Surfdigger I have some questions for you. Nor Cal beaches? **Video pics added*

[golddredgergold]

Hello,
I have been watching your videos and tips closely. I am trying to put or apply them to our beaches here in Ca. but way north right at the Oregon/California border. We have a beach that changes daily with rough water most of the time. A few days ago was the first time I have seen a trough on the beach. Our beaches are very short from water to the top at the high water mark. maybe 100 - 150ft. The beach will pile up a bunch of rocks yes we have rocks about golf ball and a little larger. The piles will be every 200ft or so down the beach with low sandy areas in between. Here is the problem. We get nothing! High low or in the middle. I have a junk knife, some fishing weights maybe 2, and a few bits of nails. In 3 months I have not dug one coin. And of course no rings. I go a bunch. The only thing I can think is the change must be farther out due to the short beach or maybe the cold water we just do not get the people that loose the stuff here. It just is not here. No junk no coins nothing not even pull tabs. There is people at the beach but maybe not enough. I just can't figuire it out. I have given up on the beach and moved inland to the parks and the woods again. Any ideas? I will try to get a video of the beach tomorrow and load it up. I will at least get some pics at low tide.
Any suggestions?

 

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[Surfdigger]

Re: Surfdigger I have some questions for you. Nor Cal beaches?

Hi.....I would have to see what your beach looks like.....but the amount of folks that use the beach is definitely a factor.....also the steepness of the beach and the type of "matrix" or type of sand or in your case stones could have alot to do with how the beach holds targets within range of your searchcoil....there are more than a few variables that will determine why you aren't finding anything......are their any other Northern Cal. beach hunters here that could chime in with any suggestions?....HH.....Brian

 

[fathead]

Re: Surfdigger I have some questions for you. Nor Cal beaches?

From what I remember, the water up there is really cold. That probably keeps the people out of the water. There are some guys up in Connecticut who still do pretty well but their beaches see a lot of traffic. You could try a beach 30 miles in either direction just to see if the lack of targets is local or regional.

Just some guesses from someone who truly doesn't know the answers.

Good luck, keep us posted.

-FH

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

Re: Surfdigger I have some questions for you. Nor Cal beaches?

Sounds to me like maybe the beach in question just doesn't get a lot of traffic, thats not to say you want find something, but the finds will be few and far in between..

Even though there are a lot of beaches in Florida, there are some that get very little traffic compared to the other beaches and so they produce very little targets.

 

[Sandman]

Re: Surfdigger I have some questions for you. Nor Cal beaches?

I have never hunted your CA. beaches but cold water definitely doesn't attract a lot of swimmers unless it has been hot weather for awhile. The lack of a beach concession is also a factor. If the people aren't going in the water are they playing on the dry sand? For more info on your beach check out http://www.nmhra.netfirms.com/pulltab/

 

[golddredgergold]

Re: Surfdigger I have some questions for you. Nor Cal beaches?

Thanks for the tips guys. Thanks for the link to the golden site as well I have been there and read the whole thing. Lots of good info. Like I say I have tried to apply all the tips but no treasure. I have met several other guys out there detecting and they do not get anything as well. Only a few trash items in the high dry sand where people come and sit on the sand. I am starting to think that the stuff is just not there. Started to think I was going crazy for awhile. I can walk a mile and not get a single target then turn around and walk the mile back on a different path and get not a single target. The mile is in a zig zag all the down the beach. I detected a beach in So cal and it was awesome. I move 10 inches and dig a coin move the coil over 10 inches dig another. I got a cell phone and a huge pile of change in no time. Must just be the amount of people in the water and there is none here. The only way I think you might get something is high dry sand and someone happens to drop it right before I get there.

Thanks again and I will try to get a pic and video of the beach today.

 

[golddredgergold]

Re: Surfdigger I have some questions for you. Nor Cal beaches?

Here is a few pics. I am trying to upload the video but our internet is working very slow right now and so it keeps error ing out. I will keep trying and post the link when I get it done. This is just a couple of shots down the beach in both directions but the video really shows the area better. The beach changes daily big time. And last nites storm flattened it out again. It had big humps of rocks and low sandy areas yesterday but there was not anything in the low areas at all.

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[golddredgergold]

Hey Mt,
I have hit those rocks top to bottom and nothing. I am just thinking there is not enough foot traffic to drop the goodies. I have been hitting the parks ect.. and I will stick to that for now. I just bought a new pistolprobe pinpointer so I will give that a go and go back to the beach in a month or so when the tides go way negative and try again. I have no ideas on what else to try. Even the beaches north and south of here are clean. I think there just not enough people at the beach.

 

[fathead]

Golddredgergold, there should be someplace close by you where people do get in the water when it is warm. Most likely it is a pond, lake, or river. Ask around, especially some of the older people who will remember where they used to swim pre 1964. There has been some posts lately about a guy searching one of these swimming holes and he is cleaning up. I know up in Maine not many people brave the ocean but their ponds and lakes can get crowded.

It might be worth a try.

