Saturday hunt

[jas415]

With school out and babysitting 7 yr old twins, I managed to get out Saturday for about 6 hours. Re-hunted a demo house that was still up. Previous hunter had found 30+ wheats, clad, a silver ring, and 4 silver coins. He had hunted it two days so I did not expect to find much. Grass was really high in several places in the front yard and there were large old shrubs around the trees. Using a 6" coil with the CTX, sensitivity set on manual at about 28, I was able to move the small coil in the high weeds with a bit of effort. In those high grass areas I managed a small childs sterling ring, wheats, a 41 Merc, 59 dime and in some rocks near the driveway got a 64 quarter. Under a shrub, I mean 'way under', like 3 feet toward the tree, I got a nice TAXCO 925 Sterling mans ring with broken stone. Went to the back yard and managed a couple of more wheats, clad and a small 10K signet ring. Also got devoured by fire ants when I knelt down to locate the gold ring in the hole.

 

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[Sallysue]

Looks like a good day thanks

 

[VernonWalter]

Ok this is encouraging to see, I've been fighting with that kind of clay/dirt for a while. Fighting, well, learning I guess. It's neat how using some proper technique should be able to result in highly specific unearthing. Do you think the kind of soil in your pictures is best for any one type of metal coming through best? I'm using a large knife as my tool to cut a U type flap and getting practice on my technique to see about hitting the right depth. Thanks for posting and hope success continues for you!

 

[jas415]

Vernon, what detector are you using? I am using a CTX with a 6" coil. The grass was very high there, about a foot to 18", wet, and had lots of 'morning glory' type little vines. The small coil made it easier to move in the high grass. Our soil here is usually the type in the pics but under that is that old black gumbo stuff. The fellow who had hunted it prior to me was using an ATPro, and outstanding machine, but he had the regular coil and the wire to the coil. The CTX has the coil inside the shaft and the small coil goes through the grass exceptionally well. I just happened to be able to hunt more closely where he could not.

I am 71 so I tend to use a small ACE hardware 'Floral shovel' (10 year warranty and I am on my 4th set in 18 months) to cut my plugs. I know it soesnt tend to look good, shovel and all, but I hunt almost always on demo lots so usually there is no issue. I can also cut a very tight 5" square plug, down to 6", and cutting 3 sides, then lift/flip it out.

 

[VernonWalter]

Thanks for the response, especially the details about the Floral Shovel - I'm in the market, and like you, I'm sensitive to what I leave behind, but for now the places I'm checking out won't be much of an issue. With all the recent rain I've got some prospects that, for lack of a better term, are giant patches of sediment washed into big concrete culverts. I'm hoping to have a tool that will enable me to make them most of my time out. Because there are so many of them throughout Texas I don't think keeping it a 'secret idea' is worth anything, I've only got my eye on a specific one in my neighborhood. Not all of them have enough sediment build up that indicates anything might have washed down in there...part of this idea came from hearing that they pulled over 20 cars from that California Crossing dam area - never know what all can end up in our ditches!!

My detector is a Bounty Hunter Pioneer 202 model, so the coil isn't really big and the wire is also on the outside. I've done pretty good with gently getting it mounted better to the body, but I know what you mean about swinging in the taller grass. I've been using Shish-Ka-Bob sticks because I can get a good eyeball sight on the tone mark, then put the stick through the hole in the middle of the coil. I try to get about 5 or so sticks ready before I get to the ground to start digging.

I finally got some medical gloves that will help me feel more comfortable working with the plugs. I'm pretty skilled at getting a nice cut going and have good strength to flip them over as best as possible. Now that I think about it, I almost want to start bringing a Calloway's Nursery knee-pad thing with me so it's not so tough on my joints / knees to be patient on the ground. I guess that's why I'd really like to get better technique too, so I can be confident that when I get down to work, I'll spend my time wisely and also leave the least trace.

Thanks for your response and thoughts, all the best!