Does anyone have this MADDENING problem - or is my technique wrong?

[PlanetExpress]

Ok, so I have maybe 12 hours on my White's Sufmaster PI-PRO. I've been doing beaches at low tide.

I hear signals every few feet where I am, which makes it very difficult. I find so many nails, fishing lures and garbage that it's getting tedious. I hear little faint beeps every couple inches. I hear large BEEP type hits and dig those.

Question: Am I supposed to dig every single little chirp?

Sometimes when I do that, I dig down about a foot, stick the detector down in the hole and find the target is in one of my sand piles. I narrow it down by detecting the piles, and many times I can't find the think causing the detector to go off - even though I sifted through the sand with my little scoop sifter bought from White's as well.

Does anyone have this maddening problem?

I feel like it's a little stud earring or something that just slips through the sifter with the sand.

Also, I spent 4 hours in Long Beach, NY searching. I found more nails, more garbage, and fishing lures.

They ought to name my machine the "White's NailMaster PRO"

Well, I suck. Any tips?

 

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[hollowpointred]

i dont do a ton of beach detecting. i only do about a week a year, but when i do i dig everything and sometimes have similar problems. i agree with you that those targets that move from sand pile to sand pile are probably really small scraps of foil or iron. of course it could be a little stud earring but im not usually up for digging 10 minutes for a 1/16 inch piece of gold lol . thats just me though. i dont use a pi machine so i dont really know if you can discrim stuff on yours but if you can, try to notch out iron. ( i have a feeling youre gonna tell me thats not possible with a pi machine! that just goes to show how much i know about them! anyway, look at it this way. even though your digging everything and finding a lot of trash, youre also not going to miss anything once your coil gets over that gold or platinum ring either.

 

[Sandman]

PlanetExpress, welcome to the world of using a pulse. If you are getting a hit every few inches, thank your lucky stars. Some will be small targets and others rings or coins deep, it's up to you to decide how strong your back is and how much Bengay you have for digging these targets. That is why use older, weaker guys use Minelabs Excaliburs. They are almost as deep as a PI and have great discrimination that ignores iron nails, etc. while still finding the deep rings and coins. Like I said, almost as deep as a PI. But if you can't hear the beep, you don't know where to dig.

I would suggest that you get a man sized scoop like from Reilly's Treasure Gold or Sunspot Products. These are not mickey mouse scoops and will last a lifetime.

On the tiny targets that fall through the holes, you can use up time looking for the tiny things hoping they aren't split shot or give up on them and look for the other targets that stay in the scoop to maximize your time.

HH,

Sandman

 

[PlanetExpress]

Sandman, you are the king! Hillarious.

But I did get some very useful information from your entertaining post. So every little chirp I hear (there are so sooo many) really are targets? Wow.

I thought seriously about the Excalibur. Since this was my first detector, I had to stick to a budget. If I got the Minelab, I might have had to use it to find my *wife's* engagement ring after she disowned me.
So I guess I'm just going to start digging up every single blip. I've been digging mostly the loud beeps, and finding iron. Maybe that's what I'm doing wrong. I'll start digging everything on my next trip. I can probably only cover about 50 feet of beach where I am at that rate.

Actually, for digging, I just bought a regular old shovel. I dig out a giant shovel full, then set it aside. I dig out a few more, and set them aside into individual sand piles. Then, I shove the detector down into the hole to see if I already pulled up the target. Usually, I have and it's in one of the 3 piles. I then sift only that pile that contains the target. Hey... when you have to dig a billion holes because you don't have any discrimination, you learn to be efficient! ha ha ha

Thanks for the tip, and words of encoragement. I am getting a little bit bored digging up nails, but after reading your post, I have a new thing to try. Digging every little blip and skipping the tiny targets. Thanks!

 

[treasure diver]

I installed a magnet in my scoop with plastic tie downs. It won't catch gold, silver,lead.plat. ect. but it will get the nails & other iron. It speeds up finding the junk & keeps them from falling through the holes in your scoop & moving from pile to pile.

 

[hollowpointred]

I installed a magnet in my scoop with plastic tie downs. It won't catch gold, silver,lead.plat. ect. but it will get the nails & other iron. It speeds up finding the junk & keeps them from falling through the holes in your scoop & moving from pile to pile.

thats a great idea! you should patent a scoop with a built in magnet. sounds like a million dollar idea to me.

 

[TreasureTales]

I installed a magnet in my scoop with plastic tie downs. It won't catch gold, silver,lead.plat. ect. but it will get the nails & other iron. It speeds up finding the junk & keeps them from falling through the holes in your scoop & moving from pile to pile.

thats a great idea! you should patent a scoop with a built in magnet. sounds like a million dollar idea to me.

My sand scoop came with a magnet in the basket. It often gets covered with iron filings, but it sure beats looking for those small things that fall through the mesh of the basket. The magnet is removable so the iron filings can be cleaned off every so often.

 

[Sandman]

I fastened a couple magnets in my scoops with JB welds epoxy and it holds well. As for removing the iron fillings, a garden hose is fast and easier than removing the magnets. The magnets are good for also checking those thin chains that might not be gold too.

HH,
Sandman

 

[spez401]

Planet... welcome to my world. I've had a surfmaster PI since 1996. EVERY, let me repeat, EVERY time that thing beeps, there is metal nearby. It might be a fleck of iron or a solid cannonball... but there is metal. Thats the problem with the PI machines... no discrimination.

As sandman said, get a good scoop instead of the shovel. He mentioned rileys and sunspot. I have had both, and now i only use that sunspot scoop (with a few of my own modifications). the shovel works, but you do a lot more work. And for the amount of time you end up digging with that PI machine, anything you can do to save time, and labor (and more importantly, your back) is well worth it.

