Moving south

[IowaRelic]

Hey everybody. I’m relocating to Spanish fort al from Iowa/Missouri line. Just looking for some bright words from people about detecting. I love to relic hunt, and I fear my favorite hobby is about to get a lot more difficult. It’s harder to research Baldwin county, plat maps and atlases are hard to find.

I don’t even really care about all the civil war sites, I’m more interested in farms and old homes. I would love to find more French and Spanish trade sites as I have here in the midwest.

I plan on attending a meeting with the mobile detecting club to see what’s that’s about. I’m just used to running open fields and timber, I’m afraid those days are over.

 

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[IowaRelic]

Ok so what about the dirt? Will my T2se, omega 8000, and gold bug pro serve me well?

 

[IowaRelic]

Made it here finally. Haven’t put a detector to the dirt yet but I have a lot of timber behind the house to mess around in.

 

[NHBandit]

Be careful where you go down there. I spent a Winter in Silverhill and while it's a very cool area, good places to poke around are scarce without permission. Driving down to check out Fort Morgan in Gulf Shores as you get close to the fort you'll see signs everywhere letting you know you can be arrested just for having a detector in your car..

 

[IowaRelic]

Appreciate that. Yep totally different world than I’m used to. The woods behind the house are a wetlands area that won’t be developed and is owned by a large real estate firm. The neighbors (original residents of the neighborhood) claim that it is accessible to residents. I’ve researched the immediate area a bit and it is reasonably close to known historic locations. And another neighbor claims to have seen other detectorists in yards here in years past. He’s a history teacher, we had a good discussion over a beer while unloading my uhaul.

 

[nfunk]

I recently moved from Louisiana to Fairhope and was wondering if public properties including schools allow metal detecting. In Louisiana both are allowed.

 

[IowaRelic]

My understanding is yes. City parks and schools are ok. I haven’t mustered up enough gusto to go to a park. Saw a good looking park in mobile today though and drooled a bit at the stop light. There is just so many people everywhere.

The woods behind my house turned up a couple small pistol round balls or buck shot and some modern bullets. I will likely just hunt that all winter until I’m more comfortable here. It’s a great and beautiful place to live.

Can any one shed some light on finding old settlement. There is no atlas maps showing land ownership like there is up north. All I ever find is less detailed generic maps. Was the family farm not a thing? All plantations? Wonder if hunting fields over off of highway 59 somewhere would be good? I’m super itchy to get on an old lost home site, camp, or crossing.

The woods are so thick here, I’ve been trying to get to each ridge top and hunt around for concentrations of iron. So far no luck but I’ve barely touched it.

 

[IowaRelic]

My understanding is yes. City parks and schools are ok. I haven’t mustered up enough gusto to go to a park. Saw a good looking park in mobile today though and drooled a bit at the stop light. There is just so many people everywhere.

The woods behind my house turned up a couple small pistol round balls or buck shot and some modern bullets. I will likely just hunt that all winter until I’m more comfortable here. It’s a great and beautiful place to live.

Can any one shed some light on finding old settlement. There is no atlas maps showing land ownership like there is up north. All I ever find is less detailed generic maps. Was the family farm not a thing? All plantations? Wonder if hunting fields over off of highway 59 somewhere would be good? I’m super itchy to get on an old lost home site, camp, or crossing.

The woods are so thick here, I’ve been trying to get to each ridge top and hunt around for concentrations of iron. So far no luck but I’ve barely touched it.

 

[IowaRelic]

I want to add that the T2se in2+ ground cancels at 72 in this area. Very sandy dirt, red grey and brown. I buried a quarter at 6”. It’s quiet in 2+ but in boost comes out real loud and can raise the coil a few inches. So I can already see a large loss in depth on my most powerful machine. I haven’t tried the omega or gold bug pro yet.

Perhaps targets won’t be too deep here as the ground is real hard. In Iowa things really sink in the loose black dirt but the detectors punch twice as deep when the soil is in the upper 40s to 50s. A trade off I suppose. Emi was a not an issue at all so far. I was using BP at 95 sensitivity and was quiet as can be.