Method to your madness?

[Monty]

I found that when I go digging I was wasting a lot of time in my hit and miss approach and not able to cover much ground in a day's detecting. After reading the forum I have developed a grid of sorts and am refinining another method that has seemed to be more productive. I bought a set of BBQ skewers about a foot long stainless steel. When I run a grid I don't dig every hit as I discover it, rather stick a skewer in the ground and move on until I have several places marked off and then go back and dig. Most of the time I will go ahead and dig clad as I come to it because it usually is shallow, not very time consuming and almost a sure thing. Then I go back and take my time to dig the sites I have marked with a skewer. They are usually deeper and harder to dig but most likely to yield real treasure.....or a 12" deep pulltab! I'm not yet finding more cool stuff but I do get more digs in in a days work. Sooner or later the odds have to be in my favor. One problem I have encountered is my Granddaughter....She was going along behind me and helping by pulling up my skewers! I didn't lose a one that day! Anyone else have a good method they have developed that might help?

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Agony and Death on a Gold Rush Steamer: The Disastrous Sinking of the Side-Wheeler Yankee Blade - Grab it through Amazon!

[Lowbatts]

I'll use local matertial such as twigs and leaves, all natural!

 

[Mona Lisa]

I would probably spray paint the skewers bright orange or pink. I'm curious, too, about what search methods people use. especially for large areas.

 

[Monty]

One of the forum members is supposed to be sending me some of those little flags like they use to mark utilities when doing building over or near various buried lines. Those will be easier to see and retrieve.

 

[zommbee]

When I search mowed lawns, I use the lines from the mower wheels to mark my 'grid' as
I go - really easy to keep track of where I need to go next. I too use the 'marker' approach,
but I use very hard-to-see golf tees to mark the centers if I plan to dig a whole row at a time.
I use this method when a curious homeowner is watching - they get bored after 2 or 3
tees are place, then I can dig in peace. But of course, I always dig VERY clean holes, with
hinged plugs that don't die. When it's really dry, I pack a bottle of H2O with a little Ammonium
Sulphate lawn 'greener-upper- in it to water the plug when I'm done. Never had a complaint.

Dave
Zommbee

 

[spotz]

Bright colored golf tees woork well & they are cheep, like me. Spotz

 

[Monty]

Golf tees are a really good idea if you can see. My vision is getting so bad I wouldn't be able to find them after I put them down. Last week I was at my daughter's house showing her how my detector works and I got a good hot quarter signal at 4". I dug and dug and dug but couldn't find it. My detector was still showing a strong signal and my daughter who was looking over my shoulder siad, "There it is right on the edge of the hole"! It was right there a foot from my nose and I was beginning to hear people speaking Chinese!

 

[spotz]

Yep! I do that often. I know it's there, just where the heck is it. Get out the pin pointer. It releives the frustration. I've even gave up & filled in the hole a few times though. Spotz

 

[zommbee]

I've learned that on my new XLT an aluminum can at 12" beeps like a quarter
at 1.5" - so I've figured out when to give up a hole!

Dave
Zommbee