stuff. It's something books can try to explain to help reduce the learning curve, nonetheless, it still takes time.

Anyhow, you brought a very capable FBS machine. If there was a good target within reach of your coil, you probably would have found it. Sometimes, there just wasn't any deposits....or competition beat you to the punch.

Yeah, the machine did well. I got a few coins, and similar-sized targets, down beyond 10" deep. Depth wasn't an issue. And it was pretty stable, all told. It did well.

I did see a few other hunters on the beach; saw a guy two different days running a White's unit in the dry sand (black box, couldn't tell which one), and also a husband and wife team -- the guy had a machine I didn't recognize from a distance (with a yellow coil), and the wife had a CTX. So, yes, there was some competition.

But I think it was more the beach conditions than anything; I realize that it takes some degree of luck to put the coil over a good target, but I'd love to learn the skill part of understanding the beach, and in this case, I just don't know what to conclude, and save to the "memory banks," about the conditions. I feel like there was a TON of sand brought in by Nate, though I don't know for sure, and I just can't figure out why I was finding stuff where I was finding it. Some of the coins that were shiny, and in the dry sand, clearly those were recent drops. But other targets just seemed to have no rhyme or reason as to why they were where they were...like I said, several ounce lead sinkers at the same depth as pull tabs, and in very close proximity (i.e. both on the sloping wet sand, a dozen feet apart). Old crusty coins way up in the dry sand, and new, shiny ones way out at water's edge at lower tides...I just couldn't make much sense of things.

I don't know what to leave there with, as a "take-away" in terms of knowledge...

Steve

OBN · Oct 16, 2017

DaviDs said:
Glad you had fun, Steve! Let's be honest, many of us have good equipment and even better "Blind luck". Now the folks that post good stuff on the regular, well, they've put in the time to understand the beach (usually their local beach). They can look at the shape of the dunes, the waves, the time of day or year, and how the targets are buried to discern the probability of finding the good stuff. It's something books can try to explain to help reduce the learning curve, nonetheless, it still takes time.

Anyhow, you brought a very capable FBS machine. If there was a good target within reach of your coil, you probably would have found it. Sometimes, there just wasn't any deposits....or competition beat you to the punch.

I agree, it has taken me several years to get to where I can almost say I know what I am doing. Always a learning experience each trip out.

Caribbeanson · Oct 16, 2017

Welcome to the mysterious adventurous world of Beach Hunting

As David said, the books will help but its pretty much a matter of hitting a beach at different tides/times/seasons/weather patterns to figure out what works and what doesn't work.

There is a bit of science involved and sounds like you did a good job mentally cataloging your finds to try find some sort of pattern based on mass, weight, age etc. It does sound awkward that your finds were that random but perhaps the conditions from Nate just had everything mixed up like one big potato salad :yes:

steveg · Oct 16, 2017

Thanks to everyone who has chimed in thus far.

I'd LOVE to be able to understand the whole beach hunting thing. But WOW...I can see where it would take a LONG time to become even halfway decent at understanding -- on a given day -- where on the beach you should be focusing your efforts.

I'm a scientist, and so by nature I like to find the logic in things, and try to understand what's going on and why. And that's the frustrating thing here...I couldn't make heads or tails of anything. Caribbeanson, I like your word picture of "potato salad." That's kind of how it felt. The first day, I just wanted to hit the dry sand for a little while, look for some recent drops. And about 8" deep I found this dime that was about half the thickness of a normal dime, and much smaller in diameter. Clearly one that had been in the water a long time. Why was that way up in the dry sand? And at the same depth, or shallower, than I was digging aluminum screw caps and pull tabs?

Later, on the sloping wet sand at a lower tide time, I got one of those same thin dimes -- again, shallower than some of the lightweight junk I was digging. The fishing weights were found on two different days, also in the sloping wet sand. I went out and hit the sand bars, thinking maybe I'd hit a recent drop from folks out tossing balls and such in the water, but got virtually not targets at all in the offshore sand bars.

Hard, hard, hard to figure anything useful out.

Looking forward to trying it again some time. But I may need to hook up with someone who has some experience, so they can help me understand a few things...figuring it out on my own, with only the occasional beach trip to learn from, might take forever!

Steve

canwedigit · Oct 16, 2017

...also a husband and wife team -- the guy had a machine I didn't recognize from a distance (with a yellow coil), and the wife had a CTX...

If that's the pair I think it is, the wife part of the team has rings on every finger. Could be nicknamed Ringo. You should have paid attention to them. Swing style and MD speed of swing, distance to the sand from the MD head, speed of travel of the search, distance from the waterline etc. I see them spending a lot of time on the wet & dry sand near the wet sand in the last 5 or so years. .

steveg · Oct 16, 2017

canwedigit said:
...also a husband and wife team -- the guy had a machine I didn't recognize from a distance (with a yellow coil), and the wife had a CTX...

