Deep silt is a huge obsticle here in Indiana, farmers have pushed most of the ground cover back so far a lot more top soil ends up in the creeks, streams, and rivers. But here's a trick you can use to see how deep the silt or much is in an eara before you step too far into it. Since most items will quickly sink into a soft subsrate until they reach a point where the density of the item and the substrate are pretty equal, you can take a long rod and probe these silty or soft mucky bottoms to see how deep it is. If the soft silt it's more then a foot deep I pass it up. In the case of muck, more then a few inches will make swinging the coil a real choir if you try to sink your coil into it. If the softer muck is over about 6" then finding deeper targets is going to be nearly impossible. What you want to try to find are the firmer bottoms in the area, hunt these areas first because they will offer easier hunting and a better picture as to whether the harder to hunt areas are even worth the effort.
I think the runoff over the years of flooding in this area has caused the silt. This area has flooded continuously since i was a kid and probally before that. One interesting thing is the silt that I know about is directly were the swimming area was. I am not sure about down stream because its out of sight and in a secluded area. A little hard to get to...I need to do a recon of the area downstream....That sounds like a good tip. I could use my crevicing tool as a probe to measure the silt. Maybe a pry-bar would work well 18" or so....
Also, sections of streams and creeks with relatively smooth bedrock or limestone bottoms can be really good if they contain deeper pockets or crevices in the bedrock, and especially if the crevice or pocket is in, or just down stream of, the swimming area. And if these pockets and crevices bisect the bedrock or limestone then these become ideal treasue traps and they are really worth seaking out. Also, make yourself a crevicing tool out of a strong length of 5/16" or 3/8" iron rod. You may find that you'll need it in order to retrieve your target from a narrow crevice. (Take a hammer and flatten one end of the crevicing rod for a wider scrapping effect).
Thanks for the tips Bigscoop,
I know the creek I want to hunt first has bedrock and is more rocky and clear. I will be better off going in the summer and after a dry spell as the currents can get a little swift when it is raised. I want to spend alot of time in this area, it looks promising to me.
As you can probably tell, I love this type of hunting. These places are usually quite, lonely, and their seldom over hunted, if in fact they have even metal detected before? I like to think of these places as, "the last frontier in metal detecting".
The local lakes here have been hunted very lightly as from what i have heard an seen. I seriously doubt anyone has taken the time to hunt these swimming holes. I really had problems finding info on them. One I found out about from my grandmother then I found a brief writing about it on-line. The other I found a nice old article, and confirmed it with a older local. The other two were utube videos, and people commented they swam there in the 60's and 70's....I also need to look up the laws first, I think the waterways fall under the fish and game commission here.
I am heading to Cancun on Tuesday with the GF. I will get to hunt a few hours a day there, so when I come back I'm going to start on my creek hunting. Ill keep you posted if I find anything. Thanks again for the info! HH :coffee2
