Bored with the clad...time to get wet??

[Murph]

I guess I shouldn't complain but I have never let that stop me before.

Beach hunts are nothing but one coin after the other. Been a few months at it with an ace 250 averaging about nine hours a week hunting the beach. So far just one decent ring; silver. They say if the beach has clad it should have jewelry but not so in my case. I search with vary little discrimination and dig all repeatable targets so I don't think that's the problem. Clad has become so routine that when I found a mail box key for one of the condos it was actually pretty exciting to just find something other than a coin.

I actually get more recent clad than pull tabs. I don't think its competition from other hobbyist either. It is obvious that some of the clad I have found has been there for quite some time and I can count on one hand the other people with metal detectors I have seen out there and it is obvious a few of these are not really serious about it. Have seen a few guys in the water however.

Is it time to get in the water with a different detector? Will the jewelry finds go up or am I just having bad luck in the dry and waters edge? Maybe my luck will change in the fall when we have lower tides. At any rate it will cool off and I can extend the length of my hunts.

This Friday I think I will hit it in the evening. All previous hunts are always crack of dawn affairs. Maybe someone is out there at night giving me the competition that keeps me in the clad.

 

[John (Ma)]

If you can afford a water detector than get wet, otherwise, keep plugging and I am sure you'll find something better than clad, just got to put the time in and have a little luck.

 

[Jason in TN]

Try spending one day digging nothing but pulltab and foil signals. I do this a lot at the beach I am not there to find clad so why dig it. It takes away from your time to hunt for the gold. You want get any silver like this but give it a try you will dig more gold signals a day and your chances go up. Also hunt in the relic mode and notch out the coins on the 250. Good luck and let us know how this works.

 

[Murph]

That's a good idea and something I have never thought of. Cant hurt to give it a try especially in this heat. In my case it would probably amount to less digging if I notched out the coin and silver. Not exactly a bad problem to have given most people have the pull tab blues and not the clad blues like me.

 

[Sandman]

Some hunters would love to find clad too. The rings and jewelry will come if there is any there. I wouldn't worry to much about someone hunting the beach at night if you are still finding lots of clad. Guys with water detectors dig about anything execpt the pros which used a detector that ID's the middle conductive targets and they dig only those.

If you are overlapping your sweeps, the jewelry will come if there is any there. More jewelry will be found in the water due to slippery fingers.

Good Luck

 

[spez401]

It could be that you're discriminating out the jewelery... they sound remarkably like pull tabs and foil.

The water is where most of the jewelery tends to end up. Fingers shrink when they hit cold water - rings fall off. Waves and rough-housing tend to knock off bracelets, earrings, watches, etc. Sure you find jewelry that people dropped in the dry sand... but i've found that most of my jewelry finds are in the water

steve

 

[ScrewcapRoy]

I have an M6 and have been doing both the dry sand and wet sand. I don't go into the water and probably will not. I do use the low tides that we have here in Mass. I have not found any jewlery in the wet sand yet so either I am missing it or it is not there. I do find that I need to be more deligent and patient when in the wet sand. Since I do not like to get skunked on a hunt I will switch to the dry sand for the clad.

I did find a silver ring with CZ's and a mens 14k gold necklace in the dry sand with plenty of clad. In fact my clad just paid for my wireless headphones. I like finding the clad as it pays for the batteries. Also, there was a previous posting were a fantastic ring worth about $6,000.00 was found in dry sand. The point, keep at it and the finds will come. Remember it is a hobby and have fun with it. Each time out for me is a learning experience and I enjoy the fresh air and fellow detectors. Besides my wife knows the only other woman I am running around with is Michelle 6.
HH Roy

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

Down here we do find jewelry in the dry and wet sand, but the majority of the jewelry we find is in the water,ankle to chest deep, and for the reasons Sandman and Spez stated.

You got to go into "the mine".

I know of 15 rings that came out of the same hole on the same day at Daytona, all in the water, and that was just the rings I knew of, could easily have been more after I left.

 

[Murph]

Thanks for the info guys.

I have changed my mind more than a few times when it comes to future upgrades but I think now the wisest thing would be a water machine. I could hunt here pretty much year around in waist deep water. The Yankees come down and jump right in water that would send us thin blooded Florida types running so there is likely to be finds year around also.

I know you guys like the Excalibur's but I am a bit hesitant about these machines. Its not hard to find people displeased with the Excaliburs when I look around the net.

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

I don't know where your finding the people unhappy with the Excals, I have never met or talked to one myself. Majority of hunters I run into in the water are using Excal and the ratio has got to be 10 to 1 at least in favor of the Excal.

You ever come this way let me know and I will lone you my back-up Excal and you can try it out.

 

[Murph]

I don't know where your finding the people unhappy with the Excals, I have never met or talked to one myself. Majority of hunters I run into in the water are using Excal and the ratio has got to be 10 to 1 at least in favor of the Excal.

You ever come this way let me know and I will lone you my back-up Excal and you can try it out.

All I did was type "Excalibur 1000" into google and found some opinions. Complaints ranged from constantly varying threshold, loose nobs, sand collecting in coil cover an ruining coil, wiring coming loose, many complaints about the unit not being balanced vary well etc. A few complaints about haveing to send unit in for service often.

To tell you the truth this detector came up with the most negative opinions of any machine I have researched. Hopefully these are older reviews and some design improvements have been made. Seems to be the detector of choice around here.

 

[spez401]

Murph... I swear by my excal.

I read the same complaints, and some are valid. Some, I wonder why minelab hasn't done anything about.

The older versions did have a problem with the knobs. they did have a tendency to fall off, but there was an easy fix for it. I believe that one has been solved with a new brass(?) insert in the knob.

