Any beach hunting tips and tricks?

[Xilfie]

Hello! This past Sunday I finally got the change to go to Miami Beach for my first ever beach/actual hunt. I started hunting in dry sand for about 3 hours (which FLEW by) and was getting lots of targets. Since I don't know all the sounds yet I would dig them up, slowing learning them (Bottle caps are easy to tell now!). When I noticed that 3 hours had passed I walked back to my car to put more time in the meter. Headed back out and decided to try my luck hunting in surf. At first I tried going about waist deep and immediately noticed that it was really hard to swing, really hard, and using my sand scoop to try and recover the target was an even greater task with all the waves throwing me off balance when trying to sink it in. I only ever got 2 targets while waist deep, a really heavy fishing weight and the bottom piece of a can (Dangerous!). After a while I decided to try my luck closer to the shore about knee deep or less and I at least started to get a lot more targets but was still having a little bit of difficult recovering it, mainly it would take me a long time to get it. So the purpose of this thread is to ask: Do you have any advice for a newbie in these situations? What location should I be looking for when hunting in the surf/dry sand? I have an Excalibur II and I'm using the RTG PRO ALUMINUM 6" WATER SCOOP.

Thank you in advance!

 

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[Xilfie]

Thank you for all the tips, very useful Snorkeling looks very fun I'll have to try that! So the general consensus is to get a bigger scoop, I'll have to put that in my to buy list but It'll have to be in the future sucks when you don't know much, these things will happen.

 

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[MiamiFox]

Hi Zefie, glad you joined TreasureNet a lot of friendly and knowledgeable people here. If you see a tall guy hunting with a red handled scoop it's most likely me. Good luck and happy hunting.

 

[Xilfie]

Hi Zefie, glad you joined TreasureNet a lot of friendly and knowledgeable people here. If you see a tall guy hunting with a red handled scoop it's most likely me. Good luck and happy hunting.

Yeah, I've gotten amazing tips and they have really helped me out with many things I'm unfamiliar with yet. Maybe I'll see you around!

 

[meMiner]

This has been an excellent thread with great info and advise. I think all of us were in your shoes when starting out. A couple of my own observations and techniques.

In clear water, have a mask (I wear mine around my neck) which you can put on to see what is happening with a frustrating target. I have had problems capturing foil which is so light that it moves as I try to dig. I once was on a beach at night and could not see what was happening - - my wife went out for a snorkel the next morning and found 3 small gold box bracelets/necklaces next to where the bottom was disturbed (my holes, filled back in). I suspect they were on the lip of the scoop and swam off as it came to the surface.

Mount a rare earth magnet (strong magnet) inside your scoop. It will grab iron and hold it. I especially love it for wire, nails and bobby pins which typically give a double beep (but I did most times anyway) and in my scoop can swim out of the holes and I hate digging the same junk target more than once.

If there is not clarity or hunting at night, I pinpoint the target and put my foot behind the coil. Then I place the lip of the scoop in front of my toes. I try to bite as much sand as possible with that scoop and place my foot into the hole to stop the sand from caving in (this does not always work).

I check the scoop each time, because of the potential of multiple targets from the same hole. Once I find something in the scoop, I check the hole again to ensure there is nothing else. It is surprising how often more than one thing (good or junk) comes from the same hole. Then if it was a good target, I check around this spot in maybe a 10' circle, even if I hunted part of it already - to ensure something did not swim out of my scoop and to see if I found a rich little micro area.

As for depth, I have to say that the majority of my gold rings are between waist and neck deep (I am 5'11"). This of course might now just be because this is where I have the most confidence with my favorite being closer to neck deep (self fulfilling prophecy). Tides can greatly extend this zone. Gold is either right where it was dropped or where it got washed into. ie. really it can be anywhere. For some reason, I have found most of my necklaces close to the surf line (shallow), and I expect they get washed there.

Bottom line, if you are finding junk, you have better potential then when the sand is clean - this means either it has been detected or everything is too deep. Sometimes the junk tells a story. In an ideal situation, you would find a line parallel to the shore of pull tabs, then bottle tops, then coins, then lead sinkers and gold. Of course, that is text book and rarely does it really work like that. Sometimes it works that way in the layers of the sand too - with the light stuff on top and the heavy good stuff deeper.

Wow. I typed more than I intended, but I hope something above is helpful. You have a good machine. Think about a larger scoop for use in the water. Get out there and enjoy. You will remember the sound and sight of the first gold target in your scoop for the rest of your life. And the thrill never goes away....at least for me. Luck!

