Excalibur II Hunting the waters edge of the beach

jbc465

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Sep 7, 2013
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I am wondering if I am detecting correctly? I have it set to all metal. I have dug pennys, dimes, quarters, pull tabs, and a bunch of tent stakes. I have detected two times for about six hours total and dug up about 30 coins. I feel like I am going in the right direction. As in dig it all. But am wondering why I haven't seen any nickels. Or gold and silver.
 

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lookindown

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There are less nickels than other coins, so there are fewer lost. Gold and silver can be hard to come by. Your digging coins and pull tabs so your doing it right. Your coil just hasn't gone over a nickel, gold or silver yet. Keep at it and they will come. The good finds seem to come in spurts. My last water hunt was 6 hours and I only dug 9 coins...welcome to T-NET.
 

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Treasure_Hunter

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You want find any gold or silver unless you get your coil over them.

You have detected 2 times for total of 6 hours, heck you haven't even got your toes wet much less your feet wet in the hobby. There are times we go weeks of constant hunting with out finding gold...

Keep hunting...

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Hag730

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Apr 29, 2012
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My brother bought a metal detector and was asking the same questions "why aren't I finding anything good?" He goes to the beach once a month for an hour.

You have to put the time in.....if your finding coins, keep swinging it and the good stuff will come. Sometimes you'll have to dig 100 holes before you find something good......sometimes you'll only dig one and you'll find something nice. Ive hunted for a couple months and not found anything good, but other times I've hit gold on 3 or 4 consecutive hunts. Like Lookindown said.......there is a certain amount of luck involved. Do something nice for somebody and build your karma up a little, it seems to help...:laughing7:
 

Treasure_Hunter

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My brother bought a metal detector and was asking the same questions "why aren't I finding anything good?" He goes to the beach once a month for an hour.

You have to put the time in.....if your finding coins, keep swinging it and the good stuff will come. Sometimes you'll have to dig 100 holes before you find something good......sometimes you'll only dig one and you'll find something nice. Ive hunted for a couple months and not found anything good, but other times I've hit gold on 3 or 4 consecutive hunts. Like Lookindown said.......there is a certain amount of luck involved. Do something nice for somebody and build your karma up a little, it seems to help...:laughing7:

Good post but I think100 holes is way too low he could easily dig 1000 holes and not find gold.... I found diamond ring within 3 weeks of buying my first beach detector was I good, heck no I was a lucky newbie I know hunters that hunted for years with no diamond rings.

You have to get your coil over gold to find gold. You have to use the proper sweep method, keeping coil flat and just above surface to find gold, no arc in your sweep. You have to go slow and give detector time to read the ground below coil.

You have to know the more you go the better your odds are to find gold.

You have to watch the weather conditions looking for times when wind and surf is optimal for opening up the beach and bringing up the buried goodies.

You have to learn to read the beach, see the zones where most people are and concentrate on them. You have to learn to read the water, how low surf as it approaches shore is different going over cuts and holes under water than over flat ground.

You learn to look for rip tides holes where rip tides dug deep holes and work them.

We had one that produced couple hundred rings in 2 days, hole was about 30 foot wide and maybe 40 yards long. We were pulling up scoops of clay where it dug so deep it removed almost all the sand on the bottom of the hole...Hole was gone in 2 days all filled back in.

If your on an long time popular beach there are thousands of pieces of gold there, problem is they are deep and your detector want see them till storms and surf erosion bring them closer to the surface. Gold is denser than beach sand, it will sink till something stops it, shells, trash clay whatever.

Try this, tie gold ring to 2 foot piece of dental floss hooked to large fishing bobber drop it on the wet sand near water's edge and wait 30 minutes and see how deep it went.

Before you start your hunt bury that same gold ring 6-8 inches deep then scan it with your detector tuning the controls till you get good signal on it sweeping from all directions. Do not discriminate anything out. This is called tuning your detector to the beach.

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pat-tekker-cat

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I'm not understanding the all metal mode, unless you are hunting for shipwreck artifacts. I have found that all metal mode to be better for pin-pointing, and the "chirp" you can get, can barely be heard, or can be easily missed ? .

One thing I experience with the excall and shoreline/waters edge or wet sand hunting, is that gold does not "scream" like silver, copper, or an aluminum can. It whispers....... if one is not paying close attention, or has the threshold set too high/low, or the volume not loud enough, one can mistake that "whisper" for just a tone fluctuation. I have almost missed some BIG deep gold, because it didn't blow my ears off. Dig those whispers, and yes, you gotta put in a lot of time. A lot! Just my opinion and my experience.
Good luck and HH!
 

