Old Beach find

[SusanMN]

I've been only metal detecting for a week and was having trouble finding much of anything - let alone things like those I've seen posted here. Seemed like every beach and playground nearby yielded only a few pennies. Then last night I thought back to a swimming beach near my house that was open for maybe 30 years and closed in the sixties. It had been the only place to swim for miles and it was packed all summer long. A few years back I drove by and could see a bit of sand behind a chain fence where the old beach used to be. So last night I was thinking that maybe there'd be some way to get behind the fence - I was fairly certain that most folks didn't remember the old public beach that had been there and it closed long before metal detectors.

Couldn't wait to get out there this morning and was absolutely delighted to find that the fence was gone and now it was a tiny beach open to the public. There was no sign of people and no sign that anyone had been on the beach for a while. So, I pulled out my metal detector and headed to the water's edge. Before the first swing, though, I looked down and could see the setting of a ring, very blackened, sticking out of the sand - turned out to be a antique sterling ring with massive CZ stones - right there at my feet. I also found close by a sterling skull pin with rinestones. Obviously no-one had been searching in the water - at least in the recent past. The beach itself yielded little - a few nickles, dimes and pennies .

I am hoping that a few feet out there will be years worth of lost jewelery. I'm going out with a sand scoop next time and see what I can troll for. If not, it is at least a peaceful and uncrowded place to dream of rings and jewelry to come.

 

[Boobydoo]

Great start, congrats on the finds already.

Stay very patient and search s l o w. Go over areas you think might be good from different directions... IE, take a search path north to south and then cover the eact same area in a search path east to west. Remember, the coil has to pass over the target and it is impossible for amost anyone to cover 100% of the ground during a certain swing search path.

Grid the area if you think it is a hot area. Turn off all discrimination and dig everything, especially while learning the machine. Digging in sand takes very little effort so it is worth digging 100 pull tabs to get that sweet diamond ring.

Good luck and I hope to see photos of your nice finds soon.

Smiles!
BDoo

 

[Prober]

What detector are you using? Some of them have coils that can be submerged, some can be completely submerged. Mine I just have to make sure to keep the water out of the box. Good luck on that beach.

 

[SusanMN]

I have an XLT so just the coil is submersible. My question about using it in the water, though, is that this old shoreline is littered with bottlecaps. Testing it out, it beeped every few inches. I might as well just scoop the whole area as try to detect it. I'm also a little afraid being a klutz that I'll drop it in the water.

Can anyone tell me whether things lost in a lake eventually get pushed closer to shore by actions of waves?