Tips & Tricks
1-15

1. When looking for sports fields adjacent to schools,look for faint patterns in the area. Rectangles will usually indicate older football fields while those shaped like a slice of pie will be baseball fields. I've done well with this one.

2. I found that when I go beach hunting at night that a skiers head light is great, you leave it off till you get a signal on your detector headset then turn it on. Where you look is where the light will shine great investment! Jim Donnelly

3.Heres one to restore dug Lincolns and Indians.After cleaning off the dirt, put a drop of Tabasco Sause on the cent.After about 5-10 seconds wipe off. Presto! shiny as new.Theres some sort of chemical reaction that the copper reacts to the pepper sause. Caution! If you have a cent you believe is numismatically valuable dont do this its better left as dug.

4. Ever have a problem of where to put the trash you dig up? Well, the next time you get your car washed, remember to get the car trash bag that you hang from the cigarette lighter. I put mine over the spare probe that I have on my pouch. It's large enough for the occasional soda can and easy to dispose of. I once got permission to hunt on the local fairground solely because the grounds keeper saw I was "serious" about taking my trash with me. Happy Hunting

5. In the ensuing hot days of Summer that are just around the corner, I often prefer to hunt in the very early A. M. hours, since I use a XLT and running the on board back up light, draining my battery twice as fast as normal usage, I use a snake light. These lights generally run around $10.00 and can be wrapped around your neck and adjusted to show the display screen and also while digging, they run on two "C" type batteries and are very handy to have for nearly anything. Also, I always carry a few spare batteries just in case.

This is the quiet time of day for most folks, but to a detectorist any time of day is fine and no noisy people bothering you, I also carry a mosquito net and 'deet' and wear surgical rubber gloves, long sleeve shirt with the collar turned up, so bugs aren't usually a hassle, it's cool and the ground is damp with dew, so knee pads should be used.

The wet ground offers better depth and I search areas I have gone over previously, just one time a Deputy sheriff stopped and asked me what was going on, seeing my detector see immediately took interest, so I showed him what we do and what I had found that night, yes, I often hunt from midnight to dawn, the Deputy was quite impressed and maybe I made our hobby a recruit.

Give this a try for those of you who can't wait for daylight or if the heat of day bothers you as it does myself, the finds are good, the air clean and I feel like I have total privacy.

NOTE:If hunting private property talk to the owner before doing this, they may agree or disagree about having someone on their property at one in the morning, most will agree as you offer a extra sense of security for the owner and his family.

6. Gather an assortment of generally found items; pull tabs, pop lids, old spark plugs, washers, coins, old jewelry, silverware, keys, rings - you get the idea. Make 3 X 5 cards with the name of each item on one card. Have a friend place some of the items at random in your yard in an 8 X 10 foot area and cover them with a plastic tarp (available at Wal Mart or a local Hardware Store).

Practice locating the items and placing the appropriate card on each location. Keep your detector about 6 to 12 inches above the tarp to simulate the item being buried. After locating all the items give yourself a grade based on the number of correct finds. With a little practice you'll find you can generally identify items before you look at them, invaluable experience for actual field treasure hunting. Be sure to do this with different modes of your metal detector so you know the difference. In the all metal mode you should be able to find all the items but may have a little more trouble identifying them. In the discriminate mode, depending on the amount of discrimination, you may not detect some of the items that are considered "trash" and this is good.

Summing it all up, Practice, Practice, Practice. The rewards are "less frustration" and "more enjoyment" from the "Art" of treasure hunting. Good Luck and Happy Hunting!

7. Poker Chips make excellent markers for treasure hunting. You can place one on each found location and after a number of finds stop detecting and start digging. You can even use different colors for different types of finds - ie, red for "hot" finds, white for "questionable" finds, and blue for "sounds deep" - make up your own color code. I've done this for many years and it also gives your arm a chance to rest from swinging the detector. Good Luck and Happy Hunting

8. A good tip for a regular supply of modern finds is to get permission from the owner of a local field to host boot sales and fates, they will earn a regular income for charging a small fee per stall, and you can go round on a regular basis finding all the lost coins e.t.c.

9. Never allow yourself to try and out race the other guy, we all find things, that's what this hobby is all about. Don't become competitive, work slowly, keep in mind that this is your enjoyment not your lively hood, enjoy what you are doing. Very soon now in the North Country of New York State we'll be taking to the fields, go back to any area that produced for you last year, re-hunt the same ground, concentrate on the sounds, this is your greatest in metal detecting, it is very similar to fishing, be patient, never mind the speed walking, sweep the area very carefully and listen.

