advice

[gordzilla]

Hi everyone. I Live on Vancouver Island B.C. Canada, and have been diving for bottles with very limitid success that I attribute to not knowing what i'm looking at. I have been looking into bottle digging and would like to know how I could go about guesstimating a productive site. I realize old abandoned inhabited sites are kind of a must but then what?
any help would be appreciated. I also dabble in gold panning, rock hounding, and am looking to getting into Metal detecting(above and below the waterline).
Thanx in advance and here are a couple of find I have pulled from a local bay.

 

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[downindixie]

The best way takes a lot of walking and looking. Look for old glass and cans on top of the ground,then dig down to see if it goes deep.The deeper the older.
By the way you have a nice poison bottle.Highly collectable in pristine condition.

 

[TreasureTales]

Your interests are very similar to mine, only I don't dive.

Have you thought about the following types of places as potential bottle sites?

Out houses/privvies
Ghost town dumps
Ravines and gullies at old farms/ranches
Abandoned city dumps
Recent tear downs/urban renewals
Old stores (the backrooms can sometimes have old bottles tucked under boxes, etc)
Attics and basements of old homes (go to estate sales and yard sales that are held at old homes and inquire about old bottles)
Hunting camps, fishing camps, campgrounds that are no longer being used
Railroad builders' and miner's camps
Abandoned hobo camps (don't go to occupied hobo camps)

As Dixie said, find old cans and dig under or around them. The bottles will sink into the soil much faster than cans will. Use a rake and carefully scrape away the soil. I found a place a few years ago where a single bag of trash had been thrown. The bag (whether burlap or paper, I don't know, but I figure the amount of trash was the right amount for about a bag's worth) was long gone. The cans were half buried and the bottles were about 3 inches deeper. I suppose someone had been camping or hunting and just threw his trash along the trail on his way home. His trash was my treasure!!!

Most of the "easy pickings" have been dug long ago. You'll probably have to do some research at the local library or historical society to learn about abandoned homesites or towns that might yield some good bottles. Ask around, I always find that people are willing to help others in their pursuit of collectibles. Ask older folks and other bottle diggers in your area. You never know when you'll get a good, fruitful bit of information from somebody locally.

I think diving was a good idea. Why not try lakes or reservoirs, too?

Good luck!!