Beach hunters, do you hit the parks too?

[signal]

I live in South Florida, not far from the beach, so I often hunt the beach. I like the beach because of many reasons including:

1. You can find very valuable items, gold chains, diamond rings, etc.

2. It's a rare day I come home empty handed.

3. Digging is easy

4. The scenery is GREAT

5. The exercise is GREAT.

I also love to be able to take a break, hit a restaurant and have a cold one, and then get back to it.

You don't get this with parks. Instead, recovery is very difficult at older parks. They are full of trash, worse than the beach. My hands get black with dirt (I don't wear gloves).

That said, I still find myself hitting parks. Ideally I look for old parks, big trees. I find the difficult trashy situations help my detecting and recovery skills. I usually leave parks disappointed, and I always find myself thinking about the beach .

I am wondering if most of you beach bums give parks a thought at all or are just die hard beach hunters.

Signal

 

[hubcap76]

I have not encountered some of the pests mentioned. I have seen "NoSeeUm's" on hutchinson island, worst ever………., other than that, no black widows, scorpions, alligators, or anything I really have to worry about. I am born and raised in south florida, never been stung by a jelly, never even seen a coral snake. I have seen plenty of cottonmouths, but generally those aren't in areas I would be detecting.

i agree born and raise st Lucie no jelly stings, never even when trying encountered a coral snake and the noseeums are always worse after a rain. See more black racers at the beach then at the house.

 

[BigWaveDave]

I started out on the beaches, more so to learn my detector. Rings and jewelry are nice and all... but my wife can only wear so much! My passion before MD'ing is coins, and I don't really need to spend $5 to park, to find 2 bucks in clad. Once I got confident w/ the 350, I practiced/hunted my neighbors lawns, now have branched out to permissions after a bit of research. The thrill of almost guaranteeing silver gets me off more than the pull-tabs. Will return to the beach again, but only if family/friends from up north impose themselves (usually the case). HH!

 

[Sir Gala Clad]

While finding jewelry and rings of Platinum, Gold, and Silver is extremely exciting!
finding coins of Platinum, Gold and Silver is even more so plus interesting as there is usually historical significance, or a good story with it.

Dreaming of days of old when knights were bold, and King Arthur's round table, I Sir Gala Clad, venture forth with the mighty Excalibur in search of the Holy Grail only to find coins of zinc and copper clad.

I started out on the beaches, more so to learn my detector. Rings and jewelry are nice and all... but my wife can only wear so much! My passion before MD'ing is coins, and I don't really need to spend $5 to park, to find 2 bucks in clad. Once I got confident w/ the 350, I practiced/hunted my neighbors lawns, now have branched out to permissions after a bit of research. The thrill of almost guaranteeing silver gets me off more than the pull-tabs. Will return to the beach again, but only if family/friends from up north impose themselves (usually the case). HH!

 

[DnD]

I have not encountered some of the pests mentioned. I have seen "NoSeeUm's" on hutchinson island, worst ever………., other than that, no black widows, scorpions, alligators, or anything I really have to worry about. I am born and raised in south florida, never been stung by a jelly, never even seen a coral snake. I have seen plenty of cottonmouths, but generally those aren't in areas I would be detecting.

You've got some great luck or maybe it is the location? I find it much harder to find pests around resort areas in south Florida and the Bay, but In NE Florida, you can see all of that at the kids soccer fields. LOL Most of my neighbors (Fl natives) are surprised when I say that....then I walk them to their very own garages and shrubs and start showing them what is really in their yards. Ie., took one step outside my door and this lil' guy is hanging there....

Heck, then there are these slippery guys running around which aren't usually this big, but for the shock value of the photo, (which has circulated around the net) here is a great one that was taken in the condo's adjacent to the St. Augustine outlet malls just 4 miles from my place. So, I'll consider parks once it dips near freezing temps...

 

[signal]

We just don't have a lot of that in South Florida. To be more specific Dade, Broward, Palm Beach Counties. I mean, I am sure we have coral snakes, I just never see them. I have never seen a scorpion, and I can't recall ever seeing a Black Widow in South Florida, but I have seen them other places. We have plenty of gators in our everglades and canals, lakes. Parts of the years mosquitos can be real bad, but in the residential areas, for the most part this is handled nicely by trucks that spray.

At Ocean Ridge (south of Boynton Beach), the park there is overloaded with these scary, huge, Banana Spiders…….those freak me out. Not sure if they bite, but I imagine they do. I don't detect places I have to fight my way through spider webs.

Also at Hutchinson, by the Dunes (not by the water), the NoSeeUm's tore me up. Was REAL bad, made sleeping very hard, and so from now on I load up on the OFF before I go out there.

I have also heard of ticks, but once again never seen one in South Florida. Those are nasty and can carry Lime Disease which is no joke.

Detecting the beach makes all of these not much of an issue. I have been bit by sand fleas before, which I am not sure if that's something different than NoSeeUm's.

Signal

 

[Boatlode]

I've been bit or stung by just about every nasty toothy critter short of a great white shark, and with Katharine lurking out there that might happen too.

 

[sponge]

Im not gonna lie. I have seen skunk apes. They are real. Alot of people arent aware of the huge skunk ape population in Florida. Be careful out there people.

 

[Fletch88]

Im not gonna lie. I have seen skunk apes. They are real. Alot of people arent aware of the huge skunk ape population in Florida. Be careful out there people.

