Shallow water technique.....questions?

[Surfview]

I use a minelab Excalibur and would appreciate any suggestions for detecting in east coast of Florida shallow salt water. I do ok with the Excalibur in the wet sand, etc but have difficulty controlling the coil in shallow salt water. Also have trouble with constantly changing tones. After 10 minutes or so I get frustrated and go back to the beach and out of the water. I seem to have trouble no matter how rough or calm the water might be. If you've detected the east coast of Florida you know there is most always a little wave action.

I have found a few small rings, lots of coins, lots of trash on the beach, but I want to spend more time in the water if I can learn to control this darn thing.

Any suggestions or a description of your shallow water technique would be appreciated.

 

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[Treasure_Hunter]

Sounds like you need to turn your sensitivity down till your detector is stable.... What setting are you using for in the water? Your always going to get a false when the surf rolls over your coil if your in real shallow water, you learn to recognize that and deal with it...

What beaches are you hunting, maybe we can meet up and do a hunt together and I can help.... I live in Orlando...

 

[Surfview]

I live near Marineland, Matanzas Inlet. I detect from ponte vedra, just south of jacksonville to palm coast and could go most anywhere between here and Daytona or a little more south.

I've been just using pinpoint setting in the water. Anything else gets to many tone changes. I haven't tried other settings. I read somewhere on this forum to just jump in the water, set pinpoint for beginners with this machine. Was that bad advice?

 

[Sandman]

You would do lots better to set sens to Auto and don't worry about the tones. If it makes a repeatable tone, scoop it. Iron trash will null and the threshold will come back either higher or lower. Don't sweat this. If it bothers you wave the coil near the scoop to reset it but it will reset on its own. Depending on the amount of surf, it will push the coil around and make it beep. Learn to deal with this minor falsing.

 

[FLauthor]

I use minimum sensitivity, zero discrimination, hunt a grid pattern and dig everything. Got to dig trash to get gold. If you hunt ICW beaches and can afford it, get a 2" pontoon dredge fitted with a screen basket, vacuum every signal and check after 45 minutes or when basket is full. Small dredges are only allowed where tides refill holes.

 

[jopher]

Along with the above advise , if you hunt with a constant threshhold tone , you may try backing it off and running in a more quiet mode.

 

[Surfview]

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions. Really appreciate it.