"Dig it All" or Discriminate - That is the Question!

[certman68]

To be or not to be, to "dig it all" or discriminate, that is the question (Apologies to Mr. Shakespeare).

I've seen conflicting approaches to beach and water hunting in this forum and others. Some choose to discriminate targets to avoid iron, bottle caps, etc and hopefully not gold and silver.

Others dig everything arguing that the beach is a relatively easy place to do so. Why risk missing a gold ring due to questionable discrimination after all.

Let me get to the point. I want to improve my recovery ratio which to me is the number of gold/silver finds vs. number of targets dug. I could improve my ratio in three ways.

One, by buying a Stealth or similar scoop and stick with the "dig it all program" = $400 (I currently use a Sand Shark)
Two, by buying a unit the discriminates (Excal 2, CZ 21), thereby saving time by theoretically not digging up junk and covering more ground= $1500
Three, by buying both the scoop and a unit that discriminates = $2000

The scoop seems to be a "no brainer". My question is whether discrimination is a worthwhile investment for Florida beaches from the waterline to snorkeling depth (just over 6 feet for my height).

I know this the classic PI vs. VLF question but I'd love to get more information from actual owners of both regarding why they prefer one type over another especially if you feel your ratio increased by using one type vs. the other. How do we know that discrimination is really working? I've seen posts indicating that discrimination is less reliable as target depth increases. I'm not sure if this is true or not due to my own ignorance and lack of experience.

Many thanks. I apologize in advance for the $%#& storm this may create.

 

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[surfnturf]

This past year in California (central coast) 75% of my gold/silver rings came from the water waist to neck deep at low tide! Yes it can be challenging if not impossible!! I've spent 100 hrs wet sand and shallow
water and 30 hrs waist or deeper!
Love it when at low -tides the outside sandbar works like a barrier blocking the surf and creating a mill pond to hunt in!! Just have to find them underwater cuts!

 

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[Tom_in_CA]

This past year in California (central coast) 75% of my gold/silver rings came from the water waist to neck deep at low tide! Yes it can be challenging if not impossible!! I've spent 100 hrs wet sand and shallow
water and 30 hrs waist or deeper!
Love it when at low -tides the outside sandbar works like a barrier blocking the surf and creating a mill pond to hunt in!! Just have to find them underwater cuts!

Hey surf-n-turf, what central coast CA beaches are you working ? You can pm me the answer, if it's not something to put on the forum. I can only think of a few where what-you're-saying wouldn't be dangerous. You'd get swept out of the ones I'm thinking of. And to the extent I've been at bathtub condition locations (Santa Cruz on a 1 ft. seas days for example), I find that wading out and trying at waist depth, gives no better results (target counts) than anywhere else in the inner-tidal zone. Not only that, it's murder to try to dig (and .... yes ... I have a long-handled pistol-grip/arm-cuff scoop).

A beach expert from southern CA (a veteran of the '82-83 El nino, and who's exceeded 1000 gold rings in his career) came up to hunt some beaches in Monterey bay with me. He too was saying he'd "figured out" where the heavier items were in the curl of the waves, etc.... But after taking one look at the waves where we were, he wisely figured out it couldn't be done here. At least not where we were that day. Perhaps some sort of placid conditions going on somewhere. But sheesk, if "conditions are placid", then by definition, that usually only means sand is "coming in", and I wouldn't be at the beach in the first place.

So pop me a PM and I'd love to compare notes with you.

 

[surfnturf]

Carpinteria, Santa claus lane,Butterfly, Miramar, East/west and harbor, leadbetter, Pizmo and Avila Beach! Some are quitter than others but they all have given!
The inner tidal zone is good too but many more hunters! Very important to have a good water scoop and lots of practice recovering water targets! It can be very
Frustrating! Your right most beach at most times are impossible! After tracking tides, wind and swell reports + offshorethearter web cams I pick my days to hunt!
With a new little one (5 months) and a 3 1/2 year old....... time for me is far and few! Some day I'll be up your way and we can pick each others brains and swap stories!
Or if your down my way we can hit some beaches! Send me a PM anytime! Warning Im a wicked slow typer and can't spell with out spell check!

 

[jyt2017]

I loved the bbs machine ability to null iron. I moved right on. use 3030 now and scan it no matter what. I pulled out lots of silver an gold from that iron. Bbs would blank out. Maybe my old gt would hit it. I plucked out a few using that. I think in large part nulls should be investigated.

