The perfect condition beaches.

[grey95chevyboy]

To make a long story short, a very good friend of mine recently purchased a Excalibur 2 and I've been itching to go out with him and show him the ropes.Two days ago we decided to go out on a low tide couple hour hunt, when we arrived I could not believe the beach conditions,absolutely beautiful giant cuts,well packed sand, spots where any novice could see the "old" original type sand was exposed. As soon as I laid my eyes on the beach I instantly got excited, 3-4 hours later nothing but diapointment was achieved by myself. I have done so much better in worse conditions it was so disheartning to have a bad day with such promising conditions , anyone else has ever had this occur to them? On a side note I used his minelab for a few (excalliber guys take no offense) you couldn't give me two for my cz-21, maybe I just need more time to learn it's quirks. I will attach a picture of my finds at least I dug some things...


What Iam asking has anyone else ever got perfect conditions and failed miserably? I enjoy the hobby so as long as iam out out it's a good day, just seemed like a let down after seeing what I would presume near perfect conditions.

 

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[bigscoop]

Judging from the picture....I don't see anything that looks like it's been in the water too long, and aside from the fishing weights everything looks pretty lite. From what I'm hearing from the guys on the east coast of Florida it's going to take a major storm to cut away all of the new sand that's that built up on the beach. Sometimes the beach can look good, a lot of deep cuts, etc., but if those cuts are just through the new upper layers it's still a recent drop game.

 

[cudamark]

Maybe the area was hammered at the previous day's low tide? What did your friend find with his Excal? I've hit a beach with a 6-7' cut and found nothing, and hunted a beach with only a 4" cut and was overwhelmed with targets. Even though it can "look" good, you won't know until you sling the loop.

 

[grey95chevyboy]

I do frequent this beach a couple times a week just to observe the conditions, it has never looked this good, but you may be correct, still not enough of the new sand removed to get the goodies. My buddie is just learning the Excalibur so he had less to show, however he did find a fake women's ring which to me a ring is a ring,so all in all, not bad for his first outing with a new machine. We compared some of our hits amazing how the Excalibur nulls out iron, amazingly light compared to the cz-21. One of the quarters was nearly 14 inches down in the wet sand the cz-21 hit it,was fairly faint but without a doubt hearable, the Excalibur no matter what the setting I could not get it to hit it. Anyways I guess sometimes it's a matter of luck no matter what conditions.

 

[bigscoop]

Shortly after I moved down to Florida (New Smyrna) I started killing the gold rings, completely ignorant to the fact that the coast had seen an unusual amount of northeasters that previous fall and winter, I thought, "Man this is too easy!"

Then came summer and all of that sand, I had something like 40 gold rings by May, didn't hit my next one for close to 2 months. I remember PMing OBN and others in regards to all this sand and my need for a deeper machine, and I did go there, PI machines, larger coils, you name it, but to no avail. Then I read an article in a local newspaper about a guy who had recovered a gold pendent for a lady who had lost it the previous day, that pendent already "down about 16-18 inches" in the sand. Stop and think about that, in roughly 12 hours that pendent had already sunk 16-18 inches, already completely out of range many machines/hunters.

My point is this, that's when the light came upon me that "you can't beat the sand" so if you want more then just recent drops then you'd better focus on locating solid bottoms that aren't all that deep below all of that summer sand. Shortly after I started focusing on this I started finding gold again.

 

[cudamark]

I do frequent this beach a couple times a week just to observe the conditions, it has never looked this good, but you may be correct, still not enough of the new sand removed to get the goodies. My buddie is just learning the Excalibur so he had less to show, however he did find a fake women's ring which to me a ring is a ring,so all in all, not bad for his first outing with a new machine. We compared some of our hits amazing how the Excalibur nulls out iron, amazingly light compared to the cz-21. One of the quarters was nearly 14 inches down in the wet sand the cz-21 hit it,was fairly faint but without a doubt hearable, the Excalibur no matter what the setting I could not get it to hit it. Anyways I guess sometimes it's a matter of luck no matter what conditions.

There must be something wrong with his Excalibur then, as a 14" quarter should be no problem. I've detected them at 18" in favorable sand. To get max depth, he should be hunting in Pin Point, Volume max, Disc at 1, and Sensitivity at Auto or just off Auto (depending on conditions). That should work on all but to worst black sand beaches.

 

[grey95chevyboy]

There must be something wrong with his Excalibur then, as a 14" quarter should be no problem. I've detected them at 18" in favorable sand. To get max depth, he should be hunting in Pin Point, Volume max, Disc at 1, and Sensitivity at Auto or just off Auto (depending on conditions). That should work on all but to worst black sand beaches.

Thank you for that suggestion will try those settings on our next outting.

 

[dewcon4414]

The Xcal II for me never liked a deep quarter, but the blue does. Ive never been one that could say how deep my machine was finding targets except in the dry sand. Guess im a horrible PPer in the oat meal and water lol. Most people with a CZ reverse disc hunt and the CZ when set up and ran by someone knowing it can do a little better job than the Xcal on near targets. Looks like you found the penny line.... most cases thats where the lighter stuff moves. Not that there isnt any gold there..... but most of the heavies arent. If i find the pennies out deeper...... then i look farther out for the quarter or nickels. Hard to tell about sinkers...... if the area is heavily fished some of them are just dropped. Time of day can make a difference..... sometimes targets are at the high tide line NOT the low tide. We have hard pan right now in some areas of the Gulf. Great conditions for recent drops...... but targets just seem to disappear. Plus we are getting the wind causing really high tides.