Bill D. (VA)
Silver Member
I had already hung the detector up for the season, and was about to send it in for some much needed repairs. Good thing I didn’t as this morning I received a phone call right after getting back from my 3 mile run. It was from the woman who owned the site where I found a ton of colonial artifacts a couple months ago including the gorgeous 1795 liberty cap cent, a W&M copper, 4 spanish silvers and a ton of buttons and buckles. She told me the farmer had been to the field last week and sprayed weedkiller, and now the field was huntable again. That was great news and I really appreciated the heads-up. Not often a property owner will go to that much trouble. Especially one that almost didn’t let me hunt the site at all.
During our talk she was trying to tell me about some very old pottery she’d found years ago in another section of the field, one that I had roamed a couple of times before without any luck. But before she could give me a specific location she had another call coming in and had to leave. I ended spending almost 2 hours zig-zagging all over that spot and could only come up with a small caliber musketball. I ended up going back to the other area that contained the 2 hotspots that I’ve hit very hard. I did a bit of roaming around the edges of those areas, but others who have hunted the site before seemed to have vacuumed everything outside of the iron patches, but were apparently scared off by all that iron. I was getting ready to leave for the day when I noticed that many of the thick strips of soybean stubble left from the last harvest had settled down from 6-8” thick to only about 2-3”. So I took my time slowly covering those 3 ft wide spots, especially in the irony areas. I was surprised I started getting a good signal here and there. At the first hotspot I recovered a larger roundball, a button and a couple buckle pieces. When I moved to the 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] area I hit a button immediately, then my next target was an unexpected surprise – a nice little cut piece of silver. I ended up with a few more buttons, and 2 other them were huge with designs. Finally called it quits after about 3.5 hours, but I was very pleased that it all worked out and I was able to close out the season (again!) on a high note.
During our talk she was trying to tell me about some very old pottery she’d found years ago in another section of the field, one that I had roamed a couple of times before without any luck. But before she could give me a specific location she had another call coming in and had to leave. I ended spending almost 2 hours zig-zagging all over that spot and could only come up with a small caliber musketball. I ended up going back to the other area that contained the 2 hotspots that I’ve hit very hard. I did a bit of roaming around the edges of those areas, but others who have hunted the site before seemed to have vacuumed everything outside of the iron patches, but were apparently scared off by all that iron. I was getting ready to leave for the day when I noticed that many of the thick strips of soybean stubble left from the last harvest had settled down from 6-8” thick to only about 2-3”. So I took my time slowly covering those 3 ft wide spots, especially in the irony areas. I was surprised I started getting a good signal here and there. At the first hotspot I recovered a larger roundball, a button and a couple buckle pieces. When I moved to the 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] area I hit a button immediately, then my next target was an unexpected surprise – a nice little cut piece of silver. I ended up with a few more buttons, and 2 other them were huge with designs. Finally called it quits after about 3.5 hours, but I was very pleased that it all worked out and I was able to close out the season (again!) on a high note.
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