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Beach
Hunting
see also:
reading the beach
water hunting with the explorer
who dares wins
water 3
formulate a plan
mineralization
How To Clean Up On The Beach
Earlier this week, I did an outing to a small, Northwest Indiana
beach which has always been a good producer for me. It has given
up its share of clads and gold rings, and because it’s an inland
lake, the water’s pretty warm during the summer, which makes for
a little added enjoyment. It has seen some hunting pressure over
the years, mainly from a guy in the neighborhood who liked to do
his detecting while diving. The guy apparently moved on some time
ago, leaving some good pickings because there aren’t a lot of detectorists
in my neck of the woods, and this little beach isn’t exactly a major
detecting destination.
However, this summer is bringing out more people in my area who
apparently were good little boys and girls and got metal detectors
last Christmas. It seemed like wherever I went this week, there
were detectorists out before me, which was an extreme rarity up
until now. I’m not exactly what you’d call an early riser, so I
expect these things to happen. The only difference is it’s happening
more and more this year. Maybe it’s just time for me to invest in
an alarm clock. For all I know, metal detecting is quietly on a
bigger rise as a serious hobby than we would think, and before we
all know it, the whole damn world will be walking around waving
a coil. I was around when CB radio went from obscurity to being
The Next Huge Thing when every radio station in America was playing
"Convoy" by C.W. McCall somewhere around 1977, so trust
me when I say a metal detector in every pot wouldn’t be a pretty
thing indeed. On the bright side, at least someone can’t tack on
a 500 watt linear amplifier onto a metal detector and screw up your
TV reception.
So here I was, at my favorite beach, getting my gear together.
My car’s clock said it was 2:30pm, which for me is as fine an hour
of the day as any to do some beach detecting. As I walked onto the
swimming area, the lifeguard supervisor approached me.
"Do you find a lot out here with that thing?" he asked.
"I do okay. I find a lot of pennies and dimes out here. Beats
sitting at home watching TV, at any rate."
"Well, there were two other guys just out here," he said.
"There were here all day. They got here in the morning and
left a little while ago."
"That’s OK," I said nonchalantly. "Doesn’t bother
me."
The fellow looked at me with a sense of bemusement, I think, because
he probably expected me to mutter a few choice words and pack up
my stuff and go home. But I didn’t. Want to know why? Not because
I paid $2 for parking. It was because unless I’ve just arrived after
a club hunt, following up a detectorist or two really doesn't bother
me.
And it shouldn’t bother you, either, because the odds of finding
goodies are still greatly in your favor. That is, if you continually
train yourself to be a better hunter than the other guy. You’ve
got to hunt better, slower, more carefully, and listen more closely
to what’s in your headphones than those before you. Do that and
if there’s anything to be found in a lake, you’ll come across it.
A good bit of it will likely be junk jewelry (especially if you
follow those detectorists who keep the good stuff and chuck the
rest where they find it), but in this hobby, you have an even-odds
shot that those same junk targets could be gold or silver, too.
Miss one thing and you’ll miss another. And that's a fact, Jack.
These fellows indeed did hit the beach pretty hard, judging from
the number of holes I waded through during my four-hour hunt, so
I didn’t expect a quantity sort of day by any means. However, they
wouldn’t qualify for the title of detecting’s great white hope,
either, because I was recovering objects near their holes they should
have recovered if they detected the shallows as carefully as they
could or should have. My finds amounted to three items of kid’s
junk jewelry (a small, encrusted crucifix studded with 12 rhinestones,
a gold plated ring with some of the plating left on it, and a gold
plated heart-shaped earring from Avon with the plating intact),
an encrusted metal toy jack, a silver-colored button (aluminum or
steel plated, most likely), and 45 cents in clads.
Junk items, to be sure, but as everyone in this hobby knows, what's
under your coil can be something valuable as much as it can be junk.
I was firmly convinced there was a gold or silver ring to be found,
but I ran out of time before I was able to thoroughly hunt the wet
sand area where the water meets the shore, which is typically one
of the hottest spots on a beach for rings.
These guys also totally missed 42 cents worth of clads (three dimes,
a nickel and seven Lincolns) closely concentrated in a one-foot
circle, as if someone sat down and spilled their pockets. Unless
the other guys were using programs to hunt for nothing but gold
and silver, my finds were things no detectorist would leave in the
ground if he came across them. Money’s still money, even if it is
only chump change that helps pay for your batteries every month.
