digger27
Bronze Member
- May 18, 2011
- 1,506
- 3,225
Many know I hunted in the heavenly western soil in the KC. area and then moved back to the mineralized and iron infested devil soil here in the Birmingham Ala. area.
Two completely different worlds...signals, depth, stability, just everything.
I took over a year learning to hunt in this stuff and eventually became more successful than I believed possible but I sure miss the normalcy when hunting in almost perfect dirt.
Yesterday I didn't have much time to hunt but I took a little trip to another park near me that I haven't hit much just for a change from visiting my local neighborhood park where I spend 98% of my time.
It is huge at about 100 acres but you can still get bored hunting any site no matter how big it is.
This other park us fairly small but it does have a picnic pavilion, a decent open area that locals might throw balls or frisbees around, a tot lot and a basketball court.
Years ago someone that lives in this part of the country contacted me when I lived in Kansas and asked for tips on finding gold because he used an F2 and noticed how much of that I had found with mine.
I told him the best way is to find sites where you might have a little better chance of finding that precious metal.
I used Bing Maps and flew around the area I live in now because he lives in another city but he works here in Birmingham and has hunted my big local park and a few others a lot and I came across this little park as I combed the area.
I sent him the name and location because he didn't know about it and told him to hit that basketball court.
He then visited it a couple of times and did find 2 gold rings around that court so now he says he owes me...I am just thrilled that any advice I share can make another person so happy and that is thanks enough.
Now I am back and I did visit here one time before a few months ago but I had the standard elliptical mounted and that court area is super trashy along with that pavilion area and the sniper coil would be the more logical choice for a site like this, especially for hitting that court perimeter, so that is what I had mounted this time.
Last time here I found several clad coins and some copper and zinc cents around the court but there are still so many more signals to examine.
This time I hit it with that sniper, didn't really grid close, just wandered quickly around it a few times but that sniper easily found a few more good targets for me, clad coins but also three heavily masked nickels, so I have hope my friend didn't find all the gold that might be hiding around this thing.
No jewelry this time but I have just started so stay tuned for future reports about that court as I get more serious about hunting it.
I walked over to other areas for a few minutes just exploring and with the little time I had left I stepped into that wood chip filled tot lot before I had to get home.
This kind of area is getting rare around here, most tot lots I used to hunt all around here and even back in other cities in the burbs have replaced those chips with that thick rubber padding which depresses me...tot lots with chips are the easiest sites to dig in and get deep fast and can hold lots of great targets from time to time.
Now that padding might be better and safer for the kiddies but every time they install those things means another possibly good always reloading site gone forever.
I switched over to my all metal maxed out blast through settings and ground balanced in those chips.
Still got a 72 number, pretty high for neutral wood chips but whatever, I started to hunt.
As I listened for changes in that threshold tone I got a couple of signals right off with VDI numbers that said trash, stay tab signals, foil signals, a couple of zinc cents too.
The great thing was most of them were pretty deep, 6-7 and 8" and pretty stable and not super jumpy why, it was like I was hunting back in that heavenly soil back east again!
One signal ended up to be 10", it was in the 30's in the chips, more like 20 when I air tested it and it was a small clean round piece of metal that looked like a thin steel concave shaped washer.
Just junk but I was happy there was metal down there and my sniper coil could see it.
I found out what this tot lot was made of on that one.
It appears there is about 6-7" of chips then a small layer of those larger white rocks they used to use in many of these sites and then another layer of black dirt below that which is where I think that 72 GB number came from.
I even hit a tree root down there in the black dirt part.
Over the years this strata got deeper and deeper as more chips were piled into it so there might be some good stuff still down there deep.
The way cool thing is even though I got deep and saw VDI numbers on most targets I got a couple where the tone was good, the threshold wavered so I knew there was something deep but there was absolutely no info on the screen...it was blank on every pass every time which these top end Fishers and the T2 tend to do when hitting on targets at the very limit of their scanning field.
I found 3 of these type of signals, one was a little too large and loud and by raising the coil higher I still got it so it was something way big, the other two acted like normal smaller targets although not at any great coin numbers.
Probably trash but the the crazy thing was hitting the pinpoint button I saw the depth estimates and on all of them and it said 12" on every pass.
Impressive...we all know that sniper coil can get unusually deep when mounted on a rig with a lot of power behind it but this was way cool.
I didn't dig these this time, even though it would have been easy to get down there I would have to get down on at least one knee, I was wearing shorts and I didn't wear any knee pads on this trip...the few times I did get down there on those other deep signals my knees told me this wasn't a great idea, chips are not soft like dirt.
I left them there and I will return there with long pants since it is finally cooling off around here or knee pads.
Curious about what these really deep signals might be, even if they are just trash if there is actually a smaller piece of any kind of metal down there at that depth and that sniper coil did see it I will be happy.
I have confidence I will be happy when I eventually go after them.
So after spending just a short time in this tot lot for me it was like taking a luxury vacation away from my normally so difficult hunting areas I have been hitting for over a year.
Even areas with some better black dirt are still mineralized to a certain extent and are not like this.
Solid, not really jumpy and DEEP signals like when hunting old parks back in Kansas, I forgot how pleasurable doing that can be and it has been awhile.
This will be my vacation site when I need a break in the future, glad I found it as small as this little spot is.
