Looking for advice - Detecting for jewelry in water 3-10ft deep - Equipment ++

[runningafever]

I know of a public place where there is a lot of swimming in many areas over a sprawling body of water. Water depths range up to 10 ft. The bottom is slity with vegetation, down about 18 inches then sand. Visibility is excellent in some areas and murky in others.

I would like to detect for gold jewelry in this water, and would like advice from anyone who has detected in this type of condition. I only want to detect for gold as the bottom will be riddled with all kinds of metal from pop tops and caps, to cans, nails, all kinds of crap. Is there a unit that can be purchased to detect only gold? How deep should I expect a unit to penetrate? Any info or advice would be appreciated, I have used metal detectors only enough to know that you just dont turn them on and go. Learning curve of the unit will have to be considered.

Thanks for any advice you are willing to share.

 

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[TerryC]

You CAN hunt the swimming holes with good results. You MUST follow some precautionary measures! Wear a wet-suit ..... at least on the upper body and you MUST wear neoprene gloves. This is to reduce the chance of getting an infection from the bacterial matter in the mud. Wear heavy duty leather gloves on top of that to protect against sharp object. Yes, you will not be able to feel the rings and things as you find them. Use a non-metal scoop to pull it out of the muck. Scan the scoop with the detector to see if you found the target. Don't forget to re-check the hole. You may find targets (with a PI machine) to about 10 inches or so for the average ring and maybe down to 12 or 14 for larger targets. Good luck! TTC

 

[Hoser John]

To detect to 10' requires a air tank or floating compressor for #1. Then you'll need a gareet infinium-great pulse but no discrimination. Tesoro makes 2 units that will go that deep,one vlf with disc and one pulse without. A good beach sandscoop with a handle about 12" long and a burlap sack. Since your in standing water you'll muck up your clarity relatively fast so you must mark your rows of sweeps to keep track(I use wooden stakes) of whats been checkd or you'll just waste a ton a time on redos. I've done recoveries in both salt and fresh and bottom slime is your predicating factor in who,what and how. NEVER mess around with your hands as you can bet that there have been 1,000s a drunks and stupid kids breaking glass and thats why metal scoop and burlap sack tied to your waist. Scoop,shake shake dump and look on shore where you can see what your messing with-John

 

[TheRingFinder]

You can NOT just pick out the Gold - that's now not how it works. You will need to take out the trash and other metal objects also. If you have 18" of silt, you will not be able to see anything as you start your search and stir up the silt. It takes years of practice to become efficient. Sorry, but there is just no easy way.

 

[Hard Prospector]

I've thought about doing some "surf zone" prospecting for gold jewelry for some time, ordered up a Tesoro Sand Shark this week.

 

[runningafever]

Thanks for the great advice. My family owns a dive company so depth of the target is only limited by the capabilities of the machine. This is fresh water with possible minute salt intrusion. I'm not thinking that this will be an easy pick and really like the burlap sack idea. I want to make sure I limit the disturbance of the bottom though. Is there a unit that will discriminate enough to avoid even a small amount of junk to be identified. I ran a I have read that pulse is the ticket for salt conditions but that the vlf will perfom fine in the fresh and you can discriminate. Is this not so?

Anyone want to take a shot at a guesstimate on how fast a gold ring, say 6 grams, would move down through the 18 inch sediment to sit on the sand? Would the jewelry make it to the sand layer or lodge in the muck?

and one more: Pros cons on the Minelab Excalibur 2.

Thanks

 

[Hard Prospector]

I would plan on scooping through lots of muck and working in zero viz. Being a certified/experienced diver already puts you way out ahead as far as being comfortable working in those conditions. The time frame it would take a gold ring to work its way through 1 1/2" of mud in a static freshwater lake depends on when it was dropped in relation to the moment it was stepped on and how fat the person was. Getting out early before the masses show up for the day would be your best chance to catch values on top and likely the best viz anyway. Excalibur 2 or Tesoro Tiger Shark , good choices. The Tesoro costs a lot less and has the better warranty. Discrimination feature for this type of work I believe will be pretty much worthless. Good luck.

