Using my Gold Bug on the beach

[G-bone]

Hey all,

Funny thing happened to me a while back.
A good friend of mine with whom I've been dirt biking with for the last 10 or so years, just informed me that he has been into detecting for years now. but he has never divulged that info due to perceived public opinion of Detectorists...... I don't get that .

"DUDE!!! I've had my Gold Bug for a few months now and love detecting. Lets GO!!"

My buddy is a beach/park hunter and has been using a Tesoro Cibola.
Over the years he has collected over $750 in coins and still has a large cash of rings and things.
He kills it. And he cashed in all those coins and purchased a new Garrett AT pro ( I have yet to go with him with that)

So the first time I went with my bro, with in an hour he had collected about $3 in change with some other odds and ends. I had 10 bottle caps, a bobbi pin and 3 pennies.

"What the heck was I doing wrong?" I thought to myself.
or better yet what was he doing differently?

First problem....no head phones.
missed alot of little signals. Put in ear buds and that helped.
Now I use my Gray ghost headphones - I don't care how I look.
Counts went up.

second problem....location, location, location.
So I tagged along with him a little more and my counts picked up a bit.

But still after a few times going together, he consistently pulls out 3 to 4 times more stuff than I, and I'm scratching my head

Now I bought my Gold Bug pro for nugget hunting.
But since my opportunities to hunt for nuggets are hard to find, I've been going to the beach and local parks alot.
I love the hunt, don't we all?
The Gold Bug Pro is very sensitive and can hit a quarter or nickel at 10 or so inches.
But that sensitivity seems to back lash on me in the constant chatter and false signals I seem to get every where.
Constant ground balancing is required.
All the coins I swing over, jump right out at me so it's not like I miss them.

So I attribute my lack of coin hits to basically not swinging my coil over any coins.
Again...location, location, location.

But my question to the detecting public would be, is the Gold Bug pro truly holding me back at some point or is it PURELY operator error?

Recently I acquired a used White's 6000 DI pro sl.
It needed work so I sent it off to the factory for repairs.
So I'm looking forward to getting that machine and trying it out on the beach.

But still, if there are changes I need to make to my M.O., I am not going to see that much difference.
Right?

Any pointers or opinions are gratefully appreciated.

Thanks and cheers
G

 

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[Terry Soloman]

The Goldbug Pro is an Awesome DRY SAND machine. Set the discrimination above iron, turn your sensitivity to about 2/3rds power, keep your coil down on the sand with slow overlapping passes, and GRID the towel line and paths to the beach

 

[G-bone]

Thanks Terry.
I had a feeling it was not the machine :-)

What coil do you use for the beach if I may ask.
Right now I am using the Elliptical coil over the 5in concentric.

I also thought about locating a DP coil that Fisher sells with the GB for relic/coin hunting.

Also one point I forgot to mention is how fast my friend moves.
Completely opposite of what you just recommended above.
fast pace with a fast sweep. And I know he is not overlapping his swings.
He does have a bigger coil, but still.

We'll start side-by-side. I'll be swinging for a few minutes and look up and he's 100 yards ahead of me.
So he's definitely covering more ground over me.
And maybe that has an advantage to some degree by upping the odds a bit?
More ground covered = more coin uncovered.

Thanks for the tip.

 

[Terry Soloman]

I would stay with the elliptical (11"?). The real key is pace. Slow, deliberate, listening hard for the slightest change in threshold or chirp of signal.

 

[cudamark]

In a park, you'll have an easier time with the 6000. At the beach in the dry sand, both will work fine, I'd still give the edge to the 6000 as it's less chatty. Wet sand, the gold bug will be much better. Speed will depend on the type of machine and how fast it can process information on a particular target, then dump that info and move on to the next. Generally, multifrequency machines and/or ones with heavy discrimination will take longer to process and have to be swept slower. PI's and all metal hunting can be done faster. Each machine is a little different so you'll have to experiment to see what sweep speed works best for you conditions. If you're after fresh drops in the dry sand, you can zip along pretty quick. Deep targets or nasty ground conditions, and you need to swing a lot slower. I disagree with Terry a bit on overlapping and moving slow. If you're after deep targets, in an area with lots of good targets, or in bad ground like I previously mentioned, yeah, you need to move slow. Generally on a beach, it's not that way. Move as fast as your machine will allow. Unless you're looking for something in particular that has been lost, why overlap? I'd rather have virgin sand under my coil with every sweep and only overlap in a high target area. Most beaches are too big to completely cover in one outing anyway, so, why not cover as much ground as possible. Sure, occasionally you'll miss something, but, covering a lot more ground will make up for it in the long run. You'll just encounter more targets per hour, both good ones and bad ones.

 

[dewcon4414]

First thing ill say is ....... you are looking for the wrong thing on the beach. Coins are a nice bi product, but gold is the payday. If you want to find coins on a beach you dont really have to slow down..... swing that baby and cover some beach, but like Terry said cover it well and for goodness sakes leave your golf swing at home. You will recover a lot more recent drops..... loose a little depth and maybe a few targets. Learn what a bottle cap sounds like...... then dig it all but those shallow bottle caps. Single freq machines dont do well on WET salt sand if thats where you are hunting.

 

[CASPER-2]

 

[G-bone]

Thank you all