Who knows, there actually could be something great down there and has been waiting for someone to come by and find them for years.
I know my F70 is up to it, sniper coil included.
Two completely different worlds...signals, depth, stability, just everything.
I took over a year learning to hunt in this stuff and eventually became more successful than I believed possible but I sure miss the normalcy when hunting in almost perfect dirt.
Yesterday I didn't have much time to hunt but I took a little trip to another park near me that I haven't hit much just for a change from visiting my local neighborhood park where I spend 98% of my time.
It is huge at about 100 acres but you can still get bored hunting any site no matter how big it is.
This other park us fairly small but it does have a picnic pavilion, a decent open area that locals might throw balls or frisbees around, a tot lot and a basketball court.
Years ago someone that lives in this part of the country contacted me when I lived in Kansas and asked for tips on finding gold because he used an F2 and noticed how much of that I had found with mine.
I told him the best way is to find sites where you might have a little better chance of finding that precious metal.
I used Bing Maps and flew around the area I live in now because he lives in another city but he works here in Birmingham and has hunted my big local park and a few others a lot and I came across this little park as I combed the area.
I sent him the name and location because he didn't know about it and told him to hit that basketball court.
He then visited it a couple of times and did find 2 gold rings around that court so now he says he owes me...I am just thrilled that any advice I share can make another person so happy and that is thanks enough.
Now I am back and I did visit here one time before a few months ago but I had the standard elliptical mounted and that court area is super trashy along with that pavilion area and the sniper coil would be the more logical choice for a site like this, especially for hitting that court perimeter, so that is what I had mounted this time.
Last time here I found several clad coins and some copper and zinc cents around the court but there are still so many more signals to examine.
This time I hit it with that sniper, didn't really grid close, just wandered quickly around it a few times but that sniper easily found a few more good targets for me, clad coins but also three heavily masked nickels, so I have hope my friend didn't find all the gold that might be hiding around this thing.
No jewelry this time but I have just started so stay tuned for future reports about that court as I get more serious about hunting it.
I walked over to other areas for a few minutes just exploring and with the little time I had left I stepped into that wood chip filled tot lot before I had to get home.
This kind of area is getting rare around here, most tot lots I used to hunt all around here and even back in other cities in the burbs have replaced those chips with that thick rubber padding which depresses me...tot lots with chips are the easiest sites to dig in and get deep fast and can hold lots of great targets from time to time.
Now that padding might be better and safer for the kiddies but every time they install those things means another possibly good always reloading site gone forever.
I switched over to my all metal maxed out blast through settings and ground balanced in those chips.
Still got a 72 number, pretty high for neutral wood chips but whatever, I started to hunt.
As I listened for changes in that threshold tone I got a couple of signals right off with VDI numbers that said trash, stay tab signals, foil signals, a couple of zinc cents too.
The great thing was most of them were pretty deep, 6-7 and 8" and pretty stable and not super jumpy why, it was like I was hunting back in that heavenly soil back east again!
One signal ended up to be 10", it was in the 30's in the chips, more like 20 when I air tested it and it was a small clean round piece of metal that looked like a thin steel concave shaped washer.
Just junk but I was happy there was metal down there and my sniper coil could see it.
I found out what this tot lot was made of on that one.
It appears there is about 6-7" of chips then a small layer of those larger white rocks they used to use in many of these sites and then another layer of black dirt below that which is where I think that 72 GB number came from.
I even hit a tree root down there in the black dirt part.
Over the years this strata got deeper and deeper as more chips were piled into it so there might be some good stuff still down there deep.
The way cool thing is even though I got deep and saw VDI numbers on most targets I got a couple where the tone was good, the threshold wavered so I knew there was something deep but there was absolutely no info on the screen...it was blank on every pass every time which these top end Fishers and the T2 tend to do when hitting on targets at the very limit of their scanning field.
I found 3 of these type of signals, one was a little too large and loud and by raising the coil higher I still got it so it was something way big, the other two acted like normal smaller targets although not at any great coin numbers.
Probably trash but the the crazy thing was hitting the pinpoint button I saw the depth estimates and on all of them and it said 12" on every pass.
Impressive...we all know that sniper coil can get unusually deep when mounted on a rig with a lot of power behind it but this was way cool.
I didn't dig these this time, even though it would have been easy to get down there I would have to get down on at least one knee, I was wearing shorts and I didn't wear any knee pads on this trip...the few times I did get down there on those other deep signals my knees told me this wasn't a great idea, chips are not soft like dirt.
I left them there and I will return there with long pants since it is finally cooling off around here or knee pads.
Curious about what these really deep signals might be, even if they are just trash if there is actually a smaller piece of any kind of metal down there at that depth and that sniper coil did see it I will be happy.
I have confidence I will be happy when I eventually go after them.
So after spending just a short time in this tot lot for me it was like taking a luxury vacation away from my normally so difficult hunting areas I have been hitting for over a year.
Even areas with some better black dirt are still mineralized to a certain extent and are not like this.
Solid, not really jumpy and DEEP signals like when hunting old parks back in Kansas, I forgot how pleasurable doing that can be and it has been awhile.
This will be my vacation site when I need a break in the future, glad I found it as small as this little spot is.
Who knows, there actually could be something great down there and has been waiting for someone to come by and find them for years.
I know my F70 is up to it, sniper coil included.
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