How many do you let get away?

DanFL1962

Full Member
Jan 8, 2010
176
16
Lawrence County, PA & Brevard County, Florida
Detector(s) used
AT-Pro & BHID
Primary Interest:
Beach & Shallow Water Hunting
For you water hunters, how often do you give up on a target? Given the rough surf, and sometimes very loose sand, this past week I probably abandoned 25% of my targets in waist deep water. Just can't get them into the scoop. The holes fill in almost as fast as I dig.

I am confident with my pinpointing as 90% of the time when in wet sand I'm right on the mark.

Just curious if this is typical? How many water targets get away from you?

Dan
 

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One is too many. I have hunted for 34 years and pinpointing has come a long way. I am using an Excalibur. If I get a nice gold tone I am not too fast to scoop. Consider this, almost all rings settle on edge as do coins. (soft sand) If you target a signal in Discriminate and PP it than switch to AM/PP and re PP it. It will be different. Its this area that you must decide which is the correct point. If the detector tells me its really deep. I take 4 big scoops before checking the hole. When I know its out of the hole finding it again in the piles is easy. It will never be more that one scoop to recover it once out of the original hole. if it floats away it wasn't gold. Now to answer your question I have lost many targets in the waves cause you sometime don't get two scoops.
 

GET A BIGGER SCOOP !! Zero - only ones I will stop on is if I am down over 2 feet (WOT coil) and it is still blowing my ears off and only then after I lift the coil another couple of feet and can still hear it. If it floats away it wasn't a keeper anyway
 

Not many, but sometimes it has taken me 20 minutes just to dig a pull tab... I finally got smart, and if the waves are 3 ft or bigger and crashing, I just dont hunt it.. Nothing worse than getting knocked off the spot time after time, then finally get the target, and find I wasted 15 minutes and stamina just to dig someones garbage..
Even if I dig down over a foot and have a good signal, I usually wont give up on it.. Never know when that gold Rolex is down there waiting to be dug up.. I can imagine something like that would sound as loud as a deep pop can.. But lower in tone...
You just never know..
 

Never really thought about it in terms of a percentage. If I get into the surf and it's kicking my butt, I move up the beach. If I can stay in one spot and dig, I don't give up until I recover the target.
 

The question is how accurately do you pinpoint your target in the water ??? The technique I use is find the strongest signal after several passes, stop the coil. Take my foot and put my toe up against the back of the coil, next move coil out of the way, slide my foot back approximately 2 inches. Then take my scoop front edge in front of my toe and then work my sand scoop into the sand (I have to stomp :blob1: on my scoop to get it to penetrate the sand matrix) until the scoop basket is buried. Then pull it up to recover my target. As you can see from my avatar the size of Scoozilla, it is a monster scoop. I don't miss to many times on my first first attempt to recover a target. If I do and it's deep with my scoop it will not get away, as it moves a ton of material.

Your technique may vary but the more you practice your recovery, you will locate and recover targets faster. Also think about what target you may be leaving in the water for someone else to find. It could be a very nice ring, or in my case you probably would be leaving me a pull tab or bottle cap!
 

Not too many. I use a big scoop and have gone down 2 feet on some targets. A Beach Brute might solve your problem. :icon_thumleft:
 

I don't give up.....I just keep buying bigger scoops. I have 4 different water scoops, one for each type of conditions I will hunting in. If I am hunting in soft sand, need it out in a hurry, I use my Bill Babbs Backhoe scoop. It's heavy when it's full, but I rarely loose a target.
 

If you made a floating classifier you would have better luck I think , Plus you could take your time pinpointing ???
( you can make one from 2" x 2 " wood strips , then fine chinken wire too make the classifier. and some 2" or 3" plastic pipe-
make sure you glue everything together.) you can (maybe ) fine how to make one on you-tube ???

But making a classifier that floats will help a little ( I think it will ) Good luck hunting in the waves , and remember It's all about the people
you meet and the story's they tell you , that make this hobby so fun doing .


phantomfinder
 

I keep digging until I've used up all the swear words I know. Then I'll move on.
 

phantomfinder said:
If you made a floating classifier you would have better luck I think , Plus you could take your time pinpointing ???
( you can make one from 2" x 2 " wood strips , then fine chinken wire too make the classifier. and some 2" or 3" plastic pipe-
make sure you glue everything together.) you can (maybe ) fine how to make one on you-tube ???

But making a classifier that floats will help a little ( I think it will ) Good luck hunting in the waves , and remember It's all about the people
you meet and the story's they tell you , that make this hobby so fun doing .


phantomfinder

Real hard to use a floating sifter when there is surf, works great in fresh water, not to productive on beaches with surf.....
 

Montauk3 said:
I keep digging until I've used up all the swear words I know. Then I'll move on.

ROFLMAO............................... :laughing9:
 

erikk said:
GET A BIGGER SCOOP !! Zero - only ones I will stop on is if I am down over 2 feet (WOT coil) and it is still blowing my ears off and only then after I lift the coil another couple of feet and can still hear it. If it floats away it wasn't a keeper anyway

Man think of that rolex you left just a little deeper. ;D
 

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