Advice Please: MDing on old farm land

[Enki]

I am a newby at MDing, and I have had no luck what so ever...went to the beach, parks, ball fields, my own yard...and all I find are pull tabs, bottle caps, and a few recent dated coins.

I see sum people on here go to old farms, I have a friend who has sum old property from his family. Its an old dairy farm....lots of land.....old farm house with a dirt basement...and has a old barn.....built in mid 1850's

Pls give me sum advice and how to explore all this land...and what should I expect to find?

 

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[Frankn]

When you ask for advice, state what detector you are using. I would check out the dirt floors in the basement and barn first. If you can check out the house, check out every cubby hole you can find. Check out the land for about 100' around the house. Forget the fields, the percentages are against you. Read the other posts. There are to many places to mention here, but they are spread throughout past posts. Frank

 

[Enki]

Sorry, I am using an Ace 350....how do you MD threw a house that has nails and such throughout?

 

[Theakiki]

No advice from me, just, "Good luck!"

 

[Hosensack]

You need to be patient, you've found bottle caps, pull tabs, coins, etc. Is that a bad thing? When you are just learning not at all. First of all if you are finding coins new or old, they are there. Second what is your machine telling you when you find these targets? Take that information and learn from it. Don't give up on a spot because you find a-lot of junk, learn to read the junk the best you can so you weed through it, then you will have much fewer but more productive digs.

There is an old grove on the way back to my cellar hole site, I would hit it every now and then all random. For 4 years I did this without ever a worthwhile find, one day decided to do a serpentine search, my first pass two quarters and a penny, when I say pass I mean the first leg of the serpentine I have been back and found more clad, some old bullets, etc. If you give it the time and dedication a site requires, it will produce.

If you work on your skills enough, when you get to a old farm house, the trash in the yard will not slow you down as much and you'll get the silvers and such.

Just remember patience patience patience.

As far as the posts on T-Net, you have to remember it is more than just a newbie site, you are going to read a lot of great find posts, from guys who have been doing it awhile...let it encourage you, not discourage you. You will get there too as long as you are willing to work at it. The great thing about this "hobby" is you can make a lot of good finds even during the learning stage.

 

[Kentucky Kache]

Also consider that there may have been another house there at one time, which may not have been situated exactly where the current house sits.
And find out where other outbuildings were, such as chicken coups, outhouse, etc.

 

[Dwight S]

You need to be patient, you've found bottle caps, pull tabs, coins, etc. Is that a bad thing?

If you give it the time and dedication a site requires, it will produce.

If you work on your skills enough, when you get to a old farm house, the trash in the yard will not slow you down as much and you'll get the silvers and such.

Just remember patience patience patience.

AMEN BROTHER!!!!!!

Just this past weekend a bunch from our club went to a new site for a hunt. It was very trashy. Not a single sweep of the detector was possible without getting a signal. Mostly beer bottle caps. After a couple of hours of not finding anything, most left. Four of us were left. We took our time. I ended up with a couple of old large caliber bullet casings about 8" or so deep. One guy ended up with a couple of buttons. The most patient man there didn't move more that 30 feet, digging every repeatable signal and he ended up pulling a 3-ringer out from the trash. The funny thing was, all around where he was detecting were filled holes of where another club member had been detecting. Just goes to show, patience, persistance and knowing your detector is key.

As for the farm... detect around the doors, where the cars were parked, along the clothes line, find the outhouse locations, storage buldings, barns. Most farmers didn't carry any money into the fields when working. You will need patience, most farm yards have a bit of rusty iron in them.

 

[Swartzie]

Sorry, I am using an Ace 350....how do you MD threw a house that has nails and such throughout?

When you run into a lot of trash like nails and stuff what I do is slow down. Tighten up your swing to a few inches or so and work it slow. You want to try and work in between all the trash. If there is just too much junk laying around then get out to an area where the junk is not as dense.

Old places usually take a lot of time to hunt (weeks/months) because of the amount of trash targets laying around. Be persistent.

-Swartzie

 

[Kentucky Kache]

Sorry, I am using an Ace 350....how do you MD threw a house that has nails and such throughout?

By the frequency of their hits (how far apart they are), and the reading on your screen, or sound. You may be able to discriminate out the nail signals, but then you could miss something that may be valuable.

 

[Enki]

Thanks folks, I appreciate the advice. I do get discouraged as a lot of us newbies do. But even after hours of exploring and the blisters on my hands from digging start to burst...I keep telling myself the same thing...keep searching...keep digging....and I will find my share...then I dont of course....lol....but then the next day I wake up and go to work and I cant wait to get off so I can explore a bit more...I havent even found anything yet and I am addicted.

 

[s.c.shooter]

It only takes one good find to wipe away all the frustration. Good luck and hang in there!

 

[goverton]

Old Dairies were good places to hide Treasure.....

Look for 2 Pear trees and detect between them if they are close together( 5-7ft apart)
Look where gates were at fence lines.
Ck. along fence row near front of house.

 

[diggummup]

Personally, i'd be looking for the old outhouse location/s and probing them to dig. Depending on what state you are in the fields may be worth detecting, if there is any history of CW activity in the area. I would research the history of that particular area as much as I could beforehand. This includes a visit to the library to search old reference books and maps etc. if available. A house built in the 1850's, there should be something in the historical archives to dig up about it and it's previous owners. Good research is always key to good finds.

 

[Enki]

Its in Massachusetts near a very large river. Close to Rhode Island...years back there were a lot of Indian tribes living in the area.

 

[Lost2Much]

Being a newbee, I would recommend that you hunt the fields first. This reason being that you can learn
your machine first. There's not much of anything or junk in the fields. But, when you get a noise/reading
Don't start to dig right away, write down the readings numbers, remember the tone, this will greatly help
you when MD'ing trashy areas. I have found LC's, a ring, horse shoes. Once, my machine keep reading Foil,
Foil and Foil; being in middle of nowhere, I decided to dig it, turned out to be a 54 Cal RB. Good Luck!

 

[ronbo22]

Check the Front yard, back yard area between house and barn, area betweenhouse and outhouse under and arond trees, in the area of the old clothesline. good luck!

 

[riverrunner814]

Check the walls inthe house with the detector. That Ace will work well, it depends on the user and getting used to it. I have a 250 and have no problems. Make sure you have a pinpointer, some are expensive but harbour freight has a secuity wand that works better than the high priced ones I have. Good luck in your adventure

 

[bazinga]

Check the Front yard, back yard area between house and barn, area betweenhouse and outhouse under and arond trees, in the area of the old clothesline. good luck!

Finally some useful advice for a newbie!

Seems like everybody here wants to send him to the worst spots first to build more frustration. He needs to be somewhere that he can find coins and build some confidence. Not sent in search of horsehoes and square nails.

 

[gmanlight]

Yes it makes sense to hunt from the buildings out.
But don't rule out the fields either. Farmers had children , children that play as
well as work there.
If you want to run a little Disc near the house go for it .
If in the field run as little Disc as possable and look for glass and brick fragments
and listen for iron nails . A sign of another building.

There is a cellar hole that we hunt . Lots of trees and brush around it , making it tough to get in tight to.
There are 3 hay fields around it and has been producing nice finds up and down all corners of it for a few years now.