Just got back from Treasure Island...26 cents and two lead weights!!?? Help!

[mts]

Well, I just got back from a week at Treasure Island Florida (near Tampa). I also spent an afternoon at Fort De Soto which is supposed to be a decent spot. I didn't go on vacation to detect. But I did take my detector along to try my hand at some real beach detecting. I've never done it before and figured it would be fun. I went out three different times and probably spent a total of six hours. Here are my observations and some questions for the fine folks on this forum.

1) I found two lead fishing sinkers and 26 cents in clad. Not at all what I expected to find. I didn't expect to find any rings but I did expect to find a lot more change. More details follow.

2) The beach and water had virtually no trash which was quite surprising to me. Even in the dry sand I didn't find a lot of foil. Just a few beer bottle caps. Does anyone know if they rake the Treasure Island beach? I didn't hear the machines in the morning and didn't see the telltale signs of raking. But maybe they do and I'm just not that observant. The fact that there was so little trash sure seemed to indicate that they were raking it.

3) My detector (a BH Tracker IV) did fairly well in the saltwater. I had to turn on discrimination in the water and turn the sensitivity down to keep it from chirping every time a new wave would pass over it. But overall I was pleased with how well it behaved itself. I even set it down on the beach when my wife called me at one point and wasn't paying attention. A wave washed right over top of it and it just kept right on ticking. I'm obviously a complete newb to have let my guard down like that.

4) On my first day detecting an old woman who was staying at our hotel told me that her grandson had lost a horseshoe shaped gold ring with rubies and diamonds the day before in the shallow water. The waves were fairly strong that day and the water was very murky so he couldn't find it. I tried to find it for her a couple of days later but couldn't. I really would have liked to have found it for her but just wasn't able to.

Ok... now for some questions. I didn't find hardly anything. I really expected to find at least some trash out in the water. But it was clean as a whistle.

1) Do the waves wash everything up onto the beach or is there actually stuff out in the water?

2) If there is stuff in the water, how far out do you usually look?

3) For those of you finding rings, is there a characteristic spot that you look for? Sand bar, currents, etc.?

4) How long do you folks detect per day in order to find the good stuff?

5) Is it worth detecting on the dry sand? If so, are there characteristic spots to look for?

6) Do any of you detect the Treasure Island beach? If so, any thoughts on my experiences?

Don't get me wrong. I had a lot of fun. The beach was beautiful and the weather was spectacular. I wasn't too impressed with Fort De Soto to be honest but it wasn't bad. But if I'm not going to do any better than 26 cents then I don't think I'd take me detector with me next time unless I can pick up a few pointers here.

Thanks!

 

[Sandman]

The best website to answer your questions, Thegoldenolde.com is now closed. Mainly if you haven't found much trash the beach might be searched by many other hunters. The beach rakes don't sift fine enough to collect coins. If your detector can respond to pull tabs it will respond to yellow gold rings. White gold usually responds like foil because of the conductivity. Items lost in the surf can be anywhere because of the waves, tide and currents and gold being heavy can be buried deep fast.

 

[COTTON]

Not to be a smart ---.But trade your BH in for a Ace 250. Or a salt unit(water).It all depends on what you can spend in these times. I bought my son (7yrs old )a ace 250 an he found a nice silver chain tonight.

 

[mts]

I know the BH isn't a great saltwater machine, but I can tell the main problem wasn't with the detector. When I did get a signal it was strong and it was easy to tell what I was digging. A couple of the coins were also pretty deep and I had to take two scoops to get down to them out in the water (that puts them at 6"+). There just weren't many signals at all.

I also don't get to beaches but once a year so it seems silly to buy a different detector for a couple of days of hunting each year. I tend to believe this is a case of "you can't find what isn't there". Basically, I'm probably not looking in the right place or this beach is well hunted each day by folks who really do know what they are doing. I'm hoping some of those folks can offer some guidance.

As a side note, I was completely overwhelmed by the sheer size of the beaches and water areas. Most of the places I hunt here in Ohio are very limited in size and you can cover them in a couple of hours. The beach just goes on and on for miles. It's easy to get discouraged when you have many square miles to cover and are swinging a little 8" disc around. Surely there are ways to improve my odds.

