I have a few rather large magnets and they help out a lot.
I put them on my larger shovels used when not in a yard or park.
when I hunt the shore line of the near buy river there is all kinds of conditions every 2 feet including hard dirt, rocks, gravel, thick clay, soft sand, sediment mixed with tangled sticks, and other stuff.
I need every digging tool you can use but I want to travel as light as possible So here is what I do and the way I multi purpose the maginet. I take my lashe on belt a small pick axe that is placed in the junk pocket of my goodie bag. and with an Ames garden shovel the full sized like if you were digging a trench or something but not a full length handle the shorter "T" handle. I have a large maginet attached to the shovel and just let my small sand scoop stick to the maginet.
Detector in right hand, I hold the T handle in my left and let the digging end of the shovel drag behind me.
When I dig I toss the scoop on the ground do my digging and the maginet helps pull iron objects and saves me a ton of time trying to find nails in river muck.
When I'm done digging I just put the shovel near my scoop and the maginet grabs it and I'm on my way.
HH
Uber