I can can only wonder what I left behind. On phone sorry for typos.


ready. If it's not obvious iron. Dig. I set 3030 in am crank sense and have tones where I can hear them. The only drawback is newengland lobster pot parts. Which have iron an aluminum on them. Uhg. But. I yanked out a fat gold ring that sounded like a piece of that stuff. Bing bing bing. 5 scoops. And bam. Nice class ring from 40s. It was so deep the machine would miss I'd it anyway...only real way to get this is to break your balls and dig it all.

hh gl-Joe


i rarely check in disc anymore...

Even with the Excal you still dig everything but iron, if you try to discriminate out the other junk you will be discriminating out10-14k gold... Not digging any iron is a big advantage...

I run discrimination at lowest point possible on my Excals and my Sovereign GT when beach hunting salt water....

 

[CASPER-2]

Th'r, no one in my part of the state "goes into the water". If, by that, you mean wading, etc.... Oh sure, we might go in and out of the ebbing surf, but not to the extent of actually some sort of snorkeling, wading, etc...

Reason is: it's next to impossible to do that on *most* of our beaches. You'd get bashed around, and unable to swing d/t the surge. We do *not* have "bathtub conditions" as some other beaches might have. On a few occasions, some beaches get calm enough that you can walk out with only a mild surge (if zero swell going on that day). But my experience is that out there, is no-better-off, than the inter-tidal zone.

don't always hunt in bathtub conditions
http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/members/29748-albums4137-picture1198855.html

 

[ARC]

But I assure you...

The man that invents the detector that finds only gold and silver...

Will be king...

and my idol that I will patronage at least 3 times a day by bowing down to a life sized effigy and kissing the sandy toes.

Anyone besides me ever wonder if some electronics genius long ago has achieved/done this on the DL (down low)...

and for years has been cleaning up ?

 

[CASPER-2]

Anyone besides me ever wonder if some electronics genius long ago has achieved/done this on the DL (down low)...

and for years has been cleaning up ?

people told me that that was what the Aquasound was supposed to be - but Ive followed those and hunted with some users too and cleaned up too

 

[certman68]

Good one. I imagine him looking like Gandalf with a detector on the beach. Gandalf is out there day after day digging up tons of rings but he's still looking for the One Ring.

 

[dewcon4414]

I hunt in PP using an Xcal...... yes i investigate every target i cant clearly get a read on as iron or a bottle cap, especially deep targets. The Xcal HATE iron.... and do it at a pretty good depth and run pretty much like a PI sound wise in PP. But .... its real nice to be able to just flip and see if its iron something you cant do with a PI. I know guys who dont dig a small targets more than a couple of times. Here in Fl a lot of the hunting is recent drops so you need to cover a LOT of beach. When beaches are moving and cutting so are targets LOTS of them...... not a time to be using a PI unless you are a patient man and want to grid an area.

 

[surfnturf]

Hear the tones in your minds eye try to visualize the length/size, ramp up/ramp off,
texture choppy/smooth and other things you only know by truly understanding your machine!
Just another way you can master discrimination with out loss in depth!
ATX PI has Iron check! Works great easy to do! When digging deep targets I'll recheck Iron after two scoops!

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Carpinteria, Santa claus lane,Butterfly, Miramar, East/west and harbor, leadbetter, Pizmo and Avila Beach!.......... Some day I'll be up your way and we can pick each others brains and swap stories!
Or if your down my way we can hit some beaches!........

Ahh, well I don't consider those beaches to be "central coast". I consider them to be southern CA. Well, at least the ones you listed that are from Pt. Conception and southwards.

Yeah, would love to compare notes. I have hunted Avila, and some of the beaches around Santa Barbara. But for the most part, if I'm down that way, it's for land hunting sites, not beach hunting. D/t I have scores of beaches to choose from up here. But I would love to be on Santa Barbara main beach during erosion, as that's a very upscale touristy high-end beach. I bumped into a fellow there once, who had hunted it during the '82-83 storms, and the stories he told were mind-boggling. Like, you could just walk along picking up grey round disc shapes, and almost didn't even need a detector. Doh!

I'll be down in Santa Maria to Los Olivos area this winter, d/t we're researching a spot down there. It'll be either November, or January. Haven't picked the date slot yet. Will look you up at that time.

 

[OBN]

don't always hunt in bathtub conditions
http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/members/29748-albums4137-picture1198855.html[/QUOTE

Dag.. I enjoy detecting and I like to be at ease also.. That's hardcore!

 

[cudamark]

Ahh, well I don't consider those beaches to be "central coast". I consider them to be southern CA. Well, at least the ones you listed that are from Pt. Conception and southwards.

Yeah, would love to compare notes. I have hunted Avila, and some of the beaches around Santa Barbara. But for the most part, if I'm down that way, it's for land hunting sites, not beach hunting. D/t I have scores of beaches to choose from up here. But I would love to be on Santa Barbara main beach during erosion, as that's a very upscale touristy high-end beach. I bumped into a fellow there once, who had hunted it during the '82-83 storms, and the stories he told were mind-boggling. Like, you could just walk along picking up grey round disc shapes, and almost didn't even need a detector. Doh!

