Frodov
Bronze Member
I had but one day this week to get out and hunt with my metal detector.. And today was he day. I had been looking at a couple of different parks as future prospects but not only are they not in my town, they aren't even in the same town at all. You might say I took my treasure hunting on the road today. Up at the butt crack of dawn, when I'm normally heading off to work, instead, today I was headed to my state's capitol city of Frankfort Kentucky. It's only a short twenty minute.. ok.. maybe thirty minute drive from my home. Getting to the park just as the orange ball of ol' Sol was peeking over the tree tops on the horizon, I had the park pretty much to myself.
Pretty much, that is except for the maintenance workers getting an early start on mowing and grounds keeping to avoid the heat predicted for the day.. like me! After a little bit of stretching and limbering up, then gearing up with my detector and diggers and bullseye, I started off by combing a smallish tot lot next to a big picnic shelter.
It was NOT a good start to the day. I found NOTHING in the tot lot, not even a pull tab! I did find some pennies around the shelter though, then as I set out towards the baseball quad (four fields backed up to form a clover looking arrangement) I detected along the sidelines of the soccer pitches on my way. I found what would be the first of MANY MANY dimes of the day. Here a dime, there a dime.. penny penny dime..
At the baseball quad I swept around the bleachers and between the separate fields, and of course all the grassy areas between the fields and the concession stand building in the center of the quad. All in all I picked up about 2 dollars in clad and a handfull of pull tabs at the first park. There were two other baseball fields and a HUGE football field that I didn't search because they were on school grounds of the local High School and school was in session. So, I opted to drive to the next park I'd been looking at.. in the next township over. On the road again..
At the second park, this one in Lawrenceburg Kentucky, I began, again, with the tot lot. This is a county/city park with lots of rambling acreage spread out over the rolling hills. Baseball fields (one quad and several smaller t-ball fields), a couple of soccer pitches, this park even has some volley ball courts.. didn't hit those today though. Anyway, as I'm sweeping away in the tot lot, finding a few pennies and what not this time a man and his daughter arrive and the cute little girl began playing on the swings and stuff. Of course she was acutely aware and curious as to what I was doing with that funny looking stick. Oh boy.. here we go again.. Pied piper syndrome strikes again... she began following me around and watching me dig each target. Her father even came over and told her "Don't bother the man honey." And here I was with a pull tab in my had ready to do the old "all I'm finding is these" routine. I'd already shown her the same pull tab three times when she lit up.. I mean you could almost see the lightbulb turn on over her cute little blond curly haired pig tailed head. And she ran off. Meanwhile I told her dad what I'd done with the pull tab and explained that it usually works with curious children.. they get bored and eventually leave me alone.. he got a chuckle out of that just as his little girl came running up to us and held out her hand to me. I stooped down and held out my hand and she dropped into it four pull tabs! She said I saw these.. and I know where there are more! And she ran off again as her dad guffawed and I just stood there stooped down on one knee looking at a handfull of pull tabs.. dumbfounded! The Pied Piper Backfired! That was definitely a first for me. Little miss Megan (her name by the way) came running back up to me three more times with no less than a total of 26 pull tabs. I had to smile and fawn over them like the treasures she thought they were. I mean this little girl was cute.. like Welches' Grape Juice spokes model precocious cute. I wouldn't dare burst her bubble by saying that I didn't need anymore of them. <chuckle> I just kept putting the pull tabs she brought me in my finds bag.. right up till her dad collected her to take her home. Boy! I'm thinking, I HAVE to write about this one! That little girl might just turn out to be a future metal detectorist too. Her dad certainly expressed an interest in the hobby.
Oh well.. back to business. Tot lot helper angels aside, I was here to hunt for coins. I finished up the tot lot playground area and headed off to the baseball quad. I actually was able to drive right up to the concession building in the middle of the quad. Parking my truck my spirits began to ebb.. the spaces around the concession stand and between the fields were all gravel.. not pea gravel either, this was the big stuff.. sizes ranging from walnut size to.. well.. pea sized.... with sand and weeds and some soil thrown into the mix here and there. I'm thinking "Oh great! This is going to be a bust!" But again I was proved wrong, as soon as I turned on my detector I was getting targets. And I found that unless I had to dig down into the hardpacked under layer, gravel fishing isn't too bad at all. Most of my targets were one to two inches, and that was actually a spoofed signal as the gravel was affecting the depth readings. What the detector said was two to four inches deep, would usually turn out to be just one to two.. in the loose gravel.
