Jason in Enid
Gold Member
- Oct 10, 2009
- 9,593
- 9,229
- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
Yesterday turned into one of the best silver days I have had in quite a while. If you just want the meat of the story, skip to the third paragraph….
So, all of have our “secret spot” that we have found over the years. My latest one just happens to be a public that nobody else had bothered to hunt. Without details, I can promise that this entire area is truly virgin ground. I began hunting this site at the beginning of last December and I had pulled 18 silvers including a Walking Liberty half and a pile of wheats I haven’t even bothered to count yet. Now, this site is TRAAAAAASHY! Both iron and conductive junk in the ground and trash and large limbs on the surface. Despite all these (common) problems, the area had great potential so I was willing to see what I could find. I put the 6" coil on my Minelab CTX and went to work. Very first find last year was a silver Washington quarter, soon to be followed with wheats, more silver coins and lots of clad. I was even leaving a lot of penny signals that were extremely shallow.
Despite all the surface trash, I just kept working around it, hunting what open ground was available. For a month I never saw another detectorist, and there was never a plug mark in any new section I hunted. I had the entire trash pit to myself, LOL. Now a crew is cleaning the place; removing all the surface junk and scraping the ground level. GREAT! Now I can go back to hunt those hottest spots completely, plus 1 — 3 inches of soil is gone in some areas! So I get there yesterday with a plan of attack. The part they cleared wasn’t the best spot, but it’s clear now and they are actively clearing the #2 spot. I just have to wait for them to finish so I’m not bothering the workers (they don’t people walking around while they drive heavy machines!). As I’m working this first site I look up and there is another guy detecting behind the equipment in the spot I was waiting for!!! In my second best spot!! I will admit jealousy and anger were my emotions. I didn’t interfere, he was there first so I let him have it. It was public grounds but after hunting it alone (except for my hunting partner Evan aka GoneHunting for History) I had come to think of it as MY spot. I was digging a lot coins where I was, including 2 silver Roosevelt dimes, a dog tag, religious medal and wheat cents. I kept seeing the other hunter walk around aimlessly but doing a lot of digging. I couldn’t stop wondering if I had gotten most of it out already or if he was cleaning up on silvers. With much regret I left in the afternoon to pick up my kid from school, the interloper still hard at it. After dropping off at home I raced back to the site. The crew had begun clearing #1 producing spot before I left and I wanted to be the one to get the jump on it.
When I arrived back, the other guy was gone. I had to see if anything was left in the coveted spot! I started the outside edge and began gridding. First target was a wheat at 4 inches…. Huh how did he miss that? Then another wheat beside one of his holes, where he left the pulltab trash he dug there. Even though the ground was scraped, there was still a LOT of iron in the ground. Maybe he couldn’t see these coins. All his trash left was aluminum. Maybe he was just looking for gold? I kept hunting and pulled a missed silver dime (YES!!! I outhunted the interloper!!) More wheats and clad followed until I got a silver dime reading beside a tree. I stuck my Sampson into the ground and it stopped dead. Crap, big tree root, so I moved over and tried to dig. Another big tree root. Checked the target again, yep, still there. Crap. I gotta dig this. I dug and I pried and dug and tunneled and dug some more. Target was still under that @#$%@ root! Put the Garrett Carrot into the hole and got a hit. Digging by hand I saw a brown disc fall out. Picking it up I saw the wheat ears! Finally, I found the target and I felt vindicated it was actually an older coin. I probed again and got another response, another wheat, and another, and then a silver dime (Mercury), another wheat, a rusty disc and another silver (Rosy) and wheat! That disc was a steel wheat cent! No details but I’m confident it was a steel cent just because of it’s parnters. The probe was silent in the hole. Stand up, rescan with the CTX and there is STILL a silver signal, but this one pinpoints a few inches closer to the tree. More cursing at the tree roots but I dig and tunnel some more. Out pops another silver dime (Mercury). I can’t believe this hole, but there are more targets yet. Finally, after all was said and done I had recover 4 silvers (including a Washington quarter!) a steel wheat cent, and 8 copper wheat cents from this one spot.
The sun was getting low but I kept hunting, pulling more clad, more wheats and another silver dime before finishing this spot and moving to the last spot. This place which had given me the most silver, was now much quieter and only gave up a few wheats and only final silver dime. Darkness (and put-off home chores) finally won and I left. But not before I had a total of 8 silvers, 43 wheats, 1 steel wheat and a bunch of clad and minor relics. As the Terminator said, “I will be baaack”.
PS, I have a bunch of the wonderful silver-in-dirt pics but I'm at work right now and don't have the camera. So those will have to be added later.
This is all the wheats, silvers, medal, keys, and toys. Basically, all the good stuff.
The pile of clad (mostly memorial cents)
The steel wheat cent (or whats left of it)
This was the first "Our lady of the highway" Catholic medal I have found.
