How often do your return to a civil war permission over the years on repeated hunts?

[pulltabfelix]

I hunt in north Atlanta (north of I-20) for civil war relics. I have about a half-dozen good permissions, with some of them yielding a few minor civil war relics (carved button and flat button). on the two sites that I have found these two relics they are about 7 acres each and I have hunted them for about 10 hours each.

I am using an Equinox 800 and have had it since March 2018 and fell very comfortable with my abilities and of course the 800's abilities. What would you do in my position? One is part of a park that has been hunted pretty well in the 70's and 80's yet it yielded the two above mentioned finds. I have another on that is private property and the owner has held the property since 1955 and states to his knowledge no one has hunted it with a metal detector. This one has a proven (by famous civil war location to have a union army constructed road on the site). I have found nothing on that property after about 20 hours with the 800. It is about 6 acres.
Another is a well documented civil war field hospital location near a huge battle.

Halted my hunting this summer due to excessive heat, rain, bugs and jungle like weeds. Now it is fall/winter with better conditions. I have re-adjusted my attitude to just enjoy the hunt and not get so frustrated. Atlanta is NOT a a very good silver coin hunting locale because it was mostly dirt poor during the good silver drop periods like the industralized north. Gold hunting is mostly out of the question because all is private property. The older parks are in part of atlanta where it is not safe.

What would you do in my position?

 

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[Straighthookin]

I had this discussion with a friend last night. He was saying we should probably move on to another area because he felt the one we we’re working was hunted out. That said I found a percussion cap, grape shot, and a broken bayonet tip. The area we were hunting used to yield 15-20 bullets every hunt, so when we’re only finding 1 bullet and a couple artifacts each trip were disappointed. I guess it’s all relative. Personally I think we should keep working the site because it’s going to be a subdivision soon, and we won’t be able to access it any longer.

 

[Cobbslane]

Are there two issues here?
Firstly there is the feeling that the area is hunted out. Personally it would be hard to motivate myself to keep trying with such a though and since I do this for enjoyment then I would most likely move on...however I would always wonder if I'd left something behind so I'd take a break and get back to it another day after a few months, possibly with another machine or in very different conditions.


However, there is a second more technical reason to doubt the view that it is hunted out already. Please bear with me while I try to explain.
Whilst we swing our detector we are hunting and provided we move forward while we do so it is over new ground and so we cover a patch but when you take into account the coil size, swing length and speed and our walking pace then you quickly see that it gives far less than 100% coverage. I'm going metric here so please don't blow a fuse
Lets take your 6 acre field. If you are walking 5m(15ft) in about 20sec then with a swing width side to side of about 1.5m (5ft) then you would need about 18hrs of continuous swinging to physically cover the entire field. That gels with your 20hrs so far assuming that the approach was not haphazard.
BUT if you use a 28cm (11 inch) coil on your Nox 800 and you walk at the same pace and swing side to side and back (A - B - A) in 3 seconds as suggested by Minelab then you will only cover 75 - 80% of the ground walked. Change to a 6 inch coil with all other speeds etc the same and that drops to 45%.
If you want to visualize the pattern then imagine an auto shock spring laid on its side. The path of your detector coil would be represented by the metal of the spring which zigzags left and right and the space between the metal represents the area that you would be missing whilst swinging.
To me that goes a long way to explain why a field is unlikely to ever be worked out especially when you consider that your Nox will be an improvement over other models previously used on that site. Add to that my imperfect swing and coverage etc and there could still be items to be found.

That takes me back to my first point, that of the tiny doubt and why I would return after a reasonable break just in case.
Good luck and hope this helps in some way.
Gerry

 

[smokeythecat]

There is no thing as hunted out. I have been going to some of my spots 4-5 years now and still go frequently. It has averaged once a week to three permissions this fall. I think the "fall" season ended yesterday, it's getting cold fast.

 

[pepperj]

Are there two issues here?
Firstly there is the feeling that the area is hunted out. Personally it would be hard to motivate myself to keep trying with such a though and since I do this for enjoyment then I would most likely move on...however I would always wonder if I'd left something behind so I'd take a break and get back to it another day after a few months, possibly with another machine or in very different conditions.


