Discriminating sinkers question.

[fishguy]

Earlier prior to winter setting in I decided to detect a lake near home it has been a popular fishing and picnic spot for as long as people have been in the area. I discriminated out iron and swung away most of my hits where fishing sinkers and lures I did pull out 6 mercury dimes, but my question is if I discriminate out the lead do I pose the issue of missing more coins or gold jewelry? At the time I was using my fisher F2 but would like to go back with my minelab 505. Just looking for information, and I am unsure what would fall under the same signals as lead.

 

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[Terry Soloman]

Yes, if you notch out the lead, you'll lose gold as well.

 

[Jason in Enid]

If you want to dig the gold, you will have to dig everything but iron.

 

[airscapes]

Besides, sinkers are resellable junk! Either on Craigls list, ebay, local tackle shop or as scrap metal, I would think it beats pulltabs and bottle caps any day!

 

[flatbutton]

I save all the lead I dig. It is fast becoming valuable metal. Just look at what the core charge is on a new car battery. I'ts all about the lead inside!

 

[longcut]

yea buddy ,,,,,,,,,,, save that lead ......... I make my own sinkers for fishing the Mississippi River, and lead is getting hard to find ....................

 

[treasurecoasteric]

Finding lead sinkers is important. The density of lead is very close to that of gold so subsequently both will tend to settle, rest or sink in similar areas or even near each other. This is not written in stone or guaranteed, but is worth thinking about.

Sent from my BNTV600 using TreasureNet

 

[mineralized_miner]

I would feel blessed to find fishing sinkers, as lead is turning out to be a rather prospective metal. Always dig anything non-ferrous, unless you are in the sand. Then dig everything. My reasoning behind this is that; who wants to step on a nail on the beach or on a volleyball court? No-one. If you show people that you are possibly preventing a trip to the ER (if they ask what you found, of course), maybe they'll be able to point out other places to hunt or help out some other way. Just my 2 cents, hopefully an 1873 for you. (key date, get it? *snare snare cymbal*)

 

[Tom_in_CA]

fish-guy, unfortunately the conductivity of various metals is intrinsically tied to their size too. So what I mean is, lead doesn't have some specific TID (as opposed to other metals). Size plays into it. That's why the tab or snippet off of an aluminum can has a different TID than the WHOLE CAN. And notice in that illustration, the composition of each item (the tab vs the entire can) never changed: Aluminum. So too is it going to be the same for lead. A small split-shot sinker (the size of a pea) can read low on the conductive scale. While those big pyramaid 1 oz sinkers might read up around zinc.

However, my experience is that rarely does a lead sinker ever come up as night as copper penny (unless a really big sinker). So you can probably reliably get mercs, etc... (provided not too deep, and you're getting clean crisp TIDs), while passing the vast majority of lead. However, when it comes to gold rings, you're going to have to dig lead. An exception might be dainty women's gold rings, which read down into the foil range. Not much lead (even the smallest spit-shots) read down that low. But for sure, men's bands are going to read in the nickel to tab-ish range, just like a lot of smaller to medium sinkers.

 

[fishguy]

thanks for the info everyone! I do save what lead I dig was just curious since at this site I cant swing one direction without hitting 3 or 4 lead signals. I have dug alot of it both here at the lakes and I always seem to find alot on old farms also. couple trips at the beginning of winter and I have a box that weighs 23lbs on my bathroom scale never thought about taking it in for scrap though. I always save my copper and brass finds for scrap so guess its time to get another scrap bucket for lead. maybe I will get enough sinkers to replace my broken pinpointer (BTW the F1 PINPOINTER IS junk LOL). <---opinion take with a grain of salt.

 

[airscapes]

You know what they say right? GET THE LEAD OUT!