Recent Beach Hunt

[lab rat]

Here's a picture from a recent beach hunt... 2 silver rings, gold ring, and gold pendant. Lots of other interesting things, too. My camera is a little old, but you get the idea.

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[dalef]

Not bad. Were you working the sand or surf? (Or both) My first "surf" hunt netted zero. Keep in mind by using the word "surf", I mean shallow water. Not too much real surf on Lake Michigan.

[lab rat]

I don't get my feet wet much these days-- too much filth in the water in my area. Maybe someday when the water's a little cleaner I'll do some wading (where the BIG gold is). I'm less concerned about bacteria blooms (which are frequent, and for which they post warnings) than other pollutants (for which there is no information). But people still swim, and I know there are goodies just waiting to be found.

[dalef]

I went hunting in Lake Michigan a few days ago. Found 1 piece of scrap metal. After wading around in the water, I headed back up to my car and noticed a yellow sign high on a post so I went over to see what it said.

It was a notice that the water had too high of a bacteria content and it recommended staying out of the water. So far no ill effects, though. Next time I'll read the sign BEFORE going in the water.

I'm not real happy with the Beach Hunter ID so far but I may try at least one more time before putting it up for sale. Recovering items in murky water is a lot harder than I thought.

If only I could get some finds like yours. Nice going.

[Holyfield]

Dalef- Just keep in mind that Labrat lives in So. Cal. Everyone goes to the beach almost year around there. It's not like it is here where we have a 2 month summer before it starts to freeze over again. Hang in there Bud your time is gonna come. That's when you can post your beach pic's and your gonna make LabRat soooooooooooo jealous. Happy Hunt'in-Holyfield

[lab rat]

Jealous? :lol: Well, there's plenty of stuff around to find... I recently heard of a few guys doing recovery up in Chesapeake Bay (or was it New York Harbor?), where they supposedly were digging up gold rings and selling them by the pound!

No point in being jealous-- they say the best place to look for treasure is in your own back yard. Spend more time looking and less time driving, and you'll learn more about your area, and eventually you'll find a 'fishin' hole'.

If there isn't any surf, digging will be difficult because the fine clay and silt will be a sticky mess. I use a sand scoop, but if you are finding targets but can't dig them up, you may resort to using a shovel and a floating screen. Shovel the muck onto the screen and let the water wash the targets as you hunt. Sooner or later you should find something nice. And if your spot hasn't been hunted before, you might even find some older coins in good shape. How much salt is in your water? Here the coins corrode if they've been buried longer than a year. But you might come up with a nice Buffalo nickel or ?

[Fred]

LOL@ lab rat. There is no salt in Lake Michigan! If there is a fair amount of clay in the sand/silt though then the coins etc shouldn't sink to deep and should be in pretty good condition,just like in a placer creek and gold nuggets. Fred

[coinshooter]

So. Ca. can have some good hunting, but this year hasn't really been anything to brag about. With those stupid Whites detector comercials, every yahoo around thinks he's going to make a living treasure hunting. Now they're ALL on the beach and people are being more cautious about even wearing their jewelry to the beach. The secret is as lab rat said above, do the research in your own neck of the woods. Hunt alot of areas and stick with the ones that produce on a regular basis. I have been hunting a beach known for the rich tourists that flock there, but this year it seems all of the gold is in the water, not on the beach. Our club members all have been hitting the low tides in the early am's and doing quite well. One even had a $2000 diamond wedding set that had been soldered together. The winter storms are what make good gold hunting possible, when they strip off the thick layers of sand that have accumulated during the summer and turn over the bottom, throwing the rings shoreward. The nice thing about winter is the tides are in the daytime instead of the middle of the night. Most of the guys that find real nice gold out here are retired and can spend 50+ hrs a week at it (they don't tell you that when they put their rings on the internet), some are insomniacs that like water and early morning walks. Do tides affect the Great Lakes enough to make the beaches appear and dissappear with rising and falling tides? Being an Ocean person and not an inlander, it's just a question I had. Obviously, I have figured out by now that the Great Lakes aren't salt water (except for the Great Salt Lake!). LOL

[lab rat]

Well, salt is pretty ubiquitous-- even if only in trace amounts. Perhaps I should have asked what the pH is? Dissolved CO2 content? Other an-ions? Pardon me, I was expecting a more technical response...

(Please spare me any further asSAuLTs!) :lol:

[Fred]

Would you accept further thanks for the ino on thediff between Ag and Pt.?? Fred

[dalef]

Coinshooter,

No tides on the Great Lakes but the water level has been going down steadily for the past few years. I may spend some time working the sand with my Beach Hunter and see if I find anything. It's a lot different than my DFX though. I've been thinking of getting a CZ-70 or Sovereign and chest mounting it since I only wade out to the knee deep level.

I'll try the water again this week and hopefully I'll find something! Even a pulltab or bottle cap would let me know I am using the machine correctly.

[lab rat]

Dalef, :idea: If the water level has dropped significantly you might be able to find some neat things around fishing spots, boat launches, ferry landings without even getting your feet wet. To be more specific towards your earlier question, the vertical difference between high and low tides here can be as much as 6 feet, so on a sloping beach that leaves a lot of 'ground' at low tide over which people have been wading at high tide. The stuff in my pictures at the top of this post came from this intertidal zone.

And thanks, Fred, for the consideration!

[lab rat]

Another quick note-- the keys in the picture had a USPO numbered key and were dropped in a mail box for return...

[coinshooter]

I'm not worried. I see alot of Mission Bay wrinkle-neck brown trout swimming around when I hunt, so you know it's got to be a good environment to hunt in!

[lab rat]

Yeah, I've seen 'em in the bays and beaches up here, too... you mean the beige latex ribbed ones with the single open end?