Soil the vaquero will not handle

[IowaRelic]

I have a site I have been to 3 times with the vaquero, where the soil goes from good black dirt to granite filled rocky soil along river bluff. Problem being, there was a 1850s mansion here and I desperately want to put more time in, but I can not get within a mile of the dirt. The detector goes wild. Overloads. I have dug just to see wth is happening, and it’s granite stones. Is there a solution here? It’s the only place I’ve ever hunted like this. The creeks won’t do it too bad, just the Mississippi River bluffs here. Anyone experience this? Is this why they use widescan coils?

 

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[smokeythecat]

I had a place in NY that had a lot of granite "hot rocks" there. The only thing I can think of is to "detune" the machine somewhat. Turn down the sensitivity. Place I was at this weekend had a lot of hot rocks, with relics right next to them. It was tough.

 

[reed88]

i have an outlaw that done that over hot rocks took a bunch of them home tried everything , the only thing that worked is if i turned the ground balance know til it quit i still got decent depth and was able to tear that spot up !

 

[Terry Soloman]

Good advice from Smokey and Reed. Turn your sensitivity to 50%, and THEN ground balance. You may need to ground balance every yard or so in terrible soil.

 

[IowaRelic]

I NEVER think to turn down my sensitivity in certain situations and in retrospect wish I would have tried it in several occasions. Can that help with masking? Or does it just lower the sensitivity across the board? Say it’s totally iron laden good dark soil where in a/m mode there is signals every 2 inches or so... I can’t help but think it’s super hard to get around it in disc. I have nearly started digging shallow pits like chigger does!

 

[Terry Soloman]

Too much Sensitivity (gain), can actually decrease depth in bad soil. Just something to keep in mind.

 

[steve1357]

Around here, the soil changes drastically in some areas. You can see the rust in the clay lol.

When you're swinging a hot detector like the Vaquero or F75, sometimes the change in soil sets off the detector because the ground balance goes out of whack over a small distance traveled.

 

[Hihosilver]

Mojave?