If that's the pair I think it is, the wife part of the team has rings on every finger. Could be nicknamed Ringo. You should have paid attention to them. Swing style and MD speed of swing, distance to the sand from the MD head, speed of travel of the search, distance from the waterline etc. I see them spending a lot of time on the wet & dry sand near the wet sand in the last 5 or so years. .

They were just walking by, at a good clip, when I saw them. Obviously headed to some spot farther down the beach. I had my head down swinging, and they came from behind me and by the time I noticed, they were past -- or I would have talked to them. A couple hundred yards down the beach, a guy stopped them and talked to them, and then later the same guy talked to me. He told me they told him they hunt every weekend, and its like a "second income" for them, so they MUST do really well.

Anyway, had I seen them in the act of hunting, you can bet I would have been watching everything very closely. I realize how much in need of education I am when it comes to this aspect of the hobby, and I was sorry I wasn't able to "see them in action."

Steve

dewcon · Oct 17, 2017

Without being helter schelter out there you learn to GET A FEEL for it by watching the people and what you are digging. A lot of it is in fact timing..... so that means beach time. Conditions for the WEEK can give you a good idea as to where people are going out there and what they are doing..... are they shallow or deep.... are they just walking out in cooler water waist deep and going back and setting down. Its not as simple as some make it sound....... i went out for my lunch hour and brought home a half dozen golds. No one reads the beach that well. I learn more form the targets...... or lack of. Areas are different too....... bay, gulf, E/W coast.....minerals, iron, and trash. When first starting out...... hit the big beaches with lots of people and be willing to kick everything but a bottle cap and iron.

steveg · Oct 17, 2017

dewcon said:
Without being helter schelter out there you learn to GET A FEEL for it by watching the people and what you are digging. A lot of it is in fact timing..... so that means beach time. Conditions for the WEEK can give you a good idea as to where people are going out there and what they are doing..... are they shallow or deep.... are they just walking out in cooler water waist deep and going back and setting down. Its not as simple as some make it sound....... i went out for my lunch hour and brought home a half dozen golds. No one reads the beach that well. I learn more form the targets...... or lack of. Areas are different too....... bay, gulf, E/W coast.....minerals, iron, and trash. When first starting out...... hit the big beaches with lots of people and be willing to kick everything but a bottle cap and iron.

dewcon --

NO, it's not "easy" at all. I didn't expect it to be, but it was tougher than I thought.

I did try to watch the people; I watched where they went in the water, I watched what they did in the water, I watched where they laid towels on dry sand, I watched where chairs and umbrellas were set up...

I tried hunting up and down the chair lines in the evenings when the hotel/resort chairs and umbrellas were put up for the night (following the holes where the umbrellas were inserted in the sand), I tried hunting where sunbathers put their towels, I tried the sloping wet sand, the sand bars, the troughs between sand bar and beach, I tried the water line during times of lower tide...

My hope was that I'd start to figure out some "pattern" as to the where's and why's of the finds that I was making. I really never did. I just seemed random, and in addition to being "random," the finds were also really "sparse." I guess what surprised me most was how QUIET the beach was, overall. I eventually set the E-Trac to discriminate -- in addition to iron -- the very lowest conductive numbers (which were where all of the mineral "falsing" was happening on my machine -- sub-foil numbers), and once that was done, I could go for 20 minutes or half hour at times, with not a single target registering on the machine.

I look forward to trying it again at some point, but I'm not convinced I am ANY closer to understanding ANYTHING about beach/water hunting than I was a week ago!

Steve

Caribbeanson · Oct 17, 2017

steveg said:
dewcon --

NO, it's not "easy" at all. I didn't expect it to be, but it was tougher than I thought.

I did try to watch the people; I watched where they went in the water, I watched what they did in the water, I watched where they laid towels on dry sand, I watched where chairs and umbrellas were set up...

I tried hunting up and down the chair lines in the evenings when the hotel/resort chairs and umbrellas were put up for the night (following the holes where the umbrellas were inserted in the sand), I tried hunting where sunbathers put their towels, I tried the sloping wet sand, the sand bars, the troughs between sand bar and beach, I tried the water line during times of lower tide...

My hope was that I'd start to figure out some "pattern" as to the where's and why's of the finds that I was making. I really never did. I just seemed random, and in addition to being "random," the finds were also really "sparse." I guess what surprised me most was how QUIET the beach was, overall. I eventually set the E-Trac to discriminate -- in addition to iron -- the very lowest conductive numbers (which were where all of the mineral "falsing" was happening on my machine -- sub-foil numbers), and once that was done, I could go for 20 minutes or half hour at times, with not a single target registering on the machine.

I look forward to trying it again at some point, but I'm not convinced I am ANY closer to understanding ANYTHING about beach/water hunting than I was a week ago!

