bigscoop
Gold Member
- Joined
- Jun 4, 2010
- Messages
- 13,541
- Reaction score
- 9,086
- Golden Thread
- 0
- Location
- Wherever there be treasure!
- Detector(s) used
- Older blue Excal with full mods, Equinox 800.
- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
Hard clay bottoms, I hate them! I'm 5'8” and only about 135lbs, folks see me trying to recover a target from this hard clay and they think I'm hopping around in the water on a pogo-stick.
Slick. OK, so the target is just in the surface of the clay so well just try to skim the surface with the scoop, ever seen a little guy doing the moon walk under water? The scoop hardly moves as I move backwards.
At this point I resemble a pug in full panting mode, the target still under my coil. Heaven forbid that I find myself over these hard clay bottoms with an abundance of targets, which I typically do these days. People are now paying to sit on the shoreline just to watch this little carnival clown go through his routine, my hunting partner threatening to sell popcorn, hotdogs, peanuts and cold drinks. A new lake, a new crowd of spectators, I've come to know all about life on the road.
Sticky. Just when you think you might have actually captured your pry you discover that it has simply moved from point A to point B, sucking itself to the sticky clay bottom with the persistence of a leech as the slow progress of your scoop nudges it along. You can try to push it into the scoop with your foot but this is sort of a 50/50 proposition that you'll actually manage it and still get your wading shoe back?
I'm getting pretty good at recovering my wading shoe though, that becoming almost a 95% sure thing.
Dark water. Never fails, the water is never clear enough to see the bottom, the mask and snorkel just for show and a little added color, all just part of the carnival wardrobe. Kids think it looks, “Kool!”
Of all the conditions I find myself in these days these hard and sticky clay bottoms are the absolute worst. Out here a target only has to be a few inches under the surface to be considered “deep”, snatching one before the fifth or six try a real conquest, indeed, 8 or 10 attempts not all that uncommon. For obvious reasons cherry picking becomes extremely attractive.
So, feeling as though I have enough first hand experience with these hard clay bottoms now I'm setting out to design the ultimate scoop for the environment. I'll let you know when it's complete and after I've given it a few test drives. Just been spending way too much time an energy recovering too few targets while passing over the majority. Time for a change in tactics!
Slick. OK, so the target is just in the surface of the clay so well just try to skim the surface with the scoop, ever seen a little guy doing the moon walk under water? The scoop hardly moves as I move backwards.
At this point I resemble a pug in full panting mode, the target still under my coil. Heaven forbid that I find myself over these hard clay bottoms with an abundance of targets, which I typically do these days. People are now paying to sit on the shoreline just to watch this little carnival clown go through his routine, my hunting partner threatening to sell popcorn, hotdogs, peanuts and cold drinks. A new lake, a new crowd of spectators, I've come to know all about life on the road.
Sticky. Just when you think you might have actually captured your pry you discover that it has simply moved from point A to point B, sucking itself to the sticky clay bottom with the persistence of a leech as the slow progress of your scoop nudges it along. You can try to push it into the scoop with your foot but this is sort of a 50/50 proposition that you'll actually manage it and still get your wading shoe back?
I'm getting pretty good at recovering my wading shoe though, that becoming almost a 95% sure thing.
Dark water. Never fails, the water is never clear enough to see the bottom, the mask and snorkel just for show and a little added color, all just part of the carnival wardrobe. Kids think it looks, “Kool!”
Of all the conditions I find myself in these days these hard and sticky clay bottoms are the absolute worst. Out here a target only has to be a few inches under the surface to be considered “deep”, snatching one before the fifth or six try a real conquest, indeed, 8 or 10 attempts not all that uncommon. For obvious reasons cherry picking becomes extremely attractive.
So, feeling as though I have enough first hand experience with these hard clay bottoms now I'm setting out to design the ultimate scoop for the environment. I'll let you know when it's complete and after I've given it a few test drives. Just been spending way too much time an energy recovering too few targets while passing over the majority. Time for a change in tactics!
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