Better Late than Never

[Secrent]

I just bought my Vaquero yesterday! After 25 years of saying I was going to get a Tesoro Dectector it was now or never. Was saddened when I read they had closed their doors, as I have followed them for a long time and just never bought one until now. Guess better late than never. I lived on Maui for 30 yrs. and was always going to get a Tiger Shark to hunt the beaches, then I moved to Oregon and was always looking at Tesoro models I could use here. Well, I started my search again when I found out they closed shop and it was a toss up between a Tejon or Vaquero. Vaquero won out, and I picked one up with the high tone option and the 9 x 8 coil. Should be getting it in a week to try out. Will be a newbie to metal detecting, but should be fun learning how to operate the Vaquero without bells & whistles to deal with, which is what I appreciate about Tesoro.

 

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[Mojave1]

I had a Vaquero for several months last year and never found any silver coins with it. I didn't like that low grunt sound and had trouble hearing it at times. Sold it. Still I think about getting another and if I do I'm going for the high tone option. Goodluck with your machine!

 

[digger27]

Hunting with Tesoros are way fun, I have used the thumb up and past the fade out point then down again method for years and I talk about this below.
Also I also used a high tone Vaq and found that it had a super power...over foil and especially can slaw the tones would make my teeth gnash and grind together every time.
I discovered I preferred the low tones better but I never sent in my Vaquero to change it because of this super power...I usually hunt very trashy sites and this ability came in very handy.

If you use any of the DD coils pop tops are going to be a bit of a problem, I found out long ago a concentric coil mounted on a Tesoro will eliminate this issue and that is just one of many reasons I love using concentric coils.

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Once in a great while I might turn the disc up to max and just cherry pick but most times that knob is way low.
To set that knob anywhere higher than iron and just dig whatever beeps drives me insane, I just never did it that way, I have always thumbed the disc knob to figure out all my targets because it is a little game I enjoy playing with myself and always did since day one.

After a long time digging a whole lot and thumbing that knob up to the fade out point I decided to listen to what others were suggesting and not just thumb up to the fade out point to figure out targets but go past it to silence, if they indeed did go silent, and then thumb back down...and listen real hard to what was happening as I did this while making short, quick side to side movements with the coil as I did so.
I finally realized how much more accurate this way was, I can't count how many targets came in at a certain spot on the disc dial coming down that weren't all that close to where they faded out going up.
The accuracy thumbing down was far and above much greater going up every time.
For the life of me I can't figure out why Tesoro never this method anywhere...in their manuals, on their website or anywhere else...but they never have.
Maybe they don't care about this accuracy, maybe they don't know about it, (doubtful), maybe they don't want to reprint all their manuals.
Whatever, I am not the only one out there that does it this way either, by far.

Usually I hunt in all metal or close to it to get the strongest, loudest, clearest tone possible because some Tesoros lose a bit of depth as you increase the disc.
When I get a pretty good sounding solid signal I thumb up and then when I am thumbing down I listen to the tones I hear closely.
How sharp is the sound of the edge of that tone, is there any noise at all before the signal solidifies, crackles, fuzz, clicks, anything, or does the target just come in with very little or no noise.
I have learned good targets, most of them for me, usually just come in with hardly any noise while most bad targets and junk tends to come in noisy.
Most foil is noisy plus depending on the frequency of the audio on my Tesoro just don't sound good at all.
On my high tone Vaq all foil made me wince and gnash my back teeth every time I heard that super annoying tone.
Most tabs are jumpy and noisy coming in if they are not shallow and laying flat...and so on.
Dig enough of any single classification of target enough and you usually get to learn their most common sound and behavior.
Not 100% on either type either, some bad targets can come in pretty silently and solid, (flattened old rusted crown caps laying flat in the soil), and some good targets can come in a bit noisy, nickels come to mind, for some reason out of all coins many of those seem to be the least stable and noisier dialing up or down.
Some are perfect, a lot are not and just noisy on the ends so I just dig a lot of those in case gold is hiding.
Most other targets I go by my strict rules, if it is too noisy I walk on, if it comes in solid I dug them every time no matter what area that knob is pointing to.
I have dug small, thin tiny silver chains in iron this way, gold rings from foil on up to the zinc area at 3:00, waded into the most extreme trash infested sites you can imagine and dug relatively little trash while still coming out of those sites with a surprising amount of great treasure by just thumbing that knob and digging the solid sounding targets as I thumb back down.
I also got very fast at doing this over the years, just about as fast as swinging a screen unit over a target and looking at that screen.
It took a long time to learn to do this effectively and efficiently, I don't believe shiny newbies can do it to this degree until they get a whole lot of hours in listening to signals but with work anyone can do this if they chose to eventually.
Also I dug a train car load of trash for a long time before I got confident enough to leave noisier targets in the ground and just go after the higher percentage solid ones but eventually I got there.
Can I miss something doing it this way...sure.
Do I care...no, I am pretty good at this method after several thousands of hours with my Tesoros and what I don't know I miss doesn't bother me especially since I have the attitude I will find anything good I missed...eventually.
Now all of this is regarding normal depth targets, 98% of everything I have ever found has been no deeper than 5-6".
On super deep targets things may be way different.

So whether you just dial up to the fade out point or take the extra step and go past and come down that disc knob movement and the sound and behavior of targets as you manipulate that knob while swinging over them can tell you a ton once you learn the Tesoro language.
Every model is far from just being a beep and dig like many think...but we Tesoro guys already knew that.[/QUOTE]

 

[Professor of Engineering]

Good Luck with the new machine!

 

[RustyGold]

Great post digger! I do the same with every detector I use. I listen to the shape and edges of the tones for those hidden sounds that indicate what the target may be.

 

[Dragonscout]

I never cease to be amazed at the tips and knowledge that is shared here. It's funny that Digger's technique is similar to one that I used down in South Florida locating utilities in the 80's. The soil was so bad and you just have to figure out the workarounds. You guys have no idea how much some of us appreciate how just taking a minute out of the day to share re-energizes me for the sport and even just getting thru this aggravating day!! Thanks guys...

 

[IowaRelic]

I had a Vaquero for several months last year and never found any silver coins with it. I didn't like that low grunt sound and had trouble hearing it at times. Sold it. Still I think about getting another and if I do I'm going for the high tone option. Goodluck with your machine!

The vaquero is hard to beat with a 5.75 concentric at a cellar hole or old homesite. However, my coin count went through the roof when I switched brands. I should clarify, deeper coin finds. Like beyond 5” or 6”.