I give up

[[email protected]]

I Live a treasure hunters dream. I spend 6-8 weeks a year in st Martin living in a small apartment on orient beach. Three years ago I decided to try metal detecting to give me something to do for a couple hours a day. Cruise ships full of tourists, many with lots of jewelry, arrive daily. As an engineer I wanted a good detector to use on the beach and surf. I purchased an Excaliber II. How hard could this be? After 3 years I have not found even 1 gold ring or chain. I hunt about 2 hours almost every day. Found lots of clad coins, junk rings and 1 good silver bangle. But with all the time I put in I thought I'd find at least 1 piece of gold. I am so frustrated. I have read several pamphlets, tried all different kinds of settings and hunted several beaches. Still no gold. I know it's here and in all the time I've been here I've only seen 1 other hunter for a day. I think the machine is over my head. What I wouldn't give for a teacher.

 

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[dave sharky]

hello there are so many kinds you can buy get one that tells you gold or silver and sell that on ebay don,t ever give up and go back over where you were i found when it rains i find more on the beach i looked on a beach and every day i would find more that i missed your right its there keep trying and keep your chin up and you don.t all ways find great finds we all have are days garret just came out with a new one for like 2300 or buy the cheaper one that will go up to ten feet deep for around 700 good luck better days are coming.

 

[Mobius1]

I'm a regular park hunter and I swung an Xterra 305 for 2.5 years until I hit that gold ring. It's a matter of luck and what I choose to dig that gets me good finds but most of the hunting is PATIENCE! I feel your frustration because I have never even found a single silver coin!! I have the Etrac now but still no silver. I'm trying all the modes appropriate for each spot and clad comes out... I just call it a day when I've lost hope but I have never lost faith in my hobby. I hope you don't either!

Just like fishing, we dream of hitting it big but always come out with crappies. However, those crappies add up and every so often, a rainbow trout glimmers and gives new hope.

 

[Terry Soloman]

I Live a treasure hunters dream. I spend 6-8 weeks a year in st Martin living in a small apartment on orient beach. Three years ago I decided to try metal detecting to give me something to do for a couple hours a day. Cruise ships full of tourists, many with lots of jewelry, arrive daily. As an engineer I wanted a good detector to use on the beach and surf. I purchased an Excaliber II. How hard could this be? After 3 years I have not found even 1 gold ring or chain. I hunt about 2 hours almost every day. Found lots of clad coins, junk rings and 1 good silver bangle. But with all the time I put in I thought I'd find at least 1 piece of gold. I am so frustrated. I have read several pamphlets, tried all different kinds of settings and hunted several beaches. Still no gold. I know it's here and in all the time I've been here I've only seen 1 other hunter for a day. I think the machine is over my head. What I wouldn't give for a teacher.

Sell that multi-frequency money pit and get a $600.00 Tesoro Sand Shark. Pulse Induction gold will fill your scoop within weeks!

 

[PlayingInTheDirt]

I Live a treasure hunters dream. I spend 6-8 weeks a year in st Martin living in a small apartment on orient beach. Three years ago I decided to try metal detecting to give me something to do for a couple hours a day. Cruise ships full of tourists, many with lots of jewelry, arrive daily. As an engineer I wanted a good detector to use on the beach and surf. I purchased an Excaliber II. How hard could this be? After 3 years I have not found even 1 gold ring or chain. I hunt about 2 hours almost every day. Found lots of clad coins, junk rings and 1 good silver bangle. But with all the time I put in I thought I'd find at least 1 piece of gold. I am so frustrated. I have read several pamphlets, tried all different kinds of settings and hunted several beaches. Still no gold. I know it's here and in all the time I've been here I've only seen 1 other hunter for a day. I think the machine is over my head. What I wouldn't give for a teacher.

It is true about different detectors, you don't need to give up if you enjoy the 2 hours you give everyday. What is fun is trying to find you a detector that suits you & makes you happy using it. Sometimes you might go through several machines before you find one that you want to merry & spend the rest of your life with Also, it is fun just learning new detectors so don't give up get tougher & keep your head up don't let it whip ya.... Good Luck

 

[Helix]

Don't give up!! Sounds like you might be in a "honey hole" of sorts. It might take some time but once your dialed in with a good detector you should increase your odds. It seems you already have the "location" down.

 

[mineralized_miner]

Try going in the water and right behund that wall-thing where the waves break. A lot of the heavy stuff will fall down there. From my experience fossil hunting, I know that the binnger, and heavier shark teeth fall down to this area, and it is where I have found some of my biggest shark's teeth.

Good luck, and don't give up!!!

 

[bigscoop]

I'm so frustrated with this #@*#!!%# computer tonight you almost talked me into booking a ticket!!!! Vista was bad enough but WINDOWS 8 BLOWS!!
Ok, I feel better now.

