Competition hunts are all about speed...moving fast, acquiring targets fast, digging fast, recovering fast and moving on fast.
If you are not using a fast machine or are not real good with fast pinpointing on the big coil that can hurt you.
I used a 7" coil Compadre at several and cleaned up.
Found a ton of targets, they mixed tons of wheats, Mexican cents and still over dimes at my club hunts and I usually found enough dimes to come close to paying the entry fee for the next year's hunt and won hundreds of dollars worth of extra prizes with several special tokens I found in the mix.
I practiced a lot before these hunts, I don't kneel, just bend over at the waist since nothing is deep and I strapped a little old camera bag with a zipper on the top to my ankle and dropped all targets in that the second I recoverd them...Even a second or two putting the target in your pocket or a waist pouch while standing up can cost you targets.
What did I practice...getting that coil moving sand sweeping in front of me before I stood up fully erect and got moving again.
I bent over and put the detector in my left hand and put it down on the ground on my left side with the handle facing forward.
My digger came out quick with my right hand and popped a little plug with it.
Most times the coin popped up out of the ground too.
My digger goes back in the sheath as I grabbed the coin with my left hand and dropped it in my ankle pouch and immediately I grab the handle of the detector with my right hand and start sweeping by fire I even stand up completely.
Practicing this to get it all down into one fluid motion got me many extra targets and prizes I bet once I got good and fast at it.
Some at these hunts used big coils too and did well but they had decades of experience swinging those coils and many speed hunts under their belts.
Other noobies tried using those big coils and even though I mentioned speed they usually went too fast and missed much.
They looked like hokey players speeding down he ice on a fast break.
I followed behind them and picked up many targets in their path they somehow missed.
In these hunts after about 20 minutes most targets are gone depending on the amout of targets and people hunting.
Fast and accurate targeting and digging trumps big coil coverage by the numbers, and the big coil weight issue can come into play also.
All of these things might sound piddling but having a few extra seconds handy might mean the difference between finding extra targets, or in some cases big prize special targets...or not.
I continued to hunt for awhile looking for stragglers but since we had hour hunts I usually changed to my Vaq with the 11 X 12" big DD after 30 minutes for the clean up work and once in a while found one.
Never ever did I have a crosstalk problem with any other hunter and there were lots of people and many different types and brands at my hunts.
I was never close to anyone else for a long enough time to matter.
No question if I was using the Mojave instead of my Compadre that small standard coil would stay on it and I would never consider using a bigger coil for the main work.