I'll be down in Santa Maria to Los Olivos area this winter, d/t we're researching a spot down there. It'll be either November, or January. Haven't picked the date slot yet. Will look you up at that time.

Let me know if you need any help. I've hunted the Santa Ynez valley a bit myself. From the beaches at Gaviota and Refugio to the inland stage routes and ranches.

 

[cudamark]

To be or not to be, to "dig it all" or discriminate, that is the question (Apologies to Mr. Shakespeare).

I've seen conflicting approaches to beach and water hunting in this forum and others. Some choose to discriminate targets to avoid iron, bottle caps, etc and hopefully not gold and silver.

Others dig everything arguing that the beach is a relatively easy place to do so. Why risk missing a gold ring due to questionable discrimination after all.

Let me get to the point. I want to improve my recovery ratio which to me is the number of gold/silver finds vs. number of targets dug. I could improve my ratio in three ways.

One, by buying a Stealth or similar scoop and stick with the "dig it all program" = $400 (I currently use a Sand Shark)
Two, by buying a unit the discriminates (Excal 2, CZ 21), thereby saving time by theoretically not digging up junk and covering more ground= $1500
Three, by buying both the scoop and a unit that discriminates = $2000

The scoop seems to be a "no brainer". My question is whether discrimination is a worthwhile investment for Florida beaches from the waterline to snorkeling depth (just over 6 feet for my height).

I know this the classic PI vs. VLF question but I'd love to get more information from actual owners of both regarding why they prefer one type over another especially if you feel your ratio increased by using one type vs. the other. How do we know that discrimination is really working? I've seen posts indicating that discrimination is less reliable as target depth increases. I'm not sure if this is true or not due to my own ignorance and lack of experience.

Many thanks. I apologize in advance for the $%#& storm this may create.

Judging by the iron you're finding, I'd say a discriminating machine like an Excalibur, CTX, CZ21 would help your trash to treasure ratio. Just run in all metal and switch over to discrimination to determine whether it's worth digging or not. Dead null, leave it, anything else, dig it. That's my motto with the Excalibur.

 

[penzfan]

Just run in all metal and switch over to discrimination to determine whether it's worth digging or not. Dead null, leave it, anything else, dig it. That's my motto with the Excalibur.

Just be careful with your "Nulls". Many Foreign Coins and old Keys will "Null" on our Excals...

 

[certman68]

don't always hunt in bathtub conditions
http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/members/29748-albums4137-picture1198855.html

That gets my HARDCORE award. I'll stop *****ing about "rough" surf here on the bathtub coast of FL. I hope you found something AWESOME on this day.

 

[cudamark]

Just be careful with your "Nulls". Many Foreign Coins and old Keys will "Null" on our Excals...

Good! Saves me from digging that stuff!

 

[cudamark]

Carpinteria, Santa claus lane,Butterfly, Miramar, East/west and harbor, leadbetter, Pizmo and Avila Beach! Some are quitter than others but they all have given!
The inner tidal zone is good too but many more hunters! Very important to have a good water scoop and lots of practice recovering water targets! It can be very
Frustrating! Your right most beach at most times are impossible! After tracking tides, wind and swell reports + offshorethearter web cams I pick my days to hunt!
With a new little one (5 months) and a 3 1/2 year old....... time for me is far and few! Some day I'll be up your way and we can pick each others brains and swap stories!
Or if your down my way we can hit some beaches! Send me a PM anytime! Warning Im a wicked slow typer and can't spell with out spell check!

I found a ring with your Latin tag line on it! I'm still trying to find the owner.

 

[surfnturf]

It's mine!!

Haha!
Would like to see a pic?!
Do you hunt in Santa Ynez often? See that your from San Diego?

 

[streetshark1966]

Nice to hear from you Terry. I've followed your posts across multiple forums and also watched your videos. Based on your experience with the unit and my budget I purchased a Sand Shark as my first detector for use in the H2O. It sounds like I have the right machine (which I love BTW). A scoop that allows me to recover items more easily / quickly may be my best investment vs. another detector. I'm working with a scoop that is about 6" wide. It sounds like "digging it all" is just the price of admission. Makes sense now that I understand that gold is similarly conductive to other "junk" metals.

This chart was very helpful for others interested.

certman68 I have a sand shark and love it. Be ready to dig deep. I dug a small charm about the size of nickel at 12" my first time out with it. I was glad I got my RTG 6" scoop or I would have never found it. I had a couple targets deeper then 24" and gave up. HH keep us posted on your finds.