Fletch88

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Use discrimination to check target if you want to not dig iron or just hunt with it all the time. If you get a null or scratchy bottle cap don't waste your energy digging junk. You can buy a PI machine if you want to dig it all. Good luck and HH.
 

OBN

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I'm not understanding the all metal mode, unless you are hunting for shipwreck artifacts. I have found that all metal mode to be better for pin-pointing, and the "chirp" you can get, can barely be heard, or can be easily missed ? .
Hunting in PP/AM with the Excalibur is a strategic way of using the Machine, once learned there is just as much info in the signal as Discriminate mode. Most beach's it is deeper, and offers a insight on the location of the target lane.

Finding treasure is site depended along with the amount of time you do for research and on the beach.
 

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bigscoop

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Round up some nickels and few pieces of gold, whatever you can get your hands on, white gold - yellow gold, a couple of rings, a hoop earring, even a small chain, just a little variety. Take all of this to the beach and find yourself a quite little corner where you have access to both dry and wet sand, etc. Now take the afternoon to experiment with all of these different items and your machine. Bury them deep, shallow, in the wet, in the dry, etc., and don't come away from the beach until you have a really good feel for your machine and it's limits and capabilities. Nothing worse then always second guessing yourself and your machine. Once you're hunting you want to have full confidence in your machine and your understanding of that machine. From here it's just as TH says, putting in enough time to learn how to spot the best opportunities and features on the beach. But even the very best and most successful in this hobby experience long dry spells. If gold came easy we'd all be living on beach-side in high dollar condos.
 

Treasure_Hunter

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Jul 27, 2006
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Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Hunting in PP/AM with the Excalibur is a strategic way of using the Machine, once learned there is just as much info in the signal as Discriminate mode. Most beach's it is deeper, and offers a insight on the location of the target lane.

Finding treasure is site depended along with the amount of time you do for research and on the beach.

Since Dave put the pinpoint mods on my excals I hunt in all metal all the time and I love it, it is deeper and with the 15 inch coils I am using I find very deep targets, not uncommon to dig targets 18+" deep.

Just hit the thumb switch to change between AM and desc to see if target is iron. Many times I get target I can't see in desc, have to remove couple scoops of sand to see it in desc then check to see if it is iron.........

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Hag730

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Apr 29, 2012
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Good post but I think100 holes is way too low he could easily dig 1000 holes and not find gold.... I found diamond ring within 3 weeks of buying my first beach detector was I good, heck no I was a lucky newbie I know hunters that hunted for years with no diamond rings.

Wait a minute.....I said 100 holes before he finds something good, not necessarily gold. Could be a piece of silver or another type of ring.
 

Fletch88

Silver Member
Mar 7, 2013
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Garrett ATPro- 8.5x11, 5x8, CORS Fotune 5.5x9.5
Tesoro Silver microMax- 8 donut, 8x11 RSD, 3x18 Cleansweep
Minelab Excalibur ll- 10" Tornado
Minelab CTX 3030
Minelab Xterra 305
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Round up some nickels and few pieces of gold, whatever you can get your hands on, white gold - yellow gold, a couple of rings, a hoop earring, even a small chain, just a little variety. Take all of this to the beach and find yourself a quite little corner where you have access to both dry and wet sand, etc. Now take the afternoon to experiment with all of these different items and your machine. Bury them deep, shallow, in the wet, in the dry, etc., and don't come away from the beach until you have a really good feel for your machine and it's limits and capabilities. Nothing worse then always second guessing yourself and your machine. Once you're hunting you want to have full confidence in your machine and your understanding of that machine. From here it's just as TH says, putting in enough time to learn how to spot the best opportunities and features on the beach. But even the very best and most successful in this hobby experience long dry spells. If gold came easy we'd all be living on beach-side in high dollar condos.

I did that with my wedding band and almost lost it. I burrow it and just knew I would not have any trouble finding it with the Sand Shark I had at the time. My wife was standing there becoming infuriated that I would do such a thing. Then I started panicking when I couldn't even hear a whisper of it, and I'm in the edge if wet line while this is taking place. The while time I'm thinking what an idiot, as a high wave drifts up to where I had buried it. After a couple more scoops it popped out. Just be careful how close you are to wave line. Good luck
 

Treasure_Hunter

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Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Good post but I think100 holes is way too low he could easily dig 1000 holes and not find gold.... I found diamond ring within 3 weeks of buying my first beach detector was I good, heck no I was a lucky newbie I know hunters that hunted for years with no diamond rings.

Wait a minute.....I said 100 holes before he finds something good, not necessarily gold. Could be a piece of silver or another type of ring.

Sorry misunderstood what the "good" was since op was talking about gold....

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