Any helpfull tips for my first hunt?

[kraeid]

Today I'm going on my first "official" hunt at a creek behind my house. Any helpful ideas, anything I might want to bring along or may need? Any opinion welcome.

 

[The Beep Goes On]

Well, here's wishing you luck!

Here's a list of tips I (or I should say "we") put together a while back...

http://www.thebeepgoeson.com/display.asp?page=Detecting_Tips

HH!
TBGO

 

[Lowbatts]

soft slopes along the creek side usually turn up more coinage than the bed itself. Carry a large fishnet bag for old bottles should you cross any.

Is this a creek with frequent floods? Tree falls across creeks cause deep undercuts in the beds. Small and flat items like coins hit those bottoms and stick, later the tree goes away and the hole fills, often burying those items out of detecting range. Occaisonally a subsequent tree fall at about the same place may dig them up if there is enough force in the flow.

Creeks change course slowly, in some creeks this opens the clay bottom to access. Coins hitting this layer often stick to the clay and stay put. Carefully check those out.

Careful on those recently filled washout holes with soft material filling them in, they tend to let you down, literally.

 

[goodmore]

Hunt with your ears first. Check the display ONLY after getting a good tone. Basic tip, but people new to the hobby tend to overload on information from the detector.

 

[SHERMANVILLE ILLINOIS]

kraeid,
good life jacket.
Take the time to enjoy your hunt.

Hope we hear that you found a bunch.

Good luck.

have a good un....
SHERMANVILLE

 

[Michigan Badger]

If you jump it don't change your mind half way across.

Where are you located? Must be down south somewhere. Up here in Michigan the snow is 16 inches deep by our streams.

MB

 

[LuckyLarry]

Well, if you lived within 1 minute of my house next to one of the creeks or the Big river, you'd carry a 357 and cell phone, mount a rear-view mirror on the side of your head, and bring a good and fierce dog along with you to watch your back. We have some real big C-A-T-S living near me and they like the way we taste (sort of like chicken). And one of them is about 6 feet long plus his tail. And yes they like to eat cats too, plus a lot of dogs, especially ones that squeel when they bite into them.

LL

 

[kraeid]

I'm from Puerto Rico so no snow here and the creek always has a small stream of water unless it rains.

 

[SHERMANVILLE ILLINOIS]

I'm from Puerto Rico so no snow here and the creek always has a small stream of water unless it rains.

kraeid,
so did you have a good time on your hunt?

Find anything?

have a good un............
SHERMANVILLE

 

[Michigan Badger]

Well, if you lived within 1 minute of my house next to one of the creeks or the Big river, you'd carry a 357 and cell phone, mount a rear-view mirror on the side of your head, and bring a good and fierce dog along with you to watch your back. We have some real big C-A-T-S living near me and they like the way we taste (sort of like chicken). And one of them is about 6 feet long plus his tail. And yes they like to eat cats too, plus a lot of dogs, especially ones that squeel when they bite into them.

LL

I know how you feel Lucky, I used to have neighbors like that myself.

 

[kraeid]

My MD was beeping all over the place but it turns out almost all were small scrap metal peaces from cars and such.

 

[Michigan Badger]

My MD was beeping all over the place but it turns out almost all were small scrap metal peaces from cars and such.

If there was (or is) a lot of foot traffic at that site there will be good things to find.

And too, all rivers are excellent hunt sites for ancient finds.

I'd locate a potentially good area and dig those car parts, etc. Then set you detector to discriminate smaller iron.

But the hottest hunt locations along rivers are those places where people would tend to fall or loose their footing. Next are the camping sites. Look for higher flat areas along the river bank.

Good hunting.

MB

 

[LuckyLarry]

The last time I cleaned out a river bank it was at the Park in Silverton, Oregon, a rather dark park due to the many old Douglas Firs growing there, some as wide as 4 feet and 100+ feet tall. Actually though I have stood in front of much bigger firs as wide as 8 1/2 feet and around 200 feet tall, and seen others as wide as 10+ feet..

When I got through with the bank there wasn't a piece of metal there any bigger than the size of a teardrop. If there was a beach or bank on the N side I would have cleaned that out too, but it was mostly an undercut bank and overhanging vine type. Yes, I did find some silver quarters and a few dimes, plus a few trade tokens and both clad and Canadian pennies, but someone else ahead of me got the rest of the loot. From the age of the small trees it appeared that it had been scraped off by a blade some 20 or so years before.

Just 40 to 50 yards away was an old original stone entrance to when the park was the town bottle dump, and I found a few Indianheads and war nickels there. There is so much iron under the fill dirt in the main park area that it nearly drives a detectorist to insanity in many places. The river bank however didn't have that problem. Most of my finds were less than 4" deep but even now I find that my more powerful detectors would have located anything else a couple of inches deeper because I researched the area again, so I must have done a good job cleaning it up.

No cougars there though, but a lot of Californians now own much of the town and much of the riverbanks too, but for the most part they keep that to themselves since most Oregonians don't like most Californians at all.

LL