Opinions on park hunting with a Gold Bug

[dsrtdwg1]

I have had my Gold Bug for 4 months now. It is too hot in the desert right now so park hunting early in the morning has to suffice. I have no problem finding coins,nickels and jewelry, although all the jewelry is junk. I realize the answers to the questions I have are a matter of personal choice, opinion, experience, so forth. I would like to hear (read) them.

1. nothing of value in the 60-80 vdi range that I can see, only interested in coins and jewelry.

2. I have been running my disc at 44. So I have been digging solid signals between 44-59. I am thinking about raising this to 52, bad move ? It sure seems most rings fall in the 52-58 range (except silver). I have read much about outlier signals but aren't they the exception ,not the norm? The 3 parks that I hunt in are extra trashy, as in 1 swing producing 4 or 5 signals regularly. They are also old, as in mid 20's and have multiple layers of re sodding. How do you arrive at your decision on the amount of disc. to use?

3. This is the one that I would really like to hear opinions on. How much variation/vdi movement do you allow for or consider for a target. I have been allowing a movement of 3 numbers up or down,say there was a pretty good 56 but on a couple of swings it got up to 60, would you dig that target?

I am trying to "tighten up " my park hunting. Digging everything is just not in the cards at these places like it is out in the desert. Sorry for being long winded.

 

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[Terry Soloman]

You would be better off investing in a real coin and jewelry hunter, by dropping $160.00 for a Tesoro Compadre operating at 12kHz. You'll get MUCH better discrimination and depth (8" coil) than you'll get with the Goldbug, which is built to find tiny targets more shallow.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Hey there Dsrtdwg1, I see you're from Brawley, CA. I did a lot of park hunting there years ago (and El Centro too). D/t I had grandparents who lived in Brawley. I used to get silver and wheaties out of this park: 1st x E st. Even a few IH's (d/t the neighborhood dates back to the late teens I believe).

But I was hunting those parks for silver. Was not trying to "be a hero" and get gold jewelry from junky parks. If my goal is gold jewelry, I'm simply going to head to swimming beaches, not junky parks. So I don't have a recommendation for you on the gold bug. I thought that machine didn't have disc. anyhow (isn't that strictly for nuggets/prospecting?). I haven't detected in Brawley in over 10 yrs. But last I was there, it was still fairly easy to pull common grab bag silver coins from the parks.

Good luck to ya !

 

[dsrtdwg1]

Hi Tom,
The Gold Bug was purchased with the Cargo's and Chocolates in mind. Too hot right now for the open desert, I'm hunting the parks early in the morning. The beach would be good but it is 2 hours one way to S.D. Yes I occasionally find some silver but it seems to be the result of a dig and a push of dirt to another area. Yes the modern Gold Bug has discrimination.

 

[Sandman]

Terry is right on the detector. You are running your disc to high for jewelry which white gold ring with rocks would ring in at near 40's.