1959 dog tag from Fort Dodge.
So, all of have our “secret spot” that we have found over the years. My latest one just happens to be a public that nobody else had bothered to hunt. Without details, I can promise that this entire area is truly virgin ground. I began hunting this site at the beginning of last December and I had pulled 18 silvers including a Walking Liberty half and a pile of wheats I haven’t even bothered to count yet. Now, this site is TRAAAAAASHY! Both iron and conductive junk in the ground and trash and large limbs on the surface. Despite all these (common) problems, the area had great potential so I was willing to see what I could find. I put the 6" coil on my Minelab CTX and went to work. Very first find last year was a silver Washington quarter, soon to be followed with wheats, more silver coins and lots of clad. I was even leaving a lot of penny signals that were extremely shallow.
Despite all the surface trash, I just kept working around it, hunting what open ground was available. For a month I never saw another detectorist, and there was never a plug mark in any new section I hunted. I had the entire trash pit to myself, LOL. Now a crew is cleaning the place; removing all the surface junk and scraping the ground level. GREAT! Now I can go back to hunt those hottest spots completely, plus 1 — 3 inches of soil is gone in some areas! So I get there yesterday with a plan of attack. The part they cleared wasn’t the best spot, but it’s clear now and they are actively clearing the #2 spot. I just have to wait for them to finish so I’m not bothering the workers (they don’t people walking around while they drive heavy machines!). As I’m working this first site I look up and there is another guy detecting behind the equipment in the spot I was waiting for!!! In my second best spot!! I will admit jealousy and anger were my emotions. I didn’t interfere, he was there first so I let him have it. It was public grounds but after hunting it alone (except for my hunting partner Evan aka GoneHunting for History) I had come to think of it as MY spot. I was digging a lot coins where I was, including 2 silver Roosevelt dimes, a dog tag, religious medal and wheat cents. I kept seeing the other hunter walk around aimlessly but doing a lot of digging. I couldn’t stop wondering if I had gotten most of it out already or if he was cleaning up on silvers. With much regret I left in the afternoon to pick up my kid from school, the interloper still hard at it. After dropping off at home I raced back to the site. The crew had begun clearing #1 producing spot before I left and I wanted to be the one to get the jump on it.
When I arrived back, the other guy was gone. I had to see if anything was left in the coveted spot! I started the outside edge and began gridding. First target was a wheat at 4 inches…. Huh how did he miss that? Then another wheat beside one of his holes, where he left the pulltab trash he dug there. Even though the ground was scraped, there was still a LOT of iron in the ground. Maybe he couldn’t see these coins. All his trash left was aluminum. Maybe he was just looking for gold? I kept hunting and pulled a missed silver dime (YES!!! I outhunted the interloper!!) More wheats and clad followed until I got a silver dime reading beside a tree. I stuck my Sampson into the ground and it stopped dead. Crap, big tree root, so I moved over and tried to dig. Another big tree root. Checked the target again, yep, still there. Crap. I gotta dig this. I dug and I pried and dug and tunneled and dug some more. Target was still under that @#$%@ root! Put the Garrett Carrot into the hole and got a hit. Digging by hand I saw a brown disc fall out. Picking it up I saw the wheat ears! Finally, I found the target and I felt vindicated it was actually an older coin. I probed again and got another response, another wheat, and another, and then a silver dime (Mercury), another wheat, a rusty disc and another silver (Rosy) and wheat! That disc was a steel wheat cent! No details but I’m confident it was a steel cent just because of it’s parnters. The probe was silent in the hole. Stand up, rescan with the CTX and there is STILL a silver signal, but this one pinpoints a few inches closer to the tree. More cursing at the tree roots but I dig and tunnel some more. Out pops another silver dime (Mercury). I can’t believe this hole, but there are more targets yet. Finally, after all was said and done I had recover 4 silvers (including a Washington quarter!) a steel wheat cent, and 8 copper wheat cents from this one spot.
The sun was getting low but I kept hunting, pulling more clad, more wheats and another silver dime before finishing this spot and moving to the last spot. This place which had given me the most silver, was now much quieter and only gave up a few wheats and only final silver dime. Darkness (and put-off home chores) finally won and I left. But not before I had a total of 8 silvers, 43 wheats, 1 steel wheat and a bunch of clad and minor relics. As the Terminator said, “I will be baaack”.
PS, I have a bunch of the wonderful silver-in-dirt pics but I'm at work right now and don't have the camera. So those will have to be added later.
This is all the wheats, silvers, medal, keys, and toys. Basically, all the good stuff.
The pile of clad (mostly memorial cents)
The steel wheat cent (or whats left of it)
This was the first "Our lady of the highway" Catholic medal I have found.
1959 dog tag from Fort Dodge.
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I have searched almost all public lands in a 3 county area. I have been lucky enough to find 2 virgin public sites, one was not around when silver coins were in circulation though. I look forward to your next post.
