Beach Question for anyone, especially minelab users

[Dr.Jones]

hey guys and gals, I have a quattro and I am getting familiar with it. I bought the andy siabach book and read it twice, it does help. I found a little beach about 15 min from my house where back in the early 1800's, the residents used to go and catch a boat across the river to go to church. I expected there to be tons of stuff there. Unfortunately, this is the same little beach where people go fishing all year round. I went there for about an hour the other day and I found one clad penny about 8" down. I was somewhat dissappointed. In the defense of the quattro, I kept the sensitivity on 20 and was getting signals all over the place. I was wondering if I dropped it down to maybe 17 if that would help me find better targets. I know there is something there. I can vouch for its depth on the beach. I found a friggin pull tab at 12-13 inches. It is a beast on the beach. Is there any recommendations to aid in my dilemma? In addition, I am not giving up, I am going to hit this beach until I pull something worth while from it.

Thanks everyone for your help

 

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[Michigan Badger]

Doc, the finding of a modern penny at 8 inches tells everyone you're looking at a major landfill situation. This filling may have been done by man or nature or both.

This could mean your desired finds (if still there) could be 13 or 14+ inches deep. And also, these deep finds would be heavily shielded by trash in the layers above.

I know of a place much like you described. I've dug modern coinage 6 to 8 inches deep there. The area was filled in by a snow plow truck pushing and piling snow in the area every winter.

The only thing you can do is hunt very slowly and dig every solid target. As you clear out the trash you have a chance for the stuff buried in the original level.

It would be great if you could bulldoze the top 8 inches off the spot.

This is about all I could tell you.

Best,

Badger

 

[bakergeol]

Perhaps this thread should be under the Beach and shallow water Forum. Perhaps the Sandman and Neilo as well as other experienced Beach users could offer some pointers.
It has been a long time since I used an EX 11(Big brother to Quattro) but if you are getting a lot of falsing reducing the sensitivity would be the way to go.

I think a lot of experienced salt water beach hunters will tell you that beaches are not static areas but change a lot. They love to hunt during times of significant beach erosion(beach cuts).From your description it sounds like you are on a fresh water beach next to a river. Perhaps you also should look for eroded areas at the location. Perhaps spring runoff could produce some cuts at your location. Searching the area toward the river during very low water levels should be considered also as you are moving toward erosional forces(river current) not depositional areas(bank)

Just my 2 cents

George

 

[rvbvetter]

Like Bakergeol said. If your getting a lot of signals but not always finding the target, then there's a good possibility that your sensetivity is set to hgh causing falsing.
Go down alittle at a time until you can confirm that when it sounds off, there is an actual target there.
Sounds like this might be a fresh water beach. If so, you probably will only need to drop the sensitivity a little. Don't over do it. Just enough to stop the fake signaling.
If your hunting wet sand, some times a way to tell if it's falsing is to sweep your coil over a level or smooth spot. If you get no signal, then put your foot there and leave an impression of it an inch deep. Remove foot and sweep over it. If you then get a signal, your sensitivity is too high.
HH

 

[Sandman]

Michigan Badger is probably right on the over burden covering the older stuff. Since you found a pull tab very deep, you know it is reaching down there. Deep targets don't always id correctly and so long as your getting a sound, I'd dig it. At least remove some of the sand from the top and check it again. One of the things I would suggest is to slow your sweeps, and OVER LAP the sweeps at least by half to cover more area at depth. Also don't swing the coil pendulum style but to keep it even with the bottom. You'd be supprised at the guys that don't do this and it is like only detecting the first foot infront of you.

Make sure the detector's sens. is not set to high to cause falsing as was mentioned by others here. These older places may also have been hunted before, but they were "cherry picked," and most of the good older targets are still down there. Keep at it and good luck.

Sandman

 

[surfrat96]

I had a Quattro for a little over a year and it's great for the beach. Traded it in for an Excalibur because I wanted to go in the water. I used to mostly hunt the wet sand, and usually had to drop the sensitivity down to about 16-17. Just go down 1 at at time till it starts running smooth. The more you use it and check different settings, the quicker you'll learn and enjoy it.

HH 8) surfrat

 

[Dr.Jones]

Thanks guys for the info. I should have specified that this was a freshwater beach next to a river. It is wet sand as to I can only hunt it at low tide because the water covers the beach at high tide. I believe that this is the reason the pull tab and penny were about 8 inches down. I went back last night and dropped my sens to 17 and 18 and I cut down the falsing by about 75%. I tried to pay attention to the tone rather than the id but i seemed to find sinkers that had a high pitch in Ferrous tone mode. I found another modern penny about 6 inches down as well. I was only there for about a half hour. I have a feeling that because the beach is covered with water dailiy, due to high tide, the good finds will be buried deep, real deep. Thanks again for the info.

 

[rvbvetter]

Don't be afraid to drop the sensativity if your still getting some falsing. Just drop it one number at a time, until your confident the falsing has stopped. Once it matches the soil minerals or sand, it could actually be able to detect deeper.
I'm not saying to excavate the beach. But you might take a long metal rod with you next time and probe the sand to see how far down before there's more solid terra firma. Sometimes a fresh water beach like that may only have a foot of sand before it reach's a more solid clay base, where the coins stop their decent.
If it's the case, then scraping a few inches of sand away in a small area at a time, could possibly net you some real keepers. HH

 

[neilo]

Are you running in all metal? You will find any softer signals will be drowned out by any large iron targets which are always prevalent on the beaches,better to run in discriminate mode. As for sensitivity if you are experiencing falsing you are too high, if you dont mind experiencing a few false signals you can slightly high but in this situation you must detect slowly and keep your coil at an even height from the ground. Remember a good signal will consistently give a signal every time you go over it.A false signal wont. Seeya Neilo