Need HELP finding gold items with the AT Pro!

[cusedpjd]

I really need some advice on finding gold items such as rings, with the AT Pro. It's one of the reasons I updated from a Bounty Hunter Tracker IV, but so far no success. I'm aware of the advice that you have to dig the pull tab signals if you want to find gold but the problems I have found so far are as follows:

1. Every time I dig a pull tab signal (59/60) it's ALWAYS a pull tab.

2. AT Pro instructional video says that gold should ring higher than a pull tab so when I limit myself to just digging items in the 65 to low 70 range, I always get stuck with a bottlecap (iron audio is not fullproof with those) or a piece of aluminum.

3. I took of my 10K wedding band and scanned it and it came up in the mid 40 range and when I try to limit my digs to that range, I get stuck with foil.

4. With my ring coming up at 45 (I assume b/c it is 10K and has a bunch of other metal in it), now I am confused totally as to what strategy I should use in helping me decide how to maximize my chances that the target I am digging will actually be gold. With coins, it's easy. But there has to be a better strategy with the AT Pro then just did every pull tab signal. Any help or links to help would be much appreciated. Thanks!

 

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[wvwildman]

dig all foil and pull tab singles

 

[cusedpjd]

There has to be a better strategy than that.

 

[wvwildman]

if ya find one let me know

 

[cusedpjd]

I will. Maybe someone else has some ideas because digging every single foil and pull tab signal is woefully inefficient. There has to be another variable(s) to consider. Wondering if anyone else has ideas/strategies?

 

[dirtscratcher]

You'll have to dig foil and tabs, but not at placelike a trashy park more like sports fields or volley ball courts or even totlots. At trashy parks you will get frustrated and maybe kicked out for digging to much. Thats one of the problems tell people to dig everything, there are plces to dig everything and places to be discrete.

 

[fella]

There has to be a better strategy than that.

Nope! That's it!

Dig all SOILD repeatables from the 40's on up!

 

[cusedpjd]

The main sites I go to are schools and parks. Is this where I am going wrong? Dirtscratcher mentioned sports fields. I did try a soccer field sideline today but no luck. Any sites/areas within sites tend to yield more luck finding gold that others?

 

[fella]

Sports fields, parks, school yards & beaches!

 

[cusedpjd]

Yep, I go to all those places but every single time it is always a non-gold item.

 

[RobRieman]

Your going to be disappointed with the answer to your question. It doesn't matter how much you spend on a detector. Foil and pull tabs are dead on the gold signals. You have to swing the coil over one and dig a lot of crap and have a bit of luck to find gold. The beach is you best bet in the water, other than that any place people play sports, swim and sled ride. Gold is rare so don't get your hopes up too high and good luck.

 

[cusedpjd]

Well, at least it does not seem like I am doing anything wrong?

 

[Sandman]

Fella is right about signals 40 and up. However gold is just a metal and alloyed with other metals to make it harder. If the ring is white gold it can ring up on the AT PRO at even 35 or lower where most foil comes up. Alum foil that is flat will ring up higher than foil that is crinkled. If the white gold ring is broken at the bottom it will give a broken sound and be low numbers. The main reason the AT PRO sucks is cause people rely on the numbers. Your much better off with duct tape over the screen. Detectors hit on the surface area of the ring and not the mass. A ring laying flat produces a better signal than one vertical in the ground. The main reason your not finding rings is your not looking in the right places that people could lose them. Sports fields are nice because people are moving their hands around while throwing balls or such. Anywhere peoples hands a wet and chilled makes rings slide off easily is prime places to look to increase your find ratio to time spent. Any beaches near you?


I stopped posting ring finds because many said that nobody could find that many rings and jewelry. Take tips from Thegoldenolde. http://web.archive.org/web/20080202045558/http://thegoldenolde.com/ You can learn a lot from this site and old timey guys.

 

[raymondj]

..what about limiting urself to older sites that don't have the beaver tabs? The 40ish mark is around right for gold and unfortunately it lays in the middle of beaver tabs as well...sooo the best advice is 1...dig all signals in that range including beaver tabs and get fit or 2.... limit your digs to areas where there are no beaver tabs, such as old relic/gold sites.

 

[cudamark]

If gold was easy to find, everyone would be doing it. To increase your chances, hunt sites with a higher percentage of losses. Beaches and swimming holes are #1 on my list. Other good spots are sledding/ski runs, sports fields, public pool areas, and dog parks. I figure on average, I dig about 100 tabs and 100 nickles for each piece of gold jewelry I find at the beach. Depending on the park, it can be twice that high there.

 

[bluescruise]

A lot of folks watch Youtube videos of people finding gold ring after other gold jewelry one right after the other and think "it must be my detector! if I just go buy the wizbang detector Mike was using in his video, I'll find that much gold too!" In reality, those are usually edits of many hours of work.
1) You have to be where the gold is! As has been mentioned many times on this thread, soccer fields and beaches are a great start. I had many hours, and quite litterally at least 2 five gallon buckets full of foil, pull tabs, and can slaw before I actually found 1 decent $700 ring. I'm not retired, and I work 7 days a week most of the time, so you can do the math

2) You have to manage to get your coil over the gold! Up to 4 or 5 inches, your Bounty Hunter stood almost as good a chance of letting you know that ring is down there as your AT Pro does. Your AT Pro is better at depth most likely, and is most likely a bit better at target separation, but the fact is, most of the jewelry your going to find is in that range anyway.

