Metal Detecting Tips for Beach Hunting
Here's some tips on how to metal detect a saltwater beach.
Benefits
Metal detecting beaches and wet sand is one of the most popular hobbies among the folks living near the coast. And how can you resist all that sunshine and soft sand?
Even if you don't find much, just being there is a nice relief from a day's work, plus it gets your mind off the business of life. Screeching seagulls, sounds of breaking waves, yellow sand under your feet, and a beautiful sunrise... ahh, just thinking about it makes me want to go! Most people go to the beach just for that, but why not bring your metal detector and double the fun?
Competition
Beach hunting is not the same as it was 5, or even 10 years ago. Now it seems like everybody and their brother own a detector, and off to the beach they go.
Of course it's not like that everywhere, but here in the good ole USA it's not uncommon to see 3 to 5 guys every day during the summer. With this amount of beach hunters, the new sand sweeping machines might as well take a break!
Increasing your finds
Beach detecting with all that competition, is becoming harder and harder these days. So what can you do?
- More then likely there is another less popular beach only a few miles away, why not give it a try?
- Stop running around trying to cover the whole beach like there in no tomorrow. Slow down!
- Watch your coil height, are you one of those that keep it off the ground about a foot? Are you afraid to scratch it? Hmm, maybe that's why you're not finding much. The finds you're missing could pay for 10 coils.
- Are you discriminating the junk? How much junk do you think there's left when you got all these hobbyists with their metal detectors scooping everything on their path? Turn the discrimination way down and dig it all! The trick is not in the fancy detector or a huge coil - but how fast you can recover your targets. It's so simple - the more targets you recover - the more chances you have to find something good. Just think about it for a moment.
Just by following these simple steps you will increase your finds by 50% or even more. It works for us every time, and will work for you if you try it. It takes time to become good at this, but knowing how, will save you time and frustration.
When to go
Most people are working during the week, and the beaches are not as crowded as they would be on the weekend. If you add up all the people that have visited the beach during the business days (Mon. - Fri.) it would figure out to be about the same size crowd as you would see on the weekend. So, try it on a Friday night after work. I'll bet you won't see your competition - unlike the next morning - they are all there bright and early. You can instead relax and do what they did Friday night, go shopping, eat out etc. Or if you are a die-hard like we are, head for another less popular beach and see what else you can score.
Most beaches around here are charging a fee to get in, usually 8 AM till 5 PM during the summer, but this varies from beach to beach. Sunday night is your best bet, right after a busy weekend. Start with the most visited and the most popular beach. If you're not having much luck, try another one. Find the most productive beach, and concentrate on just that one. Sometimes we go metal detecting at night on the beach, but it's not easy to do, and the police showed up one time, flashing flashlights in our eyes and wanting to know what we were doing there. They were looking for some rowdy teenagers the neighbors were complaining about.
Respect Others
Always cover your holes, yes even on the beaches! People that are walking and jogging, rarely look where they're going! Always take the trash you dig up with you. A lot of times we get home and go through our trash, and discover things we thought were junk, that turned out to be a treasure.
Well, there you have it, after giving away all our valuable tips we might as well just sell our metal detectors : -)
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