Am I beach metal detecting wrong?

[Just a metal detectorist]

I use my equinox 800 pretty regularly on beaches in Southern California including Malibu, Coronado, and everything in between but I've only been finding coins and trash despite detecting in a wavy pattern where I go down to the water, then go up above the towel line and back down and I do that along as much of the beach as I can. I've only got some costume jewelry and a couple small pieces of silver, but nothing of real value. Anything I can be doing differently?

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

A Handbook of Civil War Bullets and Cartridges - Grab it through Amazon!

[Peyton Manning]

You walk and swing over jewelry or you don’t

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

Can't find jewelry if you don't put your coil over the jewelry, drop a ring in the sand and see what happens when you sweep over it. take a gold ring, tie dental floss or fishing line to it and bury it about 8-12 inches and see what the detector reads.

Luck has a lot to do with it as well as technique and experience.

 

[smokeythecat]

Like Peyton said, we just have to get the coils over the targets and dig the iffy signals too.

 

[Back-of-the-boat]

You also have a lot of competition out there on those beaches that get out before the sun ever comes up.

 

[ARC]

" I've only got some costume jewelry and a couple small pieces of silver, but nothing of real value."

Yep... sounds like you are detecting correctly.

I will tell you this...
The more you put in... the more you can potentially get out... detecting / finding is not for the impatient and requires ALOT of time and efforts.

 

[cudamark]

What coil and settings are you using?

 

[Just a metal detectorist]

What coil and settings are you using?

I just use the stock coil that comes with the equinox 800 and I detect in beach 1 mode with sensitivity on 20 and threshold on a bit

 

[cudamark]

Down in the wet and water, you might try Beach 2 for more stability. I can sometimes get away with Sensitivity set at 22. I also like 50 tone and the horseshoe on so I can hear the iron grunts, but, that can get some getting used to. If you have trouble with bottle caps, set the Iron Bias on F2@6 to help I.D. them. Then it's just a matter of digging all non-ferrous sounds and getting the coil over something good. Lots of competition on our SoCal beaches, so, good targets can be a little hard to come by. Good Luck!

 

[pulltabfelix]

yes there are early birds and night hunters. But targets on ocean beaches get sorted in the water and wet sand. Plus lots get sanded in and are not within any detectors depth range until the weather, tide, currents, wind, storms causes some severe beach erosion. And when that happens the experienced beach hunters descend on those beaches to collect the real goodies.

 

[nuggetshooter323]

I use my equinox 800 pretty regularly on beaches in Southern California including Malibu, Coronado, and everything in between but I've only been finding coins and trash despite detecting in a wavy pattern where I go down to the water, then go up above the towel line and back down and I do that along as much of the beach as I can. I've only got some costume jewelry and a couple small pieces of silver, but nothing of real value. Anything I can be doing differently?

The more hours you put into detecting, the more probable you'll find something amazing.