I probably looked like I was doing the chicken dance without the arm movements from a distance.. sweep sweep kick scratch kick bend over to pick up the coin.. sweep sweep kick kick scratch bend over and collect another coin... I lost count of the coins I was picking up.. THAT MANY! While I found a LOT of pennies in the park in Frankfort, the park in Lawrenceburg was throwing dimes at me as fast as I could sweep my coil and kick the gravel aside. Oh I was still finding pull tabs, this time on my own, and other coins, pennies, quarters and the rare nickle here and there. But the coin of the day I think, or at least the UNUSUAL number of any one coin was the dime today. I think I found more pennies than anything else, but that's par for the course so to speak.
Along with the unusual number of dimes and LOADS of pull tabs, I found some other stuff as well, one silver hoop earring.. no stamp but there's not mistaking that it's silver. I found part of a necklace.. some little locket looking trinket, a motor cycle, a toy car with no wheels, a key, pieces of bolts, a zipper pull, piece of a door plate, a blob of aluminum, and various other pieces of metallic junk.
After I finished sweeping the baseball quad I figured I'd call it a day.. the day by the way was getting to be quite warm and the whole reason I started earl was to avoid the heat of the day. <smile> But a good day it was. Two towns, Two parks, a helping hand munchkin angel, and a very full finds bag. Well.. have a look!
That's a LOT of clad.. oh.. and I only put a "pinch" of the pull tabs in the picture.. the other double handfull went right into my pull tab bucket in the garage. <smile>
Finds for the day, 20 quarters, *45* dimes!!!, 3 nickels, 150 pennies! for a total of 218 coins worth $11.15! That's not counting the 100 plus pull tabs (ok so I didn't actually detect all of them.. <grin> I had help!) and all the other metallic junk and tid bits. In about 4 hours time I dug or scratched or kicked up over 500 targets! In the immortal words of Jed Clampet.. "WEEEEEEEEE Doggies!"
<laughing>
Well I got my MD fix for the week, good thing two, it'll be about this time next week before I'll even be able to think about another outing, let alone get out and hunt. But it's out there! Happy Hunting all!
Frodov
P.S. Special thanks to little miss Megan for all her help finding the pull tabs in the tot lot! <smile>
Pretty much, that is except for the maintenance workers getting an early start on mowing and grounds keeping to avoid the heat predicted for the day.. like me! After a little bit of stretching and limbering up, then gearing up with my detector and diggers and bullseye, I started off by combing a smallish tot lot next to a big picnic shelter.
It was NOT a good start to the day. I found NOTHING in the tot lot, not even a pull tab! I did find some pennies around the shelter though, then as I set out towards the baseball quad (four fields backed up to form a clover looking arrangement) I detected along the sidelines of the soccer pitches on my way. I found what would be the first of MANY MANY dimes of the day. Here a dime, there a dime.. penny penny dime..
At the baseball quad I swept around the bleachers and between the separate fields, and of course all the grassy areas between the fields and the concession stand building in the center of the quad. All in all I picked up about 2 dollars in clad and a handfull of pull tabs at the first park. There were two other baseball fields and a HUGE football field that I didn't search because they were on school grounds of the local High School and school was in session. So, I opted to drive to the next park I'd been looking at.. in the next township over. On the road again..