Take the time to really understand the sounds you machine makes. VDI numbers are handy in some situations, but definatly are not reliable, or the end all be all! Ask a Tesoro owner, most of their machines are tone only, and those guys do just as good as the folks with VDI machines. I own one, and a Fisher F5, and I would have to say they are pretty equal when it comes to finding things, but I had to learn what the sounds were telling me. I know folks who actually count pull tabs, and other aluminum digs, and average out the junk to gold ratio, and it isn't all that high.

Most of all, this isn't a speed sport. If it was, we'd all be rich. It will show up when you've done enough homework on you machine, and when you've learned to slow down and take your time, this isn't always a compitition. When you perservere in your patience, gold will come.

Do a little research. Go to the soccer fields on busy days and watch the patterns. Watch where the players lay their clothes, bags and whatever. Watch where the soccer moms and dads set up camp. If you watch, you'll see patterns they walk when they go to the porta potties and concession stands. Don't forget the places they go to get back to their cars. I've found jewelry in the gravel parking lots and paths back to them from people dragging their keys out and accidently pull off that loose ring.

Most of all, have fun with it and quit pressuring yourself. It only bums you out when you do that and makes you frustrated so that you feel like you want to quit when that gold was probably that other 10 minutes away from where you quit. Hang in there my friend! Some day when you are least expecting it is when it will come!

Good luck and good hunting!

BC

 

[dusreis]

all the machines with many buttons and many options to me is a big mistake, if someone buried an iron pot full of gold coins and jewelry? your detector will discriminate because is iron pot... and everything'll be missed, best dig all signals. no ..to AT PRO

 

[goldnrelics]

follow the color rainbow and thee shall find the gold

 

[Tom_in_CA]

reply

cusedpjd, as I read your question, I thought: "I bet someone's gonna say that the trick to finding gold rings, is to lower your disc, and dig foil and tabs till your arms fall off". And sure enough, some people have given that answer But others have given the correct answer:

It's a matter of LOCATION, not machine or disc. settings, or tones, or whatever. Because it's already a GIVEN that alloyed gold is a low conductor. And thus shares the same conductivity range as aluminum. So he "trick" to finding gold, is NOT to go to junky parks, and lower your disc. That's a recipe for disaster, as the ratio can be 500 to 1, in some junky blighted ghetto parks. Simply not worth it.

Nor is the advice raymondj gives about hitting parks that are pre-pulltab (and/or pre-aluminum foil) going to work too well. Tabs came about in the early 1960s. So the problem with hitting sites that were gone by the 1950s (parks that went defunct, or schools that closed down, etc...) is that prior to the 1960s, people didn't wear as much jewelry as now. Well, maybe the post-war 1950s was affluent, but prior to the 1950s, people didn't wear that much jewelry. Perhaps a single wedding ring, and that was it. Contrast to NOW, and men and women where multiple types of jewelry each: rings, necklaces, bracelets, earings, toe-rings, nose-rings, etc.... If you look at candid photos (candid as in, people not "dressed up" for the photo shoot) from the turn of the century, you would see that people simply didn't wear a lot of jewelry. Thus for people who strictly do, for example, ghost town type hunting, or CW type era spots hunting, you'll find that their ratio of jewelry is very slim. They're after coins and relics, but the random incidental ring that turns up, is extremely rare. So ironically, your best bet for jewelry sites, is going to be sites from the 1950s and newer, not older. And alas, yes, that puts you smack dab in the middle of the aluminum years : (

Let's assume you're only going to "upscale" parks in "better parts of towns, your ratios are still going to be too punishing usually. Here's why: because one of the very natures/purposes of parks, as we know, is picnicking/eating, right? And the very moment people eat and drink and BBQ, is the recipe for the introduction of aluminum. Because people who are going to drink soda, shed tabs (and cans which become can slaw with mowers). And when they eat, their food comes wrapped in various aluminum packaging or wrap. And when they BBQ, that introduces those aluminum nuggets (foils and cans thrown on to the flames, which then melt into nuggets). That's why you've probably noticed that junk ratios go up, the minute you get near picnic tables. So NO! Do NOT try to be a hero and rescue gold rings from junky parks. Unless you just enjoy punishment.

The best bet for gold rings is not the machine settings or type detector, but WHERE you hunt. And the best ratios for gold rings is either:

1) swimming beaches. Because swimming, by it's very nature, is condusive to jewelry loose. Cool waters shrink fingers, people lathering up with slippery suntan lotion, people frolicking, etc... And you need not necessarily even be "in the water" (although that's the best spot). Simply at the "towel" line is sufficient, because my favorite beach reason: people taking off their jewelry for "safekeeping" before they go in for a swim. And lets face it: digging in sand is easier The swim beaches don't need to be ocean either. Inland lakes with swim beaches are sufficient.

2) athletic fields. But this comes with a catch: it needs to be athletic field that doesn't double as a picnic field/regular park. It has to be strictly athletics. Because some soccer fields, for instance, also double as regular parks, for instance. Still though, if the area isn't upscale, and has had discarded can turned into can-slaw, this can also be a punishing way to try to get gold rings. Other spots are sand volleyball courts, PT fields, sand wrestle pits.

 

[fella]

all the machines with many buttons and many options to me is a big mistake, if someone buried an iron pot full of gold coins and jewelry? your detector will discriminate because is iron pot... and everything'll be missed, best dig all signals. no ..to AT PRO

So because a detector has lots of buttons it will automatically discriminate out the iron pot? That has to be the dumbest thing I've read this week!

Please don't post a response. I don't think I could take two in one week!