Did the previous detectorists dig anything of great value from
their holes? Maybe, maybe not. I usually don’t think about these
things, nor did I ask the lifeguard guy because people tend to lie
like rugs, both in their favor and otherwise. After all, you never
know who’s going to ambush you in the parking lot and bop you over
the head for that gold engagement ring with the half-karat diamond
because you told him you found one, so it stands to reason that
not many of us tell the world what we've found on any given day.
If my detecting compatriots did find valuables, more power to them
because the early birds not only get the worms, but they usually
get the better worms. I’m not a morning person, so that’s just a
fact of detecting life I live with.
However, the early birds don’t get all the worms, especially since
this world is chock full of guys who have sloppy detecting habits.
Bad habits on land mean bad habits in the water, too. Coupled with
the fact that no expanse of land greater than a few feet in diameter
can truly be hunted out, there are just too many variables involved
in shallow water hunting that indeed make it possible for there
to be enough findables to go around, no matter what time of day
you prefer to hunt. There will certainly be fewer goodies if you’re
not a morning person, so you’ve just got to be a better hunter.
Some of these variables are naturally occurring nature’s little
gift to the hunting community variables; some are of our own making.
Here’s a few ways to increase your odds of having a successful water
hunt, especially if you’re walking in the footsteps -- and the holes
-- of those who were there just a few hours before you:
Stay on line
Unlike detecting on land, it’s totally impossible to walk a straight
line in the water. If you tried, and at the same time someone was
filming you trying to do it, you'd end up looking like Moe, Larry
or Curly. This is why it’s equally impossible for anyone to scrub
the shallows thoroughly, no matter how good of a detectorist they
may be. Much of this trouble centers around having to continually
look down at a featureless sheet of water. Some detectorists try
walking toward a point on a distant shoreline, but this works out
about as well as driving to Albequerque by keeping you car pointed
at a particular star in the sky. Ancient sailors tried using this
sort of land-point navigation system for centuries until they got
tired of ending up either lost or shark food and invented the sextant.
Here’s a way to keep yourself reasonably on line while working
the shallows. It’s certainly not foolproof, but it’s better than
using a land point. If you’re using a long-handled sand scoop, let
the basket scrape the sand bottom next to you as you walk. Keep
the handle pointed straight in front of you with the pole an inch
or so away from your thigh as you walk. Imagine yourself steering
the rudder of a rickety old boat (with the handle of your scoop
as the rudder handle) and you’ll get the picture. If you start veering
off to the side in either direction, you’ll either have too much
space between your thigh and the handle, or you’ll start walking
into the handle.
Work slowly and thoroughly
The reason most of us leave the good stuff still lying in the ground
is not because our detectors suck, but rather because we’re just
moving too damn fast. Unless you’re scheduled to perform lifesaving
neurosurgery in an hour, slow your butt down. And once you slow
down, slow down some more. When you’re following up other water
hunters, you really have to make sure you’re overlapping your coil
sweeps. Most of all, walk very slowly. When I want to really clean
up after everyone else, I replicate that silly little march the
wedding party uses to walk down the church aisle. Take a baby step,
stop, and sweep. Baby step, stop, sweep. Incidentally, this is how
old guys using cheap detectors still come up with silver to this
very day while the rest of us go home with pocket lint and stinkin’
Lincolns.
Narrow your sweep area
To increase your thoroughness, narrow your swing radius. Instead
of sweeping your coil in a wide arc in front of you, narrow your
sweep area to no wider than the width between your shoulders. It’ll
take you longer to cover an area, but you won’t be missing anything.
Get your mind right, boss
Last but not least, if someone tells you other detectorists were
there before you, or if you see other detectorists working the beach,
don’t let if faze you one bit. Much of the reason why our hunts
don’t meet our expectations is because we’re too tired, too hungry,
too hot, too cold, too achy, too bothered by bugs, or too just pissed
off about something or other in general to hunt as well as we otherwise
could. In other words, we are our own worst enemy, not the other
guy working another patch of the same site ahead of us. Many of
us automatically assume that just because someone else has gotten
there first, that person has already cleaned the place out.
If you want to keep your mind right, do as I do and assume that
everyone who has been there before you are the worst detectorists
in the world. For good measure, I also assume these people are either
using machines that made in some Communist bloc country in 1969
or purchased for $65 from a Damark catalog. With guys like that
hunting before you (and with you hunting smarter and slower), there’s
no way you’ll go home empty-handed.
© 1999 Scott Buckner
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