I'm in Salinas, about 45 min. south of you. Santa Cruz land spots (parks, schools, etc...) are pretty much beat up and hit hard over the past 30+ yrs. There might be some old camp sites in the mountains that can still give up silver, if you research out one that no one's put pressure on (old church camps, youth camps, etc....).
As far as the beach, you can ply the dry sand and test your luck, but lately, so too have a lot of beginners taken this up, and are putting a lot of pressure on the recent losses. Like at the main Boardwalk beach, for example, it's not unusual to see 5 or 8 guys plying the dry sand after each weekend crowd leaves. Simply crazy competition.
Personally, I detest dry sand hunting. If I'm going to beach hunt up your way, I wait for the *just right* swell, wind, and tide combinations to converge, to erode the wet sand zone. If you know what weather/tide ingredients to watch for, and can get down on the wet in the right conditions, I've seen times where mother nature deposits hundreds of targets, as fast as you can dig, in an area no bigger than a basket-ball court. Kinda hard to ever go back to random-placement-dry sand hunting, after you've had times like that
If you want to know who's finding what in CA, there's the regional specific "Kinzli" California forum, that gets a lot of traffic from all around CA. There's 6 or 8 central coast guys (including a few from right there in S. Cruz) who read and post there. To get to the main page, you have to sign up to be a member. But it's easy: just pick a name and a password.
Oh, and final word of caution for Santa Cruz newbies: The rules are quite simple: you must pay me 20% of all your finds, haha
Tom I am still part of that other forum too. You and I have talked a few times on there too. Good to see you on here. I always appreciate all your good advice.
I'm in town visiting for a short period and need some help up to two feet under ground over about almost a half acre. The rewards are great and I need help fast. My uncle recently passed and left some things in the ground which my father and I (his son) can not find. Please call me if you want to work something out or know of somebody in the Santa Cruz/Watsonville area. This is serious and serious $. Please call me asap! I'll give you all the details over the phone as to what we've tried already. Thank you.
Hey Todd I'm pretty close to Santa Cruz and get over there quite a bit to beach hunt. I'll be getting a whites dual field this week while my excal is in the mod shop. I'm definitely going to hit it hard for the memorial weekend if you want to get together. I hunt some dry sand but mainly get in the water. Dry suit or waders. Regardless of tide conditions.