My neighbor saw one 3-4 times about 2 miles from me just inside of FL line. There were 3-4 people who saw the same SA and one who smelled it while deer hunting in the same area! The one deer hunting turned 3 walkers out on him and only one returned. I dont know your experience with hunting dogs but a walker dog is a bad unit! I've never saw one personally, but there has to be something real about it.

 

[RustyGold]

It's always the beach for me! Surf, sand and sunshine!

 

[Boatlode]

Im not gonna lie. I have seen skunk apes. They are real. Alot of people arent aware of the huge skunk ape population in Florida. Be careful out there people.

I haven't seen one yet, but I have smelled them. And they do stink.

 

[dadoftwogirls]

I've hit a few parks where I live in Florida. Three issues for me. One, not near as many finds as on my beach. Two, the ground is way harder to dig. Three, the effort (making a nice hole with a plug) for the return (i.e. digging in hard dirt to find a nickel) isn't worth it. Just my two cents.

 

[Sir Gala Clad]

Mnruxpin:

The Excalibur was designed for diving, not shallow water hunting, uses earlier Sovereign technology (BBS). Since the circuit boards had to be redesigned to fit in a hardened POD housing to function at diving depths, it does not have all of the capability of the Sovereign. I stress diving, rather than shallow water hunting, as the exposed cabling between the battery and control pods as well as the cabling from the control pod to the search coil are in my opinion it's archilies heal.

As you may already know,The Sovereign which supports different coil sizes as well as head phones is an excellent land hunter.
Plus you could easily add additional capability when needed/desired such as a VDI display for target identification, an In line probe,
which could be switched on to locate targets in the hole or between narrow cracks in rocks, and an audio amplifier to boost whisper signals from deeper targets. Not many treasure hunters know it, but you could even order a concentric coil, I have one, for more precise pin pointing and greater depth than with the standard Double D search coil.

Unfortunately, this all will be history after the supply of parts for the Sovereign GT dries up (in 5 to 7 years - my guess) - after that it will only be possible to repair this detector thru canalbilzed parts. Worse the secondary parts suppliers, stopped support of the GT earlier as some of the parts they needed were only available from Minelab.

Minelab claims they stopped production of the Sovereign GT because of poor sales, which is not surprising as they
stopped advertising it far earlier.

Instead of updating, the design of the Excalibur to Sovereign GT performance, and increasing the flexibility by supporting different coil sizes and head phones thru use of water proof connectors plus adding a pin point switch in the handle to be able to rapidly switch between discrimination and all metal modes, they came out with a heavier. more expensive design the All Terrain CTX 3030 which in my opinion excels in hunting on land and at salt water beaches but is marginal, at best for shallow water hunting.

For me the ergonomics of the CTX 3030 are poor for shallow water hunting: I like to use a longer shaft for better balance and do like having to sweep the search coil in a bent forward position in the water to read the display. Plus this visual display is difficult to read unless shaded from sunlight, worst of all - the display cannot be used wearing polaroid sunglasses, I cannot even use sun glasses unless they prescription as my eyesight has deteriorated with age along with other physical capabilities. The wider thicker lower shaft does not cut through the water well (high drag - it is not even smooth), the cams and shafts will stick if sand gets in.

I use the CTX 3030 only in protected waters, and rarely submerge it - it is a fragile design at best (O ring seal, USB connector, Pin Point boot cover), definitely not one that I would use where there were waves or strong currents. Other than for the above limited constraints, I love this machine for its superior sensitivity, and selectivity, plus you can actually change the signal processing to meet specific beach conditions. To me it provides additional capabilities and is an alternative, not a substitute for the Excalibur.

Since, I purchased the CTX 3030, primarily to be able to detect smaller targets, such as Roman Coins and hammered silver coins,
I will most likely post, the success of such hunts under Claddus Maximus and hopefully come up a more descriptive avatar such as pictures of my two favorite detectors the Excalibur ll on the left side and the CTX 303O on the right side of my harness.
Who knows, maybe when they haul me off from being in the sun too long or from euphoria from finally finding something of value I will hear the approval from the crowds chanting: Maximus, Maximus, Maximus. Most likely, I will not have to wait that long once
my children discover how much I spent in the pursuit of ever diminishing returns(lol).

personally I dont like the excal on land, its the only machine I have right now. most excal guys wont go on land, it doesnt pinpoint well and you would make a mess. So just he beach for me

 

[Msbeepbeep]

I hunt where I can when I can. Beach sand is easier, but usually there's a lot of it, my detector doesn't swim, so it's dry sand and low tide areas, plus we have rocky beaches in some places.

Our national sea shore has been known to kick up pirate silver after storms, people have it just walking the beach, no detectors allowed.

We have our nasty critters here too, but most are feral humans! Lol!

 

[bigscoop]

I walked into my sister's screen porch the other day and a big indigo slithered across the floor in front of me. Neat snake. Took me about an hour to corner him and coax him out of there. He didn't want to leave.

 

[BigWaveDave]

Im not gonna lie. I have seen skunk apes. They are real. Alot of people arent aware of the huge skunk ape population in Florida. Be careful out there people.

my ex wife sure gets around

 

[DnD]

my ex wife sure gets around

Rofl

 

[PI PETE]

Absolutely!

 

[SouthFLdigger]

I walked into my sister's screen porch the other day and a big indigo slithered across the floor in front of me. Neat snake. Took me about an hour to corner him and coax him out of there. He didn't want to leave.

Hilarious LOL

 

[SouthFLdigger]

my ex wife sure gets around

LOL

 

[topdogintampa]

I'll hit anywhere I can u until the popo' haul me off...lol! But beach hunting is alot easier overall imo.....Just need the right machine in wet vs. dry imo