At the second park, this one in Lawrenceburg Kentucky, I began, again, with the tot lot. This is a county/city park with lots of rambling acreage spread out over the rolling hills. Baseball fields (one quad and several smaller t-ball fields), a couple of soccer pitches, this park even has some volley ball courts.. didn't hit those today though. Anyway, as I'm sweeping away in the tot lot, finding a few pennies and what not this time a man and his daughter arrive and the cute little girl began playing on the swings and stuff. Of course she was acutely aware and curious as to what I was doing with that funny looking stick. Oh boy.. here we go again.. Pied piper syndrome strikes again... she began following me around and watching me dig each target. Her father even came over and told her "Don't bother the man honey." And here I was with a pull tab in my had ready to do the old "all I'm finding is these" routine. I'd already shown her the same pull tab three times when she lit up.. I mean you could almost see the lightbulb turn on over her cute little blond curly haired pig tailed head. And she ran off. Meanwhile I told her dad what I'd done with the pull tab and explained that it usually works with curious children.. they get bored and eventually leave me alone.. he got a chuckle out of that just as his little girl came running up to us and held out her hand to me. I stooped down and held out my hand and she dropped into it four pull tabs! She said I saw these.. and I know where there are more! And she ran off again as her dad guffawed and I just stood there stooped down on one knee looking at a handfull of pull tabs.. dumbfounded! The Pied Piper Backfired! That was definitely a first for me. Little miss Megan (her name by the way) came running back up to me three more times with no less than a total of 26 pull tabs. I had to smile and fawn over them like the treasures she thought they were. I mean this little girl was cute.. like Welches' Grape Juice spokes model precocious cute. I wouldn't dare burst her bubble by saying that I didn't need anymore of them. <chuckle> I just kept putting the pull tabs she brought me in my finds bag.. right up till her dad collected her to take her home. Boy! I'm thinking, I HAVE to write about this one! That little girl might just turn out to be a future metal detectorist too. Her dad certainly expressed an interest in the hobby.
Oh well.. back to business. Tot lot helper angels aside, I was here to hunt for coins. I finished up the tot lot playground area and headed off to the baseball quad. I actually was able to drive right up to the concession building in the middle of the quad. Parking my truck my spirits began to ebb.. the spaces around the concession stand and between the fields were all gravel.. not pea gravel either, this was the big stuff.. sizes ranging from walnut size to.. well.. pea sized.... with sand and weeds and some soil thrown into the mix here and there. I'm thinking "Oh great! This is going to be a bust!" But again I was proved wrong, as soon as I turned on my detector I was getting targets. And I found that unless I had to dig down into the hardpacked under layer, gravel fishing isn't too bad at all. Most of my targets were one to two inches, and that was actually a spoofed signal as the gravel was affecting the depth readings. What the detector said was two to four inches deep, would usually turn out to be just one to two.. in the loose gravel.
I probably looked like I was doing the chicken dance without the arm movements from a distance.. sweep sweep kick scratch kick bend over to pick up the coin.. sweep sweep kick kick scratch bend over and collect another coin... I lost count of the coins I was picking up.. THAT MANY! While I found a LOT of pennies in the park in Frankfort, the park in Lawrenceburg was throwing dimes at me as fast as I could sweep my coil and kick the gravel aside. Oh I was still finding pull tabs, this time on my own, and other coins, pennies, quarters and the rare nickle here and there. But the coin of the day I think, or at least the UNUSUAL number of any one coin was the dime today. I think I found more pennies than anything else, but that's par for the course so to speak.
Along with the unusual number of dimes and LOADS of pull tabs, I found some other stuff as well, one silver hoop earring.. no stamp but there's not mistaking that it's silver. I found part of a necklace.. some little locket looking trinket, a motor cycle, a toy car with no wheels, a key, pieces of bolts, a zipper pull, piece of a door plate, a blob of aluminum, and various other pieces of metallic junk.
After I finished sweeping the baseball quad I figured I'd call it a day.. the day by the way was getting to be quite warm and the whole reason I started earl was to avoid the heat of the day. <smile> But a good day it was. Two towns, Two parks, a helping hand munchkin angel, and a very full finds bag. Well.. have a look!
That's a LOT of clad.. oh.. and I only put a "pinch" of the pull tabs in the picture.. the other double handfull went right into my pull tab bucket in the garage. <smile>
Finds for the day, 20 quarters, *45* dimes!!!, 3 nickels, 150 pennies! for a total of 218 coins worth $11.15! That's not counting the 100 plus pull tabs (ok so I didn't actually detect all of them.. <grin> I had help!) and all the other metallic junk and tid bits. In about 4 hours time I dug or scratched or kicked up over 500 targets! In the immortal words of Jed Clampet.. "WEEEEEEEEE Doggies!"
<laughing>
Well I got my MD fix for the week, good thing two, it'll be about this time next week before I'll even be able to think about another outing, let alone get out and hunt. But it's out there! Happy Hunting all!
Frodov
P.S. Special thanks to little miss Megan for all her help finding the pull tabs in the tot lot! <smile>
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