BuckleBoy
Gold Member
Hello All,
After much research, measuring, studying, and re-studying, Rodeo Recon and I decided to hit the brush today. On an earlier trip to the area, we'd found the owner's name and address for a house site we wanted to hunt deep in the woods. We drove up to her door--a middle aged woman who seemed quite suspicious of us. After the third degree about who we were and where we were from, I started to see a little ray of hope. Even though she said "We don't even allow anyone to hunt back there,"I could see her thinking about our request--hard. I even added "Ma'am...we're not asking for unlimited access to your land--only that we be allowed to use our metal detectors there for a few hours today." She thought some more...and then said "Let me see your ID's." OK. I thought perhaps she wanted to write our names down... But then she said "I'm going to keep these. Come back to get 'em when you're done."
Well...let me tell you, we handled the situation graciously and let her take our licenses. (I'm never afraid to jump through a hoop or two to get on a site) So we left to get on the house site...all the while wondering how her background check of us was going...
Talk about WIERD! Earlier this summer (and right up the road from her, curiously enough), Christopher Walken had handed us a stick to ward off the Bull in the field with. And now we'd just gotten CARDED! We put this quickly out of mind as we dove into the brush, however.
After a long walk over several hills, we got to where the trusty GPS had placed us. When we dropped our gear off and started looking around, we didn't see any trace--which is fine... But turning on our detectors, we didn't get any iron either. We turned off the machines after some preliminary hunting and started widening our search area without our gear to see if we could eyeball any signs of inhabitance.
After another 30 minutes or so, we started seeing daffodils. We got the gear and headed back to where they were.
Iron was everywhere. And nothing gets my blood pumping like a good iron patch. The woods were DENSE, and we didn't even see the remains of a cellar hole until a good hour into the hunt. Here it is--in all of its Cellar-Holeyness:
We started tearing though the brush like possessed MDing demons--and the flat buttons started coming up. I love finding these, because usually coins aren't too far behind. Here's Rodeo jumping back into the brush after a rest on the ATV trail:
And both of us pillaging the site:
We continue to make adjustments to improve our housesite-hunting game. One seemingly small addition is the little strip of blaze-orange tape hanging from our detectors. This was the result of us walking away from our machines in the woods and having to hunt for them a time or two in the past.
After more buttons, a suspender clip, and pewter spoon pieces, Rodeo called out "I've got a coin!" Naturally, I used my superhero mach speed to get over to where he was. When I got there I saw this Beautiful sight:
A little careful cleaning, and we could both tell what it was--and the High Fives commenced!
It was an 1867 Two Cent Piece.
After some serious congratulations, we resumed the hunt. Finds started to taper off all too soon, but I managed another flat button, a piece of a brass stirrup, and some other bits. Rodeo found a small brass comb, and some more spoon fragments.
We packed up our gear, brushed some more ticks off of us, and hiked back to "civilization" again. After grabbing our ID's and putting our shirts and boots in a bag to go in the freezer--plus one more tick check!--we hit the road for home.
Here are all of our finds--including a portion of the iron we recovered today:
I got home and threw my clothing in the freezer (see my post in the "Metal Detecting" threads on Tnet if you don't understand why), then I took a shower and dumped out my pouch to check for anything that had legs. I had not a single tick on me--even though we'd frequently brushed off two or three at a time during the hunt. (I hope those #@!$%#@!s love the deep freeze. )
Here are some photos of the finds after cleaning:
A great civilian button that I found and was quite pleased with:
After much research, measuring, studying, and re-studying, Rodeo Recon and I decided to hit the brush today. On an earlier trip to the area, we'd found the owner's name and address for a house site we wanted to hunt deep in the woods. We drove up to her door--a middle aged woman who seemed quite suspicious of us. After the third degree about who we were and where we were from, I started to see a little ray of hope. Even though she said "We don't even allow anyone to hunt back there,"I could see her thinking about our request--hard. I even added "Ma'am...we're not asking for unlimited access to your land--only that we be allowed to use our metal detectors there for a few hours today." She thought some more...and then said "Let me see your ID's." OK. I thought perhaps she wanted to write our names down... But then she said "I'm going to keep these. Come back to get 'em when you're done."
Well...let me tell you, we handled the situation graciously and let her take our licenses. (I'm never afraid to jump through a hoop or two to get on a site) So we left to get on the house site...all the while wondering how her background check of us was going...
Talk about WIERD! Earlier this summer (and right up the road from her, curiously enough), Christopher Walken had handed us a stick to ward off the Bull in the field with. And now we'd just gotten CARDED! We put this quickly out of mind as we dove into the brush, however.
After a long walk over several hills, we got to where the trusty GPS had placed us. When we dropped our gear off and started looking around, we didn't see any trace--which is fine... But turning on our detectors, we didn't get any iron either. We turned off the machines after some preliminary hunting and started widening our search area without our gear to see if we could eyeball any signs of inhabitance.
After another 30 minutes or so, we started seeing daffodils. We got the gear and headed back to where they were.
Iron was everywhere. And nothing gets my blood pumping like a good iron patch. The woods were DENSE, and we didn't even see the remains of a cellar hole until a good hour into the hunt. Here it is--in all of its Cellar-Holeyness:
We started tearing though the brush like possessed MDing demons--and the flat buttons started coming up. I love finding these, because usually coins aren't too far behind. Here's Rodeo jumping back into the brush after a rest on the ATV trail:
And both of us pillaging the site:
We continue to make adjustments to improve our housesite-hunting game. One seemingly small addition is the little strip of blaze-orange tape hanging from our detectors. This was the result of us walking away from our machines in the woods and having to hunt for them a time or two in the past.
After more buttons, a suspender clip, and pewter spoon pieces, Rodeo called out "I've got a coin!" Naturally, I used my superhero mach speed to get over to where he was. When I got there I saw this Beautiful sight:
A little careful cleaning, and we could both tell what it was--and the High Fives commenced!
It was an 1867 Two Cent Piece.
After some serious congratulations, we resumed the hunt. Finds started to taper off all too soon, but I managed another flat button, a piece of a brass stirrup, and some other bits. Rodeo found a small brass comb, and some more spoon fragments.
We packed up our gear, brushed some more ticks off of us, and hiked back to "civilization" again. After grabbing our ID's and putting our shirts and boots in a bag to go in the freezer--plus one more tick check!--we hit the road for home.
Here are all of our finds--including a portion of the iron we recovered today:
I got home and threw my clothing in the freezer (see my post in the "Metal Detecting" threads on Tnet if you don't understand why), then I took a shower and dumped out my pouch to check for anything that had legs. I had not a single tick on me--even though we'd frequently brushed off two or three at a time during the hunt. (I hope those #@!$%#@!s love the deep freeze. )
Here are some photos of the finds after cleaning:
A great civilian button that I found and was quite pleased with:
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