Best beaches or other areas near Melbourne to metal detect?

[Chad1978]

Hi, I am a new member and this is one of my first posts. I am planning a beach metal detecting session with a friend of mine this Sunday and looking for the best beaches to search for old relics? Can anyone suggest good places in or around Melbourne, FL. I live in Orlando so trying to not have to drive more than 100 miles from my house for this adventure. Any and all advice or ideas is appreciated! Thanks and happy new year!

 

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[Slingshot]

South of Sebastian Inlet on down to Fort Pierce for 1715 stuff...

 

[ibjeepn]

Where we're headed next week !

 

[Chad1978]

thanks for the tip! I am thinking that without a hurricane passing through, msot of that area has been picked over, but ya never know until you try....

 

[PhipsFolly]

New beach renourishment going in at Wabasso south to Johns Island... They have already begun with this nonsense at Turtle Trail beach access... What a pile of 💩!!

 

[Chad1978]

Thanks for the tip, I was thinking of starting at Bonsteel Park. That should be far enough north form the re-nourishment, right? They keep "renourishing" the beach which not only covers up artifacts, but also erodes into the ocean and covers up coral reefs!

 

[tarpon192]

Most of it has been renourished at this point. Drove up to the port last week and stopped at several beaches. Lots of renourishment sand and no erosion.
In 2004 after the hurricanes bonsteel had no sand left on it for a long ways north and south. It was clay and hard pan. The dune wall was at least 15 ft tall - exposing the old old sand. Goodies were stuck in the clay. Lots of them - all very small. Mother nature did her thing and dumped tons of sand back on the beach in 2 days. Everything was covered back up.
Today there is 8 to 10 foot of sand if not more(most likely more) at that beach and the pretty much the rest of the county.
Modern tickets are possible - all would be recent drops.
Lots of turtle eggs are being lost because of this renourishment sand, and I can't believe with social media nothing is being done about it.
I can't remove a gopher turtle or disturb its hideout(nest) on my property, but local officials can have all this sand pumped on beaches and kill all species of unborn sea turtles.
Beach renourishment kills all kinds of marine life. Way to go city officials on the east coast of florida. Thanks alot for spending taxpayers money protecting peoples investments and killing turtles.
Doesn't insurance purchased by the property owner cover beach front homes and businesses if they get damaged by the ocean?

Good luck detecting here and hope you find something good.

 

[Slingshot]

A good question to ask is who owns these beach sand renourishment businesses, maybe some official has their finger in the pie. I know you can't hunt in the dunes but I would suggest hunting right up next to them as it has been theorized in the past that most the beach finds have actually washed out of the dunes and travelled back down to the sea. Lots of shoreline change and many big storms over the past 300 years. Just a thought...

 

[bikerlawyer]

If I recall correctly I read a few years ago it was a company in Chicago and the contract was for 50 years!

 

[LM]

There are no publicly known beaches that reliably yield shipwreck artifacts anymore. You're 30+ years too late for that. If such beaches exist, nobody with half a brain would be talking about it (and maybe such beaches do exist )

The 1715 beaches occasionally do yield artifacts, however its increasingly rare and its a once-in-a-blue-moon sort of thing for all but the hardest of hardcore detectorists who relentlessly scour the beach for their entire retirement years (and such dudes do very much exist). In all honesty, beach metal detecting is more about hoping to find 'lost jewelry' either from getting dropped in the sand or lost while swimming and washed up in the tide. MD'ing for historical maritime artifacts is tricky and the people who do it successfully usually don't talk about the when's and where's because a simple internet post can turn into a stampede of followers.

For example, MD'ing the hardpan after a hurricane used to be an 'inside knowledge' thing. Once it got out on the internet, every moron with a van and MD makes it down to Sebastian after a storm, hoping to hit a cob.

The old days are gone.

 

[tarpon192]

There are no publicly known beaches that reliably yield shipwreck artifacts anymore. You're 30+ years too late for that. If such beaches exist, nobody with half a brain would be talking about it (and maybe such beaches do exist )

The 1715 beaches occasionally do yield artifacts, however its increasingly rare and its a once-in-a-blue-moon sort of thing for all but the hardest of hardcore detectorists who relentlessly scour the beach for their entire retirement years (and such dudes do very much exist). In all honesty, beach metal detecting is more about hoping to find 'lost jewelry' either from getting dropped in the sand or lost while swimming and washed up in the tide. MD'ing for historical maritime artifacts is tricky and the people who do it successfully usually don't talk about the when's and where's because a simple internet post can turn into a stampede of followers.

For example, MD'ing the hardpan after a hurricane used to be an 'inside knowledge' thing. Once it got out on the internet, every moron with a van and MD makes it down to Sebastian after a storm, hoping to hit a cob.

The old days are gone.

The old days are gone for sure. One would have to live beach side and stay for the duration of the hurricane to access the beaches directly after the storm passes. Causeways are closed - not to mention the amount of debis on the road after, and if one would get caught beachside without being able to show proof of residence - your gonna have a problem.
We rode our bicycles to bonsteel after the storms in 04 and had to lift them over many trees along our street and many more on A1A. Their are a few photos someone posted on here awhile back showing beach conditions right after the storm within the general vicinity aerial photos- can't remember who it was.
The dunes were pretty much wiped out. Black sand everywhere along with tons of debris scattered on the beach.
Wabasso beaches public restroom was - well you can figure out (if I can find the pic I will post it).
A new educational building now stands where chucks steakhouse was (bonsteel). I do believe it is owned and operated by brevard county. Definitely one building county officials are going to protect with beach renourishment - along with all the goodies that stretch of beach holds.

 

[theseeker]

Most of it has been renourished at this point. Drove up to the port last week and stopped at several beaches. Lots of renourishment sand and no erosion.
In 2004 after the hurricanes bonsteel had no sand left on it for a long ways north and south. It was clay and hard pan. The dune wall was at least 15 ft tall - exposing the old old sand. Goodies were stuck in the clay. Lots of them - all very small. Mother nature did her thing and dumped tons of sand back on the beach in 2 days. Everything was covered back up.
Today there is 8 to 10 foot of sand if not more(most likely more) at that beach and the pretty much the rest of the county.
Modern tickets are possible - all would be recent drops.
Lots of turtle eggs are being lost because of this renourishment sand, and I can't believe with social media nothing is being done about it.
I can't remove a gopher turtle or disturb its hideout(nest) on my property, but local officials can have all this sand pumped on beaches and kill all species of unborn sea turtles.
Beach renourishment kills all kinds of marine life. Way to go city officials on the east coast of florida. Thanks alot for spending taxpayers money protecting peoples investments and killing turtles.
Doesn't insurance purchased by the property owner cover beach front homes and businesses if they get damaged by the ocean?

Good luck detecting here and hope you find something good.

Tarpon, I think you almost hit it on the head with your question, "Doesn't insurance purchased by the property owner cover beach front homes and businesses if they get damaged by the ocean? ". The insurance company's liability is being covered with our tax dollars used for beach nourishment. Army Corps of Engineers are rubber stamping the dredging and renourishment programs despite the environmental damage to the turtles and reef systems and the dredge companies from up north are pocketing some serious ching on top of it. And I'm sure the fat manila envelopes stuffed with green are finding a way to the politicos locally and up in Tallahassee.

 

[Fletch88]

Money talks and from what I saw on a recent excursion thru that area there's plenty of it to do the "talking". I wasn't in a van btw!

 

[tarpon192]

Money talks and from what I saw on a recent excursion thru that area there's plenty of it to do the "talking". I wasn't in a van btw!

Oh yeah - forgot to mention in my previous post that I wasn't in a van either.