Well, you have an excellent machine so I doubt that's an issue. What settings/mode are you typically using? Shoot us a picture of some of the beaches so we can possibly help you to formulate a plan of attack.

 

[Mobius1]

Look at this.. The true beauty of treasurenet. Everyone cares about one another and we all help by giving tips. You're not alone on this Michelott.

 

[mineralized_miner]

I have never found a silver coin or gold/silver jewelry, and I'm happy to find clad all day, but probably not for much longer... I'm researching where to find silver in my area, and it seems to be a troublesome task, with nearly all history being protected in my area. I will not give up!!!

 

[Mobius1]

I have never found a silver coin or gold/silver jewelry, and I'm happy to find clad all day, but probably not for much longer... I'm researching where to find silver in my area, and it seems to be a troublesome task, with nearly all history being protected in my area. I will not give up!!!

Funny thing is that I found silver and gold rings within weeks of each other and have yet to pick up a single silver coin haha. How long have you been detecting and what are you using?

 

[roadrunner]

When do you hit the beach? I would spend 1 day, and 1 whole night, no sleep, and see if any one else is detecting.
How many people from the ships actually go into the water, and swim, then come out and run or throw balls, or do any activity on the beach.
A bunch of tourists walking the beach does not mean they will lose anything.
And most of them, as what I would do myself, is leave all my expensive and best jewelry at home, or on the ship.
Actually, I would take no jewelry with me at all. On any ship, or any vacation.
My wife, I would buy here some cosmetic or cheap stuff to wear so it if was lost or stolen, who cares.

 

[Msbeepbeep]

Michelott- like they have all said there are a lot of factors that effect beach hunting and finding goodies. The biggest one is if your coil isn't over it you can't find it, big beach/small target, other MD'ers, right setting on the detector, weather and sand conditions, etc. Don't give up just try a different approach.
Some MD'ers have said they were surprised to not find much at vacation spots, so your not alone. The goodies are out there enough MD'ers have proven that.
Watch what goes on and where at the beach your detecting, it may point out better spots to hunt. Try another beach if you can. Or grid search a active area of the beach you are searching now and dig "all" targets, to see if you are missing some. GL. HH. We are all pulling for you! You'll be posting those finds pics soon!!!

 

[[email protected]]

I really appreciate all the input and support. Thanks people. The amount of jewelry some people wear to the beach is just incredible. Suffice it to say there should be plenty. The waves are constantly 3-5 feet. The shore changes almost weekly. Sand goes out then overnight it comes back. It's near impossible to work in the water. When I try to dig I get pounded by the waves. There is very little tide change. The slope leading into the water is fairly steep. The fist few feet in the water is soft. It's Easy picking on the sand as the beach bars all take in the beach chairs at night. They rent them to the tourists each day and feed them rum drinks. I find lots of coins, bottle caps and pull tabs.

 

[smittyman]

I envy you living at Orient Beach. I just spent a week there this Dec. (Groupon y'all). That island and those around it are beautiful. I wished that I could have detected there but it was a family vacation and it was fine just to enjoy being there.
I believe the most important factor in finding booty is location. From what I saw you're right there is stuff there to be found. The second factor is you the operator. To figure this hobby out takes a good bit of effort - fortunately even that effort is fun. Continue visiting TreasureNet and asking questions, there are no dumb questions here. If you aren't already start watching metal detecting videos - specifically beach hunting & your Excaliber II- on youtube.
Read books such as "Gold Beneath The Waves" by Jim Brouwer. And as others have said "DON'T GIVE UP"! Good luck and keep us posted on your progress!

 

[ThTx]

If you're finding coins, bottle caps and pull tabs, you will find the gold when your coil is over it. For now dig every target and keep working to learn your machine. If you really think you're detector isn't the right one for you then sell it and get one you are comfortable with. Confidence in the detector and your ability to use it means more fun while you detect. More fun equates to more time detecting and better chances of finding that elusive gold!

JUST DON'T GIVE UP!

 

[Dave44]

I have 2 Ecal II Machines and I love em, Very stable. Dig the signals, all of them.

Terry is a pulse induction fanatic! lol They are good machines but I don't want to hear every piece of steel too.

I am very suprised that you haven't found much, how many people are detecting that beach?

