First Detector, First Day

[RedSpey]

I got my Tesoro Vaquero in the mail today and set it up and went to a city park. Spent a couple of hours picking up numerous pulltabs and bottlecaps, three modern pennies, a lead bullet (.30 cal), and an 8-inch end section of a crosscut sawblade. The blade was cool! The best part was one of the pennies gave a good signal and I found it 14" deep! I was getting frustrated digging and digging until I found it. A 1977 penny (my birth year...lucky?) at 14"!

I have a few questions for you MD veterans, though. I got some strong readings with the DISC set at max (silver only) and dug to about 10" until I hit very rocky ground. I stopped after struggling a bit, but the signal was still there. Should I go deeper (I would probably need a solid shovel or a pickax, etc.) or move on in those instances? Thanks for the help.

RedSpey

 

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[TOWcritter]

Welcome to the forum! You sure came to the right place. All of questions will be answered in short order. Keep on digging. Good Luck

 

[northeast hunter]

wow 14" thats deep and a great start what type of soil. the deepest i have ever found something is 10" a silver quarter laying flat (all metal mode) good luck H H

 

[RedSpey]

Well, the penny at 14" was in soft dirt next to a tree. A lot of the soil next to the park is gravel on top of river rock, but this is where there used to be a city auditorium (built 1910) where the town held dances, speeches, etc. Now it's a city well site, but a large part of it is vacant. This area is ancient river bed, so there are a lot of rocks. I figure where I found the deep penny had to have been trucked in soil, because the penny was 1977.

 

[Floater]

Redspey, Nice digging but to answer your question you do have to dig it all and get to the source of the signal. I have dug rusty iron pipe and can tops that deep and deeper . I have a lot of sandy soil though. If you think its there then go dig it. The Tesoro is a great machine and you will find the stuff deep. Welcome and Congratulations. HH

 

[GunFarce]

But!!!! I would be carefull swinging a 'pick axe' in a park.. Your bound to draw attention.. and maybe a bail bondsman..ha.. Welcome to the Hobby..

 

[skinnyoda]

Hey

I have a bandido11Umax, and my next machine will be a Vaquero. I heard its a depth monster. I seen priced at 525, but other sites have it for 420. I went to the dessert this weekend, and looked in a deserted town, found some Wheaties, but no silver. Due to the fact that it had been cleaned out, but maybe now i will go back and try it with the Vaquero. I will post some pics later.

HH
Yoda 8) 8)

 

[RedSpey]

Thanks to all for the encouragement,

Yeah, Floater, I really wanted to dig deeper but I only had my trowel with me. I'll go again and bring a shovel. The other thing is, it is on a city well site and I really don't want to put a pickaxe through a city main, ya know?!

Badger, that's funny about the manhole because I actually did dig to a large metal valve cover that isn't used anymore as well. That thing beeped all over the place.

I'm still learning the Vaquero (any MD'ing for that matter, it's all new), but the key feature for me is the manual ground balance. Here in North Central Washington (gold country) the soil is very mineralized. You can also supertune this machine to get greater depth. The penny was very surprising, though.

I'll try and post pics tomorrow. Thanks again to all.

RedSpey

 

[rvbvetter]

Congrats on the new detector. Enjoy and let us know what you find.
Though, if you find your self in need of a hard hat with a lamp on it. You just might want to consider giving up on that target. Welcome to the forum and have fun. HH

 

[Monty]

When I first got my detector I would dig until I heard someone speaking Chinese down in that hole. Since then I have pretty much set a limit on 8" unless I am darn sure there is something worthwhile to keep digging. I found myself doing hours of digging and very little finding. Wore myself out and it wasn't fun like I had supposed. Now I try to research my site a lot more and I am pretty sure of what depth I might find most things. If you will notice the ones on the forum that constantly score probably spend as much time in research as they do digging. Other than cache hunting I have noticed that most things are recovered at 4 to 8". Deep is good however if you know what you are looking for. Just my observations. Am I wrong? JIM

 

[JARMAN]

Welcome and grats on the new MD,Dig deep but use care.HH

 

[Charles]

A coin that is at an angle in the ground seems to pinpoint off to one side. Once I dig beyond where the target should be I start checking the around the sides of the hole.