E-Trac in a hunted out school!

[lonewolfe]

Hey all

took the E-Trac to an old school site where many other detectors stopped getting the DEEPER GOOD signals long ago. Didn't find anything really old today as I only spent 2 hrs or so going really slow over an area maybe 10 yrds wide x 20 yrds long. The 1st school was built in 1861 but burned during the fires in the late 1890s then another was built in its place and then torn down in the 50s and another built in ITS place and is still in use today.

Anyway - I've hit this place in the past with Garrett machines, Fishers (inc. CZ's) and a DFX at one time. I stopped getting deep signals with all of those machines long ago and about gave up on the place but I was itching to get out today so I gave it a try with the E-Trac after not having been there in like 3 yrs or more.

Found 8 wheats from 1919 - 1950 and all in-between - 2 old Jeffersons (1948 and 50) but no buffaloes - 2 old shotgun shell heads, some standard issue school junk, 2 tiny 22 cal lead bullets, an old reed, pile of clad, a religious pendant, a scull pendant, and some sort of old bird pin gold plated with a blue stone (1940s from the looks of it)... ALL of the older stuff was hitting at 8 to 10 inches deep in clay type soil as you can tell by the red color of some of it. Tuff ground to hunt as it's very mineralized, has tons of junk from the prior schools, plus all of the new aged junk mixed in! This E-Trac is one bad ass machine I tell ya - I can call a deep coin every time while the #s on the screen are useless once the coins are 8" and deeper but the sound and the target icon tell the story!

Hope you'all been getting out too,

HH

MRH

P.S.

Look for more to come from this place as I'll be taking the E-Trac back there a few more times. There's still 80% of the site left to hunt!

 

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[mjc_lakedweller]

Nice job!

 

[pong12211]

Nice finds.. Congrats..

 

[Scanman]

Very Impressive, I was not aware there was much soil mineralization in MI. The E-Trac looks like a nice MD.

 

[Mike from MI]

WTG! Love digging deeeep coins!

 

[Fletch88]

Sweet! That's always good to know that hunted out sites really never are hunted out. Are you running stock coil? I read you hunt wide open screen. I've tried this but, seem to get bogged down with too many junk targets.

 

[fistfulladirt]

Nice hunt! Looks like I may have to blow the dust off my etrac, and give it another try.

 

[lonewolfe]

Sweet! That's always good to know that hunted out sites really never are hunted out. Are you running stock coil? I read you hunt wide open screen. I've tried this but, seem to get bogged down with too many junk targets.

Hey Fletch,

yes - I'm running stock coil with wide open screen - that's the trick with the etrac to get max depth out of it and to pick targets out of iron ----- if you use even the slightest disc. you lose depth AND it will null when iron is present. With wide open screen it will pick out good conductive targets among the iron and in fact you can find good targets (like silver) rgt in the same hole with iron (I found a Merc dime with a rusty nail directly on top of it in the same hole once). That's how good the machine is IF you run it wide open but as I said - if you use any disc. at all - it will null on the iron and you'll miss the silver/etc. laying rgt next to it or in the same hole.

I know it can be annoying and tiresome after a while but that's how I hunt with all of my machines. I just wish you could set the breaking point on the etrac like you can on the CTX and other machines (AT Pro & G2/Gold Bug Pro, Deus, F75, etc.). That and a manual ground balance would be nice too!

 

[fistfulladirt]

Thanx for the etrac tips Wolfe -

 

[lonewolfe]

Thanx for the etrac tips Wolfe -

I forgot to mention

when hunting with the E-Trac in a wide open screen and you're encountering iron/etc.

you have to go really slow and listen for the high/mid tone if you're using 4TF looking for silver/copper targets - and when I say slow -

I mean S L O W!

sometimes I will use 4TC but that's only when I'm on an ancient site long forgotten (like an 1800s house site where the house was torn down 100 yrs ago) and where there is no aluminum, foil, bottle caps, tabs, etc. as the iron will all ring high tone and anything else (silver, brass, copper, etc.) will ring lower and so when you get one of those signals - you know it's something other than iron but not modern trash!

Once you get used to hunting in a wide open screen and hearing it all - it becomes 2nd nature to you ---- you just have to go slow (can't stress that enough). It's not like hunting the way you might be used to hunting where you swing away and cover 1/2 of an entire park in like an hr ---- more like 20 yrds by 30 yrds in 2 to 3 hrs when iron/trash is moderately/heavily present otherwise you'll miss the good targets... Basically you're moving like 1 step every 6 to 8 seconds at the quickest while slowly scanning/listening for that sweet tone and giving the detector enough time to recover & report all targets.. If/when the area is void or has very little trash/iron - you can speed up a bit until you encounter another section/etc. with higher concentrations of junk/iron... The advantage of a wide open screen is you hit all targets/metals AND you get max depth...

HH all and hope this helps some of you a little new/er to the hobby/E-Trac

LW

 

[Fletch88]

Thanks Lonewolf for the advice. I've tried 2TF a bit and 4TF mixed with 2,4TC and haven't had enough time to really soak it all in yet. Between work schedule and thunderstorms I haven't had a great deal of time behind the E-wheel yet ! HH and thanks again.

 

[postalgriff]

bunch of nice finds there! way to work that machine LW! congrats!, look forward to seeing more from that sight!

 

[Minrelica]

What's that long thing, a petrified cigar?

 

[Brentallica]

Nice digs! Congrats on the Wheaties and relics too! Good luck on the rest of the 80%

 

[Michiganne]

Nice hunt. Way to use your machine to its fullest and sniff out those oldies. Your religious pendant looks like part of a rosary. Good luck on the rest.

HH

 

[Fletch88]

Wow this machine rocks! I hit a local freshwater spring area(rivers too high to water hunt with Excal) so I pulled the Etrac out and in the middle of pull tabs and screw caps, sniffed out my first British coin. A 1938 Georgivs VI Penny. I've hit this same path with 2 other machines before, but there is so much trash I missed it. May have been because I hunted real, real slow this time.

 

[xdanthemanx]

HUnted out? I think not.....awesum I do the same thing slow, especially when stuff is coming up....good job
dan