Detecting Competition

[Old Town]

I live on an island of 40,000 regular residents. In season the population swells to 60,000 or so. We have maybe 8 square miles. I only know 5 other persons in Key West who detect to any degree at all. Two of these people are a young married couple who are hardcore hunters. I see and meet with them often. We trade machines and tell lies. The other few are retired older men who mainly beach hunt along our south shore where the beaches are. I've never seen any of the beach hunters inland at the parks and vacant lots. Never.

In the past 20 years I've only seen another inland park hunter maybe 5 or 6 times and this was always a tourist who had come down from up north and had brought his detector. Can't remember ever running into a native detecting a school or park in all my MDing career.

So I generally do very well at parks and school yards. It's not unusual to take over 80 coins per site. I only quit for being tired of digging and not for lack of targets. (clad mostly with much silver jewelry)

What I'm wondering is, do you find a similar situation where you live? I read many times of members having much competition. I seem to have virtually none in a very highly populated area.

Not complaining, just curious.

Old Town

 

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[Iron Patch]

Very close situation for us here, only we hunt old sites in farm fields. There is two groups of us, we being three, and the competition four. I would say we account for over 90+% of all the best finds dug vs everyone else.... who aren't near as serious, or haven't put in the time or research. Our two groups have crossed paths but it's pretty uncommon. That said, 7 guys can cover a lot of ground in 10 years so it never gets easier.

 

[Frankn]

I think I have hunted just about everywhere, coast to coast. I haven't hunted in Key West but I have hunted some of the other Keys. Never saw another detector there. Out west in AZ.& Cal. on gold claims On rare occasions, I might see one other person a day. I just spent a week hunting woods in central Pa. and saw no one. I hunt private old lots and usually see the owner and an occasional friend. Park hunting, I might see maybe 20 people, but usually no other hunters. The beach is another story. there are usually many people on the beaches like in Ocean City Md. make that thousands! I stay off until after 6pm. They leave at supper time. I usually hunt till dark and see 1 or 2 other hunters. I have hunted on farms next to battle field parks in Western Md. and the only ones I saw were the Park Rangers that observed me the whole time. It seamed they were counting my pickups!

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[Smudge]

Used to live in Miami and spent a lot of time in the Keys, but moved north before I got into the hobby.

I guess when most folks think of Key West and detecting, they think of the beach, and there's only one of any consequence on the south side of the key.

You're smart in hunting parks and schools since no one would really think about being in Key West and all.

Where I'm at now, yes, I'd say there's a lot of competition, especially at the Daytona Beach, but I don't let that worry me.

Most detectorists I find use very haphard searching patterns, so they miss a lot.

You also need to think about the cone shaped field produced by detectors in the ground. The deeper the signal goes, the less area it covers. That's why you can walk behind someone and hit a target they missed. It's not that they were a bad detectorist, its just the luck of the draw. You swept your coil where they didn't.

Now having said all that, pickings haven't been great this season, but I think thats because people are wearing less bling due to the recession, so there's a lot less being dropped.

But there's still a lot of great stuff out there, you just gotta be disciplined in your search pattern,be patient, and dig everything.

 

[Dano Sverige]

Here in Sweden detecting is strictly prohibited inland and swedes tend to see this as a "total ban". Unfortunately for them,beach detecting is quite legal with permits,which are easily obtained for most beaches. This means that i have permits for around 30 miles or more of very popular beaches virtually all to myself!
I have a friend with a detector who doesn't get out much, and the only other detectorist i've ever seen is an old guy flying across for surface coins etc, and only come across him twice in a year! He uses a 15 year old c-scope detector..so no real competition against my Etrac and Excal II, lol.
The downside of all this is that swedes are very "beachwise",and tend to remove most jewellry before going to the beach! Also "bling" is not a big thing here either...so gold pickings can be very few and far between! I get a lot of people looking at me like i just dropped from another planet when i'm detecting,and those that talk tell me they never see another detectorist which is why they came to ask what i was doing in the first place,so i know most of the goodies are just waiting for me to walk over them!