Sometimes it is useful to enlist the aid of a family member, have them 'salt', your driveway, use coins, pull tabs, steel bottle caps, all covered with a handful of snow, now you know exactly where the targets are, but you don't know what the target is, try and identify each one before peeking, a very worthwhile test of yourself and equipment, experiment, don't be afraid to boost up the settings, see what higher settings do to affect your ability to identify the target, it's fun and worthwhile.

10. Sometimes gaining permission to hunt someone's property may be negative, but don't give up hope. Sometime ago I asked the police chief of my town to hunt a piece of property he owned. The old place was empty and had been partially burned and through speaking to him, it was under investigation for arson. He turned me down due to these circumstances. I waited for a year or so and asked again and was granted permission. I'm glad I persisted,because after clearing the area of newer date coins I began to find silver. Silver mercuries, roosevelt dimes, a soldier's dog tag issued prior to W.W.II. Then as the finds became more scarce, I had a good signal that kept registering in the nickel/foil range and since I've found many gold rings in this range,I decided to dig this one also. Yes you've geussed it,it was a very nice 14kt. gold wedding band that was produced in the thirties. So do not, and I re-iterate do not give up after being turned down. Persistence can be a nice reward.

11. We've all heard of checking the local Library but not to many of us think to check the local college. In My town the college even has a remote sensing curriculum and has allowed me to view many local areas from a different perspective. The college library also has an extensive local special collection which the city library does not. This section contains many maps, newspapers and other resources. Most colleges won't let you sign out books unless you're a student but they will let you make copies of individual papers.

12. I often find rings as I suppose many other hunters do, but here is a short on a mistake I made: I found a nice ring, but no stone on a top flat surface, I failed to put the two together at the time and could not find the exact spot where I found this ring, I may have missed out on a decent stone, so, after discovering a ring look it over, if it appears that it may have held a stone, very carefully sift through the soil, I carry a small sieve or a 12" by 12" piece of screening and continue to search this area, who knows you could find something interesting.

13. Here is a Battery idea that may be of help.....
I was in a photo shop about a year ago and saw some "AA" size batteries I had never seen before. They were Energizers, but these had a Gold body and about 1/2in. down from the top (+ end) was burgandy/red. I ask the attendant about them and he said they were new and were very long life. They are called "Energizer--High Energy Lithium".
After buying enough to use in the auto-winders of both my cameras ( 4 each ), and in one flash attachment (4 also), I headed home.

I am proud to say that the ones in the auto-winders are still going strong after a year, and I have replaced the ones in the flash only once, and it has always been hard on batteries. I have been using this flash for about three years, and I would swore that the flash is a little brighter also.

These batteries have just recently became available in this area in 9 volt. They are not over sized and fit very nicely into the Shadows battery area. I was able to get around 28 hrs. out of the first one I used in a Shadow. It wasn't dead after that, I just took it out yesterday and put it into a small flashlight I keep in the glove box of my pick-up, and it shines nice and bright.

So far they can't be found at the Wal-mart, K-Mart, or Lowes, or any place like that here. I had to order them through the photo shop where I originally found the "AA" size, and there was only a small difference in cost between them and the top of the line you normally find everywhere.

They are cheaper by the 24 count box, and have very good shelf life as well, based on what I have seen with the "AA" size which I now use in everything I have that requires "AA" size batteries.

 

14. I'm new to this great hobby, but I am using logic to come up with good places to detect...a few days ago there was a concert in the park in our city. A really big rock concert. The day after the concert, I took my detector over to the grassy area where the crowd was. I found virtually all the coins laying on the surface, almost not even needing the metal detector.
But as luck would have it, I'm glad I brought it along. My first dig that day was by the adjacent carnival...under about a 1/2 inch of soil was a 1892 Barber Dime! That made my whole day. Just advice to watch your local newspaper for outside events...people drop all kinds of stuff.

 

15. I'm one of those nuts who like to on the hunt the year round. One day I was looking over a old map of our area and decided to check out a old railroad depot. Going to the spot it was hard to visualize the area being large enough to have supported a RR, but you must think back, years ago many depot's were located on most RR lines and they where fairly small. I started the hunt and in a short time I turned up a brass key, marked NYC Railroad, Adirondack Div., about 2" deep next to a tree. I found that staying close to the tree's the soil is warmer, less freezing, no money, but the key may be worth $50, and this was in the month of January and very cold.