 

[runningafever]

Got it, dig every hit, scoop, sift, and bag it until later. Might need lots of burlap bags. I like the price of the tigershark over the excalibur, I will look into each of these and make a decision this week. It will take a little time to get everything in order, but I will give a shout back if there is anything worth sharing once I get started. Thanks again for all of your input.

 

[Hoser John]

tespro guaranteed for lifetime so put in your youngest childs name so after your gone he can still party on with Pops great detector. Couple a years ago they completely rebuilt a ol'Golden Sabre(just shy a 30 years old) for free-new coils,pots,tuners,rubber,wires all new at no cost THAT ROCKS MY WORLD-John

 

[runningafever]

Yeah, a guarantee like that means alot. Does anyone think this shovel would be useful in the condition that I will be working? Lots of hits on lots of junk. I was trying to find an easier way to be able to dig the muck easily down to 18 inches and quickly remove much of the sediment bagging the junk for later inspection. I saw a wire mesh basket designed to be kept on your side that seems to serve the same purpose, remove the much while in/under the water.

Shovel: http://www.rrproducts.com/c-3989-sifter-shovel.aspx

 

[TerryC]

Little you can do about the sight-thing..... bring to shore as Hoser suggested. How fast does it sink? DIFFICULT to pinpoint as mud/muck is of different consistency due to both mineral and vegetable parts. Agitation of the water by movement and human disturbance must also be factored in for dropping speed. I have been hunting beaches and fresh water holes for more than 30 years and will NOT touch the question with an all-corners answer. Dig it all and you will get it all! Digging in water is usually easier than land so go for it! TTC

 

[runningafever]

Received an Excalibur 2 yesterday, put the battery on charge overnight and took it to our little beach to try it out this afternoon for a couple of hours. I feel that it worked well, the first thing we found with it was a dime, later on a quarter, so now we are only into it for $1399.65. Picked a lot of junk, tabs, caps, rusty nails, washers, bobbypins, etc. One silver earring. Tomorrow morning we are taking it into the water that I spoke about earlier. We have selected a location to search, designed a screen sifting box to drag along with us on the bottom. The plan is to scoop everything into the sifter, try to eliminate as much plant matter as possible, and cull through it later when back on shore (a great suggestion from earlier). We are confident that we will find gold tomorrow, the question is how many sinkers, pull tabs, cans, and other crap will we have to uncover to find a piece. The bottom is very soft mud, plant matter decay. Down 12-18 inches the bottom is sand. I'm hoping the stuff is in the mud layer or laying on top of the sand under the mud, this seems like it will make digging/sifting much easier. We plan on getting on the water at around 8 AM tomorrow and will have to be back by 3 PM at the latest. The boat is ready to go and we have all of our gear as well prepared as 2 rookies can. Excited to see what happens, I will share our experience after tomorrow.

 

[Hard Prospector]

Just got my Sand Shark yesterday, good luck out there and looking forward to reading about it.

 

[runningafever]

Was able to only get in one partial day last week with nothing but some better experience with the machine to show for it. We dug many targets but nothing of significance. There was some issues working the bottom in a team that we need to work on. One of us works the machine, hones in and points out the zone, while the other digs the target and places the mud in a sifter box that we can move along the bottom with us. I was thinking that a pin pointer for the digger might help so that the detector can move away and continue to hunt forward of the dig area. We will have another opportunity later this week without a pinpointer, and we have chosen to go to some deeper water further away from the shoreline in hopes of avoiding some junk hits. This is an area that sees a lot of swimming from boats. I will give an update of our adventure when it comes. I know the jewelry has to be there, I spend countless hours on the water and have never seen a detector in the areas that I am interested in.