Gold Finds after 6 - 5 hr hunts on west coast of Florida

[LawrencetheMDer]

I usually hunt the west coast of Florida from Dec - May, but health issues limited hunting to only 6 hunts mostly in April and May. Here are my gold finds:
- 0.92 gram 14K "Love" ring
- 2.47 gram 14K fancy ear ring
- Gold and 52 diamond (tested) pendant (have to test gold purity when back home)
- 14K white gold band 5.16g
- Grillz with clear stones (not diamonds) and have to test purity when back home.
Also found various silver pieces inc 3-925 rings, 3 -ear rings, a 10g 925 necklace.
Best part was just getting back into the water, talking to fellow MDers and simply enjoying the beach life.
Happy Hunting

 

[LawrencetheMDer]

What detector are you using? Are you hitting the wet and venturing out into the water? Man CH, I envy you guys in Florida. Here in MD, the water's so dark, that once you get about a foot deep, you can't see your feet. If I can't see my feet, then I can't see any toothy critters that might be in the area, and it also makes pinpointing much more challenging. I'd love to be able to hunt in water where I can see my coil and anything that might be heading my way, lol. I learned to SCUBA in Cozumel, and it was just crazy that I could be on the surface, put my face/mask in the water and see the bottom 50ft down, wish the waters here in MD were clear like that.

How are you hunting the beaches? Are you just be-bopping around the dry & possibly into the wet with no plan, or are you making focused efforts, gridding an area, spending hours searching, etc? I've found the keys to beach hunting to be persistence, effort, and knowledge. Most of the guys on here and even on a lot of YouTube videos will show all they found, so you'll see all the trash, pull-tabs, fishing sinkers, etc, that they found before they hit the gold ring. They might show 1 gold or silver ring, a few coins, and tons of trash they had to dig. Also, are you checking the tide charts and spending a little time reading the beach before deciding on what area to search? There's a lot involved with beach hunting, and sometimes, no matter what you do, it may simply come down to being the right person, in the right location, at the right time.

I use a Manticore, now. Hunt water mostly (say 70/30) but always hunt starting from the parking lot into the water. No discrimination, except for iron. Dig everything. I keep detailed records and of the 5 gold pieces, 4 were found in the water (Grillz - dry sand). Of the 7 silver pieces, 4 in water and 3 dry sand.

 

[DudeDoubloonYoutube]

Do you discriminate a lot either by sound or numbers ?
I hunt in all metal - ive followed a lot of guys that always use discriminate - ive followed guys that over discriminate
I do not hit virgin beaches or secret spots - I hit spots that get hit by ton of detectorists every summer
Some swing too fast - try to hit the whole beach before anyone else can - since i wear a mask
i can see their foot prints and their scoop marks if i get in right after them - one of my last nice diamonds
i got in Fl. was at So bch - there were like 4 other guys in before low tide like 3 hrs - so we were all
competing in closer - guy closest to me was like 10 yrds in front of me. He was getting signals and when
i looked at bottom i could see his foot prints and scoop marks - He started moving a littile faster through this one spot bout waist deep - he was using an Excal. When i got to this spot I started getting a bunch of iron
signals - I dug like 6 nails - then got a nickel then got a gold and diamond ring then a few more nails.
He turned out a little deeper and headed back my way - i said Hi! and nodded - I asked are you discriminating
he said yes - theres spots with nails here and there. I said yeah I just tried cleaning them out - I
then showed him the ring and told him this was in with the nails
Ive gotten a lot of gold over the yrs with junk or deep under junk - is it worth digging all
the junk i do - I think so
this is that ring
View attachment 2215622

Hey Casper. Thanks for sharing - a few questions.

Are you saying the rings were false signaling as iron signals? Or were the nails masking the ring signals until you removed them and then they rang up as non-ferrous. I typically hunt all metal but rarely dig consistent ferrous tones right now.