Getting up to your waist to detect our local oceanfront beaches is about the upper limit of what you can reasonably do. Any deeper and you just can't stay over the target and make a recovery. Occasionally, on a real calm day, you can go a bit deeper, maybe mid chest, but any kind of surf moves you around too much. In a protected area like a bay or lake, you can go deeper. As for targets, I find less junk out in the water and more good finds, but, less finds overall, than I do in the dry sand. Mostly because there are many more hunters in the dry sand. I've also had great luck in the wet sand and on the slope from water to dry. You need to hunt where the targets are rather than where you want them to be. Being able to read that particular beach is the most important factor.
Ive made some nice gold finds in knee deep water...knee deep and waist deep are my two hot spots.
I can't wait to get in the water, the idea of less trash(even with fewer finds) is also very appealing to me!
Check your local ordinances governing each lake you plan to hunt. In some areas, the lakes are off-limits in the summer. In some counties, you need a permit too. The rules should be posted online......or at least at the county courthouse.Those are some great replies! I will be detecting almost exclusively lakes, there are a lot of them here and a lot of them have beaches, sounds to me like unless someone else got out there before me with a detector there should be a few goodies to find. Getting a little sick of clad and it seems no matter how much research I do or how much I detect I can't seem to come up with any old coins. I think the water will be my main focus this summer, plus if my shoulder gets tired I can always switch gears and fish for a while
So true, nails from old piers, tin cans are about the worst, and they've sunk very deep and even the excalibur makes them sound good. The only silver dollar, a 1921 morgan I found, was in with rotted tin cans. Like most will say, you have to dig some junk to get the good stuff.