The machine is not balanced well. Just about everyone who uses the machine modifies or replaces the shaft with a "straight, balanced, or 'florida shaft'". I've had 2, and never had a problem with either

steve

 

[Sandman]

I've had to only send mine off once for a minor problem with the coil and it is about 7 years old. The older machines did have knobs that came lose, but not anymore. The varying threshold is not a threshold problem with the machine. With 17 different frequencies it will increase in tone when it disc. a target and returns to what ever you set it at after a few seconds. I don't like the balance either, but I hang mine from my neck. I didn't like the straight shaft I tried as the weight was still on the arm, but this is a personal perference. You may get lots of complains too just by the volume of Excals on the market compared to the other detectors.

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

I am like Spez, I swear by mine, not at it, by it. I have 2 Excals, my backup for my Excal is another Excal. Everyone I hunt with in the water has an Excal and will swear by it.

As far as sand in the coil, that will happen to ANY coil and you just clean it out, it doesnt damage the coil or ruin it.

The only problems I heard about is really the original shaft is unbalanced, and the tops of the old Excals knobs coming off, both are easy fixes. The straight shaft fixes the balance problem, and knobs can be replaced if needed. I have two Excals and neither one of my Excals has ever had a problem of any kind, well almost, never................

The one problem I guess it has is the darn thing will see a gold ring under pieces of iron real deep in the sand. Sometimes I have to dig 12-14 inches down to get the gold ring up.

LOL

 

[JP]

Once you use the Excal there is no going back. You judge others against it. It ignores the iron. I had another competitor's water machine that used to drive me crazy. I don't know if the unit I bought had a problem but it would make all kinds of noises at the beach. The moment it hit water it would start misbehaving. I sold it on ebay and bought the Excal. I have been happy every since. Is the Excal a little heavy? YES. I broke the unit down how the Sandman told me. I will be getting the other shaft soon.

Sometimes it pays to dig those items that one thinks is junk........

 

[Murph]

Got out for a few hours before dark last night. We had an extremely low tide for summer a -0.2 which gave me a bout thirty yards of beach up to waters edge to hunt that is usually not exposed.

Good news is the ace performed fairly well only giving me the occasional false tone. I think I can rule out the ace also as any kind of culprit here. I dug up a small O ring of some kind down about four inches that was literally as small as the capital 0 in this sentence. Well I guess a rings a ring but hopefully this one is not the MD Gods sarcastic answer to my prayers.

Bad news is the targets were few and fare between in the "wet" area and the only finds of value were.....you guessed it, more clad. :P It looks like I have a three day weekend coming up so I plan to hit it hard with two hunts a day morning and evening. At any rate I have no doubt my clad bucket will grow heavier this weekend at the vary least.

I guess I should clean up all this clad and see what I got. I have just been tossing it in a bucket without inspection. I might already have a nice find and not even know it.

Update; back from this mornings hunt started at first light. Once again the usual clad. Considering all the wet area I was able to hunt during last nights low tide and this mornings hunt it is getting hard to justify any kind of upgrade at this point. I guess I will just keep swinging away with the ace for now and hope the drought ends. Kind of wish I had just kept my cheapo radio shack bounty hunter I had a few years back. I actually made better finds in a shorter period of time with it.

 

[JP]

Murph,

Don't give up. It took me almost 3 years to find my first ring. I was ready to give up too but I kept up the aptitude today might be the day.

I bought my son an Ace 250 that I actually like better than my more expensive Garrett. Don't take me wrong but the Ace offers a lot for such a small package. I was starting to feel discouraged with my other Garrett until a couple of months ago when I found a Walker half near my house. It was found where I never thought I would find one in a million years. If the items are there your machine will tell you that.

But back to the rings, I ended up finding my ring at the point where no one talks about finding rings. The line that divides wet sand from the dry sand. I always used to look in the wet sand at low tide. These items are where people drop them and it could be any where.

Believe me I was tired of digging just clad and pull tabs, but everyone on here would tell me give it time and they were right.

Good luck out there. You can do it.

JP

 

[Murph]

No plans on giving up but the constant clad is getting old. In reality the regularity of the clad I am getting is probably a good thing, just boring. Its currency straight up and the value of all of it is easily determined simply by counting it.

Jewelry on the other hand ? The gold men's wedding band I found with the bounty hunter a few years back has never garnered more than a scrap gold offer of 25 bucks. And lets face it silver just ain't worth much. Now a diamond peice of some sort; that would be nice.

The trusty old clad is probably the best way to win the race but at this point it sure would be nice to dig up something else....... costume jewelry, cell phone, ipod, key chain, sunglasses just anything but another coin even if its just and interesting piece of junk.

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

Remember people swim during all tides, so what is lost at high tide, will fall farther up the beach, it might get buried there or the surf will drag it down the beach as the tide recedes out.

The jewelry can be found anywhere, but your chances are a lot better that you will find it in the wet sand close to the surf and in the surf during the low tides. Most of jewelry I find at the beach is in the water calf deep to chest deep in the holes and trenches the surf digs in the sand.

Good luck and good hunting......

 

[finderzzs]

It could be that you're discriminating out the jewelery... they sound remarkably like pull tabs and foil.

The water is where most of the jewelery tends to end up. Fingers shrink when they hit cold water - rings fall off. Waves and rough-housing tend to knock off bracelets, earrings, watches, etc. Sure you find jewelry that people dropped in the dry sand... but i've found that most of my jewelry finds are in the water

steve

Hi Steve, and don't forget the suntan oil, making those fingers all slippery. I noticed you said low discrimination, you have to use NO disc. Like sandman said, if it's there it'll come. Dig the pull tabs.