 

[bigscoop]

Ah.....you're in a mining situation. Sounds pretty much the same sort of thing I have to deal with all the time. The stuff is out there, no doubt about that. Your description of the beach and surf conditions sounds like the real problem area. Soft sand, 3-5 foot surf, and a fairly steep slope into the water makes for tough hunting because that deep soft sand is always getting churned, anything dense getting stirred deep into that sand very quickly. Thousands of people in the water here all week long during the summer but you can hunt all day in the water here and never find anything but lite crap, lite stuff that stirs with the sand instead of the heavy stuff that simply gets sucked straight down. I deal with this every day on my area beaches. But, the stuff is there and there's a lot more of it then you might think. You just have to figure out how and when to get at it. Doesn't do any good to swing the coil over items that are too deep to be detected. A few hours, that's all it takes for items like heavy rings to sink beyond your reach, sometimes not even that long. This is why I say that you're in a mining situation because that's pretty much what it's going to take to allow you to access all of these deeper targets.

Obviously you can't go mining so you have to let the ocean do that for you and believe it or not it's doing it all the time, you just have to locate those places where the mining is a work in progress, and as you've already pointed out the beach is changing all the time so it's always happening somewhere. "Reading the beach" is what this is often called because that's what it requires. In other words, you need to find those places where the sand is being removed. If your beach is anything like mine, and it sounds like it's fairly close to the same, then your beaches have a series of sand bars that run parallel to the coast, troughs between each sand bar. These troughs are filled with deep soft sand, most everything getting lost eventually being dragged or pushed into these troughs and onto their slopes. These troughs are, "loaded with goodies", but due to the deep soft sand they are also deep goodies, most of them too deep to be detected. And so, here they rest until something happens to expose them. Storms, nice when they happen but they just don't happen often enough so you just have to figure out how to access these goodies without them.

Water gets pushed onto the beach and then flows back out, we see it happening every few seconds. What we don't see is how this returning water escapes back to sea. You can't have the same amount of water and force trying to return against an equal volume of water and force trying to come in, so obviously something has to give way, this almost always being the returning flow. As this returning flow is forced out of the way it's often compressed into tighter flows as it snakes it's way back into those troughs before finally escaping into the sea through the breaches or low spots in those sand bars. This is why you will always have some sections of trough that have little current at all, sections that have no means for moving sand out, and there will be other sections that have a great deal of current, or those sections that have more then enough means to move sand out. And as you pointed out already, those breaches and low spots in those sand bars are changing all the time. Whenever you locate areas where these stronger currents exist then that's where the mining is taking place, sand is being removed as the water flushes through them. So let's take a walk into some of these areas to see just how serious the mining operation is.

As we walk past the waterline into the first trough some slopes will be mild tapers while others will be very steep with a noticeable step down, do you know why that is? It's because these milder slopes are created when sand is being slowly dragged back into the water, not a good thing because it's building. On the other hand, these steeper slopes, the ones with that noticeable step down, those sections of trough are being slowly eaten away and the sand is being removed. Pretty cool, hu. It's like having your own little mining crew working for you. And these little current fellas are sloppy workers, leaving thick fragments of shells and all sorts of other "dense and heavy" crap laying about in their wake. A change in the wind or a new breach in a sand bar and those little fellas quickly go to work somewhere else, the area they just left allowed to fill back in and usually very quickly, everything they exposed getting covered again in very short order.

Sometimes the very best mining operations will be far too strong to attempt hunting them, "rips" as they are known. But these areas will settle at some point so you just have to keep an eye on them. Other sections of these troughs will have "long currents" that can run several hundred yards or more, the narrower the section the better the hunting because the slopes of these sections will be cut steeper and deeper, most of the loose sand being flushed out of the entire section of trough. "Seldom will you see another hunter in these troughs" until they have calmed down so much the hunting is super easy and the sand has already started to significantly build again. He who times it right getting the most and best spoils. When one spot is gone go find another, "it does little good to keep swinging that coil over good targets that are too deep to be detected." Sure, you might find a recent drop from time to time but is that enough to satisfy you? If you want to consistently recover those heavier/denser items then you have to consistently hunt where those items can be consistently accessed. Not always easy, not always fun, but it often produces. Hope this helps.

 

[Dave44]

Great advice Big!! Also remember what Big alludes to,, watch the rip closely, be careful.

 

[Greybear]

Multi frequency machines are not great on gold. Also you need to learn to read the beach. Look for places where people have been sunning, check the flotsam line where has been pushed up by wave action. And get a machine the will work in or near salt water. The Garrett ATPro is submersible to 10 feet. The sand shark is a tried and true beach machine also. The Garrett ATX is expensive but is designed with a Salt Water mode and also submersible to 10 feet. A lot of the jewelry is lost in the water because fingers and toes shrink up in the cooler water. Also necklaces and bracelets come flying off when swimming or playing around. I had a friend that lost his class ring thine throwing a football. Luckily I saw where it landed the the bottom was hard packed and we were able to find it be feeling around with our feet. Get the right tool for the job, study the beach and don't give up. Also you are in an area that should have some old Spanish relics so don't just hit the beach, do some research in the history of the area!