However, there is a second more technical reason to doubt the view that it is hunted out already. Please bear with me while I try to explain.
Whilst we swing our detector we are hunting and provided we move forward while we do so it is over new ground and so we cover a patch but when you take into account the coil size, swing length and speed and our walking pace then you quickly see that it gives far less than 100% coverage. I'm going metric here so please don't blow a fuse
Lets take your 6 acre field. If you are walking 5m(15ft) in about 20sec then with a swing width side to side of about 1.5m (5ft) then you would need about 18hrs of continuous swinging to physically cover the entire field. That gels with your 20hrs so far assuming that the approach was not haphazard.
BUT if you use a 28cm (11 inch) coil on your Nox 800 and you walk at the same pace and swing side to side and back (A - B - A) in 3 seconds as suggested by Minelab then you will only cover 75 - 80% of the ground walked. Change to a 6 inch coil with all other speeds etc the same and that drops to 45%.
If you want to visualize the pattern then imagine an auto shock spring laid on its side. The path of your detector coil would be represented by the metal of the spring which zigzags left and right and the space between the metal represents the area that you would be missing whilst swinging.
To me that goes a long way to explain why a field is unlikely to ever be worked out especially when you consider that your Nox will be an improvement over other models previously used on that site. Add to that my imperfect swing and coverage etc and there could still be items to be found.

That takes me back to my first point, that of the tiny doubt and why I would return after a reasonable break just in case.
Good luck and hope this helps in some way.
Gerry

I read your math and I went to another site and looked at the figures of time spent on a field from actual spread sheets of time spent on the land.


"So one guy per 1 hours of detecting covers 323.63 sq m - (stock coil)."

Now if I use this math equation it would put a 6 acre field for detecting time at 75hrs

From detecting 5 decades I could hazard a guess that any faster it would be running around like a "Chicken flapper"
I have put many hours on fields with others and watched how fast they cover, and some swing as fast as they can fast walk.
Now there's no way one can cover the land efficiently going that fast.

I guess it depends also on the rate of recovery, the amounts of recovery, swing time of the coil.

I air tested your 15ft/20sec, and I mentally calculated it would take a bit longer.

But it really comes down to experience of the person detecting-that being said a person may believe they know all the ins/outs of detecting. The machine, the sounds, what the screen reads, but actually do they?

I estimate that it takes a 1000 hrs of detecting with a new machine to know what that machine does. (That comes from owning machines from the early 70's and using a White's GoldMaster for yrs before that and starting on a Heath kit model before that.)
Coverage on a field or land in general, one can go in one direction, turn and go back and there are no targets-but sometimes there might be a squeaker hiding.
Then I have found many times on a return hunt, going on any angle direction that I'll get a signal and recovery why? It was on a dip/edge of a stalk/plant/tire imprint......
Now throw the weather=comfort/mental into the mix-soil conditions-and there's another hit/miss target(s)
Then I sometimes just say mentally "Gee you suck at detecting"

Basically when there is just silence no recoveries then it has been covered. Then go back after a few years and try it again-if there are none-then strike that land it off the list.

Then again some fields that just suck one's brains out no matter what.

 

[smallfoot]

All that time spent trying to do math problems could have been used to find more artifacts..just sayin..

 

[sprailroad]

Still waiting for my first civil war site....out here.....in Oregon.....

 

[Cobbslane]

All that time spent trying to do math problems could have been used to find more artifacts..just sayin..

I agree. I would love that to be the case but here in England (UK not New) all metal detecting is legally banned at present (along with golf, gyms, swimming pools etc) due to the Covid full lockdown which is the second one we have experienced in the past year. It will last a for a few weeks more I think as the vaccination program is worked through. So the only place where you can legally detect is in your own garden if you have one.
Please don't argue that it is insane as detecting is usually an individual pastime, miles from anyone and so should be particularly safe. We've done all that and Governments do not think that way. BUT in the interests of getting this bug under control we generally support the action.
As you can imagine when you cannot get out then your mind turns to other things, wine, women, song......unfortunately in my case it has been the 'math' of detecting.
Stay safe