A Week at the Beaches

[FLauthor]

I spent a week over on the Gulf coast of Florida. Stayed at a small resort called Harbor Lights Beach Resort/ www.hlbeachresort.com that had reasonable rates . Started hunting down at Punta Gorda Beach, each day a different beach. I hunted Manasota, Blind Pass, Nokomis, Siesta Key and Bradenton beaches. There was a lot of competition from detectorists in the water and on land. One small signet gold ring (14kt) and three silver rings, clad coins and lead sinkers. Didn't find that much trash but most of the coins came from a party beach which I won't disclose but is only accessible by boat or kayak. It gets replenished every time party goers have their parties and cook outs.
I have a few of these sites locked away and each one requires a boat to get to them. Competition from locals who hunt the beach every weekend makes it necessary to have secret sites. Bradenton Beach is huge and I only found 11 cents in four hours.
I met a couple who did a lot better than me and had in their possession about 8 gold rings with two of them bearing diamonds. They were in a better spot than I was. I'll try again later.

 

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[LEO037]

Wow.
Just in 3 hours I usually find way more coins than that.
What sucks is that I find no rings, or good jewerly.
I have only found 1 ring, and 1 earing so far.
They both look cheap, the ring looks straight out of the .25 cents vending machines.

What part of Florida do you usually detect.
You got some good finds. I would like to find some fishing equipment.
I like going fishing.
If your ever in South Florida, let me know.
Peace

 

[lou423]

So, what detectors were using these fellows that found the gold?

 

[Sandman]

It's not the brand of detector that matters so much as keeping the discrimination low and digging the foil and pull tabs. Also it helps to overlap the sweeps and keeping the coil level and not swing it like a pendulum. If you don't maximize your search time you are handicapping yourself. Check out www.thegoldenolde.com/ to learn how beach hunting should be done.

 

[FLauthor]

I used a Minelab Excalibur and a Garrett AT-3 . Discriminator on zero, minimum sensitivity. Most targets found from wet sand to knee deep water. Some coins were in chest deep water. Dug lots of foil, pull tabs and bottle caps using a long handled scoop and a floating sifting box but only when the water was calm.
I tried the Minelab XT18000 for gold chains but only found trash and pull tabs .

 

[Southcacalaky]

Nice job, HH Art...