As for the magnet in the scoop... i tried it once, now i dont bother anymore. Seemed like EVERY scoop i dug was full of filings and stuff, and not all the nails, bobby pins, etc stuck to it... so out it came.

Good luck with that machine. It might be a little discouraging now, digging all the junk, but believe me, when you find a REAL nice goody at the bottom of an 18" hole, you'll be estatic.

Steve
ps... i think i might have mentioned it before, but mr bill @ surfscanner detectors has a mod for the surfmaster that almost doubles the depth.

 

[Blackjack77]

I know this post is mostly about Water Detecting, but thought I'd add this comment about Land
Detecting. If You don't have a pinpointer- get one!! Next time You a have a pile that beeps or can't find the target in the hole. The pinpointer will!! Have found bits of metal and Bullets I would never have found and thought the MD was crazy!!
Some of it is junk- -but at least You'll know!!!
HH

 

[Blind.In.Texas]

I'll tell you this much about that 50 feet. A keeper must land somewhere. Since we have our machines to tell us where metal is, metal we must dig. If you don't dig everything you will NEVER know what is below right? I guarantee that those metal detectors are accurate only if what they claim is really down there. Those indicators are suggested item identifications. My wedding band sounds off in the nickle/pulltab slot of my el-cheapo BH 3300. While not nearly as accurate in pinpointing as a pinpointer it tells me I must dig noisy up objects up to 10". You will will score many things by digging them all. I am slowly accepting this MYSELF. I have recently learned to rely first on my machine and then on myself. These are METAL detectors. Not gold detectors, or wheat penny detectors, or walker finders. I know I don't have to tell you that, but, after all the digging and not finding nearly as much as I have wanted I have started to dig them all.

Peace and GL and HH

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

I have a Whites Beach Hunter ID. I don't know your unit, but on mine it gives me a real low tone and a red led lights up when I am over any kind of iron. So far every time I have had that indication and I did dig it up just to see what it is, it was always nails, pieces of wire, iron parts or some type of iron. I also have my discrim (sensitivity on my unit) set at the factory setting. Some times if the beach is real clean I will set it lower (increase the sensitivity).

If my unit gives me any other indication, by a different tone, combination of tones, and lights I will always dig it just to be sure. If it stays a solid low tone, and only the red led lights up, I usually ignore it unless I am bored, I usually hunt the low tides at night so there is not a lot of eye candy.

 

[Sandman]

Yeah, the eye candy..........One of the main reasons to be on a beach in the sunlight. Keeps me from being arrested.

One thing to test with the Beach Hunter is a gold ring and a nail together. Do this with any detector. I know a Excal will ignor the nail and sound off on the ring.

HH,
Sandman

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

Your right Sand. I love the eye candy too, I'm married not blind, but down here I want hunt the heat of the day. I will hunt the early morning or late afternoon tides though. Just too many places with basal skin cancer cut off already.

 

[PlanetExpress]

Thanks for all the encoraging posts. Really. It's a good thing MDing has a forum because I have been close to losing interest, having not found a single thing worth value yet.

So I'm thinking - maybe I'm hunting in the wrong places? I'm definitely hunting where no other people do. It's a spot that is now not used at all that used to be full off activity in the 1800's when steamers from NYC used to come and go to a dock that is not longer existing to drop off tourists. One of the steamers that operated in the area at the time was the Lexington. I'm sure some have heard of this one. These tourists used to come here and go to the beach where the dropoff dock was. I find "metal" every damn inch I go. There are a lot of new homes there - multimillion dollar mansions, where it seems they just tossed half the nails and wire down onto the old beach when building them. Then there are the sinkers... it's a popular place for fishing.

I'm trying to be patient, but do you all think it's worth examining this area in great detail and digging all those nails and sinkers on the off chance of finding an item from the 1800's? I have found some old nails and steel from back in those days - you could tell one of the hunks of steel was from then because the decorative patterns in it were not well done - they looked like they were done by hand, not machine.

Anyway, is it worth it to dig a place with a lot of historical potential, when there are so many nails, sinkers and other modern junk there that's been piled up over it for the past 200 years? Do you do these sites, or just move on to more "low hanging fruit" like regular beaches with modern stuff to dig up?

 

[spez401]

planet
with that machine, you should be hitting the lane where there are people. I have the same machine, and I know how maddening it was finding nail after nail after nail. It wasn't until i started going to popular beaches and getting my fee wet (up to my neck actually) that i started finding the good stuff.

Is there a wrong place to MD? no... but, depending on what you're looking for, some places are better than others. Me personally... i like the shine and sparkle of rings with gems. So when i take out my surfmaster, i tend to hit beaches where the "in crowd" or the more wealthy tend to hang out. It isn't a guarantee that you're gonna find the nitro as gravediggermax calls it, but you're more likely to find expensive jewelry where people wear expensive jewelry. (I know... that sounded redundant, but its true).

If you're near the coast, ask your wife/girlfriend/female-friends where her friends hit the beach. Since ALL women love to people watch (sorry ladies), ask them about what other beachgoers wear. If they are the kind of women who like to show off, then by all means, hit the beaches where they go. I have used this technique with great success. My wife is a teacher in a wealthier beach community. I just ask her where all the kid and their parents go to the beach. Works like a charm.

Finally, most of the other water hunters will tell you the same thing. When people go near the water they tend to lose things. Cold water shrinks fingers and rings slip off. People wading in the surfline get hit by big waves and lose earrings, watches, bracelets and rings. I remember being in puerto rico (before i bought a detector) and watched a woman wade into the surf wearing big, dangling hoop earrings and bracelets. About 5 mins later, she got wiped out by a wave and came up without 1/2 of her jewelry.

If you don't want to get really wet yet, get a decent scoop, go at low tide, and work the wet sand. You will be rewarded.
steve