To notch or not notch....

John Madill

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that's my question.

it was about 25 degrees warmer yesterday so i headed to the beach with my Simplex+.

The plan was to dig everything. I dug 36 targets in 90 minutes so my recovery time seemed pretty quick to me. By using a long handled scoop i never had to bend over or use my pinpointer.

But half of those targets were pull tabs or parts of pull tabs.

What might i be missing if i had notched those out?
 

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Gold rings would be the first thing that comes to mind. I am not a beach expert by any means but I will share a tip another member shared with me about beach hunting that made good sense and I found to work well. When you are digging nothing but pull tabs and other light targets, time to move on. Keep digging until you start finding the heavier stuff like fishing weights, coins, etc. and then start spiraling out your search area from there. You'll find that those targets will tend to be bunched together.
 
I cant accurately answer. My new Simplex and possibly the Gold Kruzer(?) have notch discrimination. I havent used it yet, but your thread has cued me to finally try it. When I do I'll give you a half-educated opinion, anyway. I imagine it depends alot on the detector youre using. I do know that most detectors Ive used have an evil "81" where aluminum and can tabs predominate. Im always temped to dig because its high but I got fooled alot. Then there were 86's that turned out to be aluminum but also sometimes were dimes or other coins. Quarters on my Teknetics Eurotek used to ring around 75 or 76. Not so on other detectors Ive owned. I found alot of quarters with the Eurotek and only one with my current four detectors. I definately think notch discrimination is something which should be used...but discriminately.
 
The tent stake and the foil gave nice numbers, ditto the pennies.

77 degrees and sunny yesterday, 42 and raining today.

Crazy Michigan weather!
 
I thought you were going to say " To notch or to not notch, that is thy question." :lol: Sorry, we're studying Shakespeare at this time of the school year. Anyway, on the beach, dig everything is what I say. On the land, that changes.
 
I thought you were going to say " To notch or to not notch, that is thy question." :lol: Sorry, we're studying Shakespeare at this time of the school year. Anyway, on the beach, dig everything is what I say. On the land, that changes.

Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrow of outrageous trash?

Or take up arms against the sea of trash by notching, and by opposing, end the trash digging?
 
On my At pro the pulltabs will bounce numbers a bit from 53 to 55.
I have dug gold rings and the number for example will stay at 53 and not bounce. Pulltabs can do this also but not too much. You just have to dig those nice low numbers at the beach.
 
I know more than one person who digs every target. I had an old Whites 5900 DI Coin Master that I was sure used to overlook gold. I found all kinds of things with it. Silver coins, silver jewelry. Nickels and gold were being passed over. It went back to Whites at least twice. It was returned both times with "Retuned" discrimination. Granted this was 30 plus years ago.
 
I am a huge fan of running detectors "wide open", too many good things ring up the same to be ignoring something.
 
that's my question.

it was about 25 degrees warmer yesterday so i headed to the beach with my Simplex+.

The plan was to dig everything. I dug 36 targets in 90 minutes so my recovery time seemed pretty quick to me. By using a long handled scoop i never had to bend over or use my pinpointer.

But half of those targets were pull tabs or parts of pull tabs.

What might i be missing if i had notched those out?

What beach was that on
 
Sanded beaches are so easy to dig. So keeping the disc wide open and no notches will do it. Otherwise the smaller gold is rejected,too. Most of this come in as foil, p'tab.
 
It was at Warren Dunes State Park in southwest Michigan, on Lake Michigan.

I believe it's the busiest park in the state. Should be fun to try again after a busy summer weekend.
 
I ran into a very experienced detectorist on Cocoa beach once. He was testing a detector for Garrett. He told me to dig everything; and that in his opinion, for every 10 ring pulls, one will be a real ring.
When I was in Fl in March, the beaches were so clean, I never even found 5 ring pulls! I did find a little ring tho
 
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