 

[deepsix47]

That is a bit unusual for Treasure Island. We usually do pretty good there. If it wasn't the detector, you just might not have been in the right places.

The size and scope of a beach really doesn't mean a whole lot. A little observation should tell you the most likely places to hunt. To hunt most effectively you can grid a section at a time off or walk various search patterns that will allow you to cover larger areas more effectively.

I hope you have better luck next time you come down.

Deepsix

 

[davest]

it's because I got all the pull tabs, bottle caps, bobbypins, hair barrettes, foil pieces, nails, screws, washers and every other imaginable piece of scrap metal before you got there.

 

[Gator-Flea]

I MDed Treasure in May and did all right with a Bounty Hunter 505!!!!!

 

[stitchlips]

I would say it's the detector. I started beach hunting with that same machine and believe me, the differences in a beach machine and the BH are worth every penny. Literally........

 

[mts]

Thanks Deepsix. I'll definitely be back. It is a great beach for the kids. We absolutely love the Gulf side.

I'm a little surprised that everyone is so quick to point to the detector as the problem. I suspect the main problem is the detectorist. As I said before I understand that my detector is not the best in the world for this type of environment. But you can't tell me that a detector that finds items 6"+ deep in dry sand or even in the surf is the whole problem. I can certainly understand that it won't find stuff 12" deep. But I expect to find something. Maybe all the stuff worth finding ends up 12" deep at a beach and that's the whole problem. But no one has said that yet so I can't believe that is the entire story.

Oh well. Thanks anyway. I'll just have to try my luck again next year.

 

[mumszie]

I've only been to treasure island once to hunt myself and didn't fare too well. I put it down to being the operator. LOL Still these gng's up here are very good and the info you will get is priceless. As for the Golden Olde site.... yes, it's gone from it's original site but you can still access it here....

http://www.nmhra.netfirms.com/pulltab/

Right after the guy passed away I started copying the whole site and I've got it on my computer now so I can refer to it when I want. I was afraid that it would be taken away sooner or later. It is called Golden Olde and it's worth it's weight in "Golden Information"!

 

[mts]

Thanks mumszie and excal. I definitely need to do some more research before going back to the beaches. I did ok in the dry sand because it's pretty easy to understand where the people tend to sit which equates to lost goodies. But I haven't figured out how the ocean plays into the whole scenario. As long as I was in soft sand I was finding stuff (although a lot less than expected). I was amazed that I got so few hits out in the water though. That's the part that I just don't get yet. I'll do some reading on the suggested site and see if I can figure out how the ocean plays havoc with the treasures deposited in it.

For example, when I was trying to find the old woman's ring I scanned the first 50 feet or so (waist deep) of the ocean for about 100 yards. Was that even the proper thing to do? If someone is out in the ocean and drops a ring in waist deep water, what should I expect to happen to it? Will it get covered up by sand at that spot, wash ashore, wash down the beach, none of the above, or multiples of the above? That's the part I was hoping to get some feedback on. But maybe the answer just isn't that simple.

 

[mts]

Thanks excal. It sounds like I did the right thing then. However, she wasn't really sure where her grandson had lost his ring so I just searched the 100 yards in front of the hotel. She said that he was in waist deep water so I was probably going out far enough. But who knows where he was really standing when it happened. He could have been another hundred yards down. Oh well. Someone else will eventually find a nice ring out in front of the Marriott Residence Inn at Treasure Island (hint hint). If not, maybe I'll find it next year.

 

[mumszie]

It's been my experience that people don't really know where they lost their stuff. Example.... a lady steps into the water and as she is walking deeper her fingers are now in the water and her ring slips off. She continues into the water, floats around some and starts to horse around with her boyfriend, kids or husband and all of a sudden she realizes that her ring is gone. She thinks she lost it right there when in reality she lost it 45 minutes ago. Meanwhile, other people are around where she lost it and they are playing around. The ring gets kicked and shuffled around then someone steps on it pushing it deep into the bottom. Now it is nowhere near where she lost it. This is all just a theory on my part. But things are just never where people think they are.

 

[davest]

I think the water level keeps changing and ten minutes ago it's either higher or lower than it was twenty minutes ago depending on an incoming or outgoing tide.

I should be a rocket scientist, huh