 

[Xilfie]

This has been an excellent thread with great info and advise. I think all of us were in your shoes when starting out. A couple of my own observations and techniques.

In clear water, have a mask (I wear mine around my neck) which you can put on to see what is happening with a frustrating target. I have had problems capturing foil which is so light that it moves as I try to dig. I once was on a beach at night and could not see what was happening - - my wife went out for a snorkel the next morning and found 3 small gold box bracelets/necklaces next to where the bottom was disturbed (my holes, filled back in). I suspect they were on the lip of the scoop and swam off as it came to the surface.

Mount a rare earth magnet (strong magnet) inside your scoop. It will grab iron and hold it. I especially love it for wire, nails and bobby pins which typically give a double beep (but I did most times anyway) and in my scoop can swim out of the holes and I hate digging the same junk target more than once.

If there is not clarity or hunting at night, I pinpoint the target and put my foot behind the coil. Then I place the lip of the scoop in front of my toes. I try to bite as much sand as possible with that scoop and place my foot into the hole to stop the sand from caving in (this does not always work).

I check the scoop each time, because of the potential of multiple targets from the same hole. Once I find something in the scoop, I check the hole again to ensure there is nothing else. It is surprising how often more than one thing (good or junk) comes from the same hole. Then if it was a good target, I check around this spot in maybe a 10' circle, even if I hunted part of it already - to ensure something did not swim out of my scoop and to see if I found a rich little micro area.

As for depth, I have to say that the majority of my gold rings are between waist and neck deep (I am 5'11"). This of course might now just be because this is where I have the most confidence with my favorite being closer to neck deep (self fulfilling prophecy). Tides can greatly extend this zone. Gold is either right where it was dropped or where it got washed into. ie. really it can be anywhere. For some reason, I have found most of my necklaces close to the surf line (shallow), and I expect they get washed there.

Bottom line, if you are finding junk, you have better potential then when the sand is clean - this means either it has been detected or everything is too deep. Sometimes the junk tells a story. In an ideal situation, you would find a line parallel to the shore of pull tabs, then bottle tops, then coins, then lead sinkers and gold. Of course, that is text book and rarely does it really work like that. Sometimes it works that way in the layers of the sand too - with the light stuff on top and the heavy good stuff deeper.

Wow. I typed more than I intended, but I hope something above is helpful. You have a good machine. Think about a larger scoop for use in the water. Get out there and enjoy. You will remember the sound and sight of the first gold target in your scoop for the rest of your life. And the thrill never goes away....at least for me. Luck!

It is most definitely helpful! Thank you very much. I always assumed that going too deep would be a bad idea as I rarely see people go out to where they can't reach. Most crowds that I've seen hang around waist to chest area.

 

[wildcarrot]

If she recommend a 5" scoop she was wrong.....

Water has zones too.... My last gold ring was little over knee deep, who knows when it was lost, it could have been chest deep at high tide. I hunt in long rows parallel to shore many times working my way deeper and deeper, when in front of hotels I work rows from sea to shore, usually sweep about 10 feet at a time depending on current as I go with the flow, I don't fight it and I'm hunting with 15" coils.

Look at the water, where at the majority of the people at?..That is the first zone I check and work from there. I also hunt when it is crowded so I weave in and out of the people, I'm not concerned about them or their opinion of what I'm doing...

My last hunt was 9 hrs long, I hunt a min of at least 4-5 hours starting at least 3 hours before low tide..... I do hunt high tides but I prefer hunting low tides, remember low tide is just a dividing point, it only lasts a few seconds before tide starts coming back in.. It doesn't take long to seethe tide coming in...

Some people will say "don't hunt when crowded, its rude", I completely did agree, we have as much right to be there as swimmers or anyone else do. I want to be there right after the jewelry is lost, before some other hunters get it and before the surf and tides have their easy with it..

I agree with TH. If I'm hunting a crowded beach I give 15 Ft. or more from folks. Don't want to get in any ones face. Consider going out at the end of the day...late afternoon and hunting to sunset. Much less crowded but you're still the first on the scene. Plus you get to see the sun set...all good. I'm talking dry sand huntin' here. If you're in the wet go when the conditions are on! the heck with everyone else.

Rich

 

[[AU:Magnet]]

I would grab a mask and do as Chuck does, opens up a different aspect of detecting in S Florida...he goes no further the 5 feet deep..and No scoop needed, maybe a Pingpong paddle at most to fan the sand.

Damn, this is hard to watch for me [no offense here], he is doing a fine job for just breath power, BUT...................