Keep it simple - Start of with dry sand.
Focus on where people enter and exit the beach.
Look for where people like to lay (towel line) and play (volley ball court).
you are looking for fresh drops.
Use minimum discrimination, to knock out obvious junk.
Guess what the target is before digging.
Develop necessary skill to retrieve target with stand up sand scoop (if you have one) blind folded.
If you don't have one, no sweat - squatting down/bending over is good exercise.
As almost any VLF metal detector will work well on dry sand, you should not experience any problems other than there
being too much trash - masking your target(s)
Once you have mastered the above move down to the wet sand on Salt water beach and do a lazy W / S pattern from the waters edge to the upper wet sand. You are trying to locate a coin line, Upon detecting an old lead sinker, corroded quarter, slow down and grid as you
may of found a target iine. Slowly spiral out or do a grid search pattern to find like targets - hopefull gold ring(S)
Shallow water hunting with AT Pro is more iffy as it is an all terrain metal detector rather than a true water detector.
(multi frequency/ PI metal detectors) work better in this zone.
On some beaches the ATPRO will work well, - may have to reduce sensitivity as noisy
On others not. This is what I have been told and seen on videos - never used an AT PRO.
Don't forget brimmed had, poloroid sun glasses, SPF 50 sun block, lip balm if your are detecting in the heat of the day.
The beach is a hostil place for those who are not prepared.
Above all: Enjoy yourself and have a great hunt.
Thanks for reading it. This summer I plan on heading to the beach for the first time metal detecting. I currently have a AT Pro. My question is how do I determine or find out which beaches will allow me to metal detect ? I plan on going early and trying to avoid people. Im not asking for your secret spots or anything like that, just generic help please...thank you for Any Help. I can go in Mass and CT.