Steve

Wowzers 20 minutes without a target, I worry about the machine not being on/calibrated after 8 or 10 steps :laughing:

I like the reality in this thread. Beach hunting is not the gold laden jackpot category of detecting that some make it out to be; but it is an adventure, and its nice being near the water seeing/discovering other things along the way, if nature isn't your thing there are usually other sights and sounds nearby as well :lol:

steveg · Oct 17, 2017

Caribbeanson said:
Wowzers 20 minutes without a target, I worry about the machine not being on/calibrated after 8 or 10 steps

I like the reality in this thread. Beach hunting is not the gold laden jackpot category of detecting that some make it out to be; but it is an adventure, and its nice being near the water seeing/discovering other things along the way, if nature isn't your thing there are usually other sights and sounds nearby as well

Caribbeanson -- yes, the way I had the E-Trac set up, to eliminate the very low-tone falsing, and to eliminate nails/iron, there were many areas where there were very few targets (foil or above in terms of ID). Most of the time, it wasn't as long as 20 to 30 minutes between targets, but 10 to 15 minutes without a target was quite common. I imagine, based on your signature, that you run a PI machine, and yes -- with no discrimination on a PI unit, I imagine your hunts are a bit "noisier" than mine were! FWIW, I was hitting targets 10-12" deep, and recovered plenty of small, low-conductive targets (clumps of foil, shards of aluminum cans, zipper pulls, etc.) so the machine was doing what I wanted it to (except for finding gold, that is, LOL!)

But indeed, I enjoyed it overall. The chance for a good find was always there, and I do enjoy the "nature" part of things too...I kept several shells of interest, I watched the mole crabs (or "sand fleas" as they are called), along with the tiny clams, which would each burrow their way into the wet sand as each of the waves retreated, etc. etc. etc.

My only frustration is that -- as I have said -- I don't feel like I "learned" a whole lot that can be applied to my next trip. I had hoped to make a little "progress" toward an end goal of gaining an understanding of beach/water hunting, but with things seemingly so "random," it was hard to leave with any mental "take-aways" to apply the next time...

Steve

dirtydog · Oct 18, 2017

steveg said:
Well, we just completed or trip to Destin, FL, and my first crack at beach hunting.

First off, it was alot of fun. We arrived Sunday, the day after Hurricane Nate made landfall just west, near Biloxi, Mississippi. I hit the beach for several hours each day, Monday through Saturday morning (this morning).!

I was pleased to find that the E-Trac I borrowed from a friend (while my SE Pro was in the shop for repair) worked well on the beach...dry sand, wet sand, even shallow water, the machine did a good job.

However, I had a real hard time figuring things out. Having never beach hunted before, and having just had a hurricane come ashore, I don't know how much of the conditions i experienced were "normal." It seemed to me like there was a TON of sand on the beach, and huge sand bars just offshore. I couldnt figure out any "pattern," as there didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to where i was finding stuff. I would hunt way up on the dry sand, and dig a 12" deep beer bottle cap, and 5 feet away, dig a 6" deep crusty coin. On the sloping wet sand, I would dig a 6" deep pull tab, and a few feet away dig a lead fishing weight from the same depth. Not many targets in the wet sand, and along the towel/chair line the only "recent drops" I managed were modern coins and bottle caps/pull tabs. The only jewelry pieces were a large junk hoop earring, and a junk pendant.

I don't know what to take from this, as far as "lessons learned" for the next time. Don't know how "normal" or "abnormal" the beach conditions were, bur there seemed to be no "rhyme or reason" as to why things were in the places they were in. All types of targets in all strata and types of sand. Also, was very surprised that in 15-20 hours hunting, and the detector reaching a good 10 to 12" depth, and with several nickels dug plus lots of pull tabs, some foil, pieces of aluminum cans, zippers, lead weights, etc., that I dug no gold, and not even any silver. Seemed unusual to me, with that many hours hunting, no?

In any case, I enjoyed it; just not sure whether I should take any "lessons learned" from the trip, or if conditions were unusual and uncommon such that next trip would likely be totally different. Any thoughts?!

Steve

Steve don't worry about what you didn't find. Thing are sanded in most of the state right now. As some say it is either feast or famine. Mostly the later. I put in lots of hours hunting and a few just watching the tides on certain beaches and how the winds and waves move the sand. I come home mostly empty handed but it's a adventure for me and if I get gold, well it's just icing on the cake. I think you just have to love it.

steveg · Oct 18, 2017

dirtydog said:
Steve don't worry about what you didn't find. Thing are sanded in most of the state right now. As some say it is either feast or famine. Mostly the later. I put in lots of hours hunting and a few just watching the tides on certain beaches and how the winds and waves move the sand. I come home mostly empty handed but it's a adventure for me and if I get gold, well it's just icing on the cake. I think you just have to love it.

"Sanded in" being the prevailing situation, would at least help me to understand why everything was seemingly random, and without a lot of rhyme or reason. So that is actually a helpful piece of information that you are confirming. I appreciate it.

Like I said, I wasn't sure how much I'd enjoy my first experience beach/water hunting, but I found that I really did enjoy it, and will definitely look forward to doing so again.

Steve

First beach hunting trip, and...

steveg

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DaviDs

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OBN

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Caribbeanson

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canwedigit

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dewcon

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Caribbeanson

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