-Fathead

 

[Surfdigger]

Well the only thing that I can conclude is that your beach doesn't get much if any use as a bathing beach....are people laying out there in summer?.....are they swimming there??.....if you don't have that then you won't find anything.....I'm just perplexed that you aren't finding anything....not even junk?....I think it is time for you to find a beach that has a history of heavy use during the warm months......go do some research....tons of resources can be had here on the Internet.....good luck with it....that's all I have for you

 

[OBN]

Water Temps to cold for anyone other then fisher's*

Judging from the pic's and the year round water temp's of places close to you, I would say not many will be in the water or be at this beach other then to sunbath, and only July and Aug..would be your best chances of finding anything if there is any traffic. joe

 

[golddredgergold]

Well Thanks guys! I am also detecting the river near by it has a few swimming holes in the summer for sure. I have not done well at either of them but the rivers get really high and wash everything away. I am thinking there is not going to be anything old due to this. I have also hit the parks hot and heavy. I detect daily. The parks are very old but have not given up much. Only a few wheats and no silver at all. I have moved here about 9 months ago and in that 9 months I am just not filling the same jar I would fill every month over in foothills of the Sacramento valley. I think the town does not get much beach activity and I think it is small enough that a few detectorist over the last 20 years have pretty much cleaned out the parks ect.. I am only finding the wheats in the most difficult to detect areas and they are in roots and tight brush in the trees. All spots where normal folks would not detect. Good news is I along with my family have decided NOT to stay here and we are moving back to the valley so my finds will go back up soon. Leaving in June!!!!! Thanks for the help again and that water temp chart above says it ALL!! It is to darn cold to get it the water here!

 

[rockyredbaron]

Those pics of your beach reminds me almost exactly of the beaches on the North Shore of Lake Tahoe !!!! Sent my MXT into a frenzy ..couldn't settle it down at all.... until I left the beach and moved to the sand volleyball courts in the local parks !!!! Good Luck


Rockyredbaron

HH to all

 

[Tom_in_CA]

gold-dredger-gold, I can comment on your question, as a CA hunter, as far as it pertains to erosion.

Whatever you might see on someone's tip site (photos, videos, etc...) may not apply to another beach elsewhere. Each beach "acclimates" to its own level of normal surf impact. So for example: a 6 to 8 ft. swell hitting southern CA (anything south of Pt. Conception) may erode down to multiple goodie pockets for them. But for you in way northern CA/OR area, a "6 to 8 ft. swell" is absolutely nothing! Your beaches have acclimated over the centuries to probably needing 25 ft. or better, since you are closer to Alaskan spawned swells/storms. So. CA, on the other hand, faced the south, so they won't get any impact from the N or NW swells. They need S. or SW swells, which have to travel all the way up from the equator to reach them (or get an Alaskan storm that dropped far enough south, to spin swells to come in from the west, anyhow). So if you'll notice, their "Baywatch" style beaches have quite a different look than your rocky windswept Northern CA/OR beaches, eh?

So, for example, if you were to see someone from So. CA (or FL or TX, or wherever) post pix of a 2 ft. cut, or slope, or scallop, or whatever, and post lots of goodies, it does not necessarily mean that you can mimick those same results, when you see the same geologic shape/size formation in your area. You might need towering cliffs to get down to where mother nature has left the goodies, whereas a calmer beach may need only a few foot movement to produce results.

I'm here on Monterey Bay, which has the unique factor of having beaches which face every single direction towards the ocean: From straight on south (Santa Cruz), to SW (Aptos, Carmel, etc...) to straight on west (Moss Landing, Marina, etc...) to NW (Monterey, Seaside, etc...). And you can really tell the difference between them all, and what it takes to get down to erosion that will produce goodies. For example: At the straight on W or N/W facing beaches, it can take 18 to 20 ft. swells before we even drive down to take a look. And if we saw mere 5 ft. cuts, we probably wouldn't even get out of our trucks to try it, because we'd know it probably sterile. But if that same size cut or swell was occuring at a SW facing beach, it would probably be a bonanza, since those facing beaches are not acclimated to such a level of surf/swell.

We too have cold waters (d/t the "submarine canyon" off shore) so no one goes in the water without a wet-suit. In fact, pretty much all the beaches north of Pt. Conception are too cold to go in w/o a wetsuit. South of there though, it can be bathtub temperature at times, d/t the currents that come up from the equator, and swirl off-shore at about the Pt. Conception line. However, having colder waters does not preclude us from getting rings though. Sure they won't be a good as ratios as a warm water beach (where thousands can be in the water frolicking around thrashing their arms and fingers about ). But we still find jewelry and rings. People playing volleyball, sunbathing, pitching frisbees, building sandcastles, etc... .still loose jewelry.

Another factor which can limit the collecting of targets into what might otherwise appear to be the proper erosion, is this: If there was ever a major storm in the past decades, which totally decimated your beaches, then I have actually seen where ....... to this day ...... no old coins ever get found anymore on those beaches. It's as if the sand got stripped off during storms of course. And when the sand comes back in during the following calm spring and summer, the heavier targets get left off-shore, and only the sand comes back in, w/o targets. On those beaches, we only get targets lost since then (clad, and recently lost jewelry). If an occasional oldie pops up, it's because the storms cut further back into the dunes than the bigger storms of decades past. There is one beach here, for example, that was giving up hundreds of oldies (even some gold coins) back during the 1982-83 El Nino. But ever since then, even in subsequent storms, it just can't get back down that deep, ever again. So we have rarely ever even found a wheatie or silver there anymore. Of course this wouldn't explain why current clad in subsequent years isn't found, but just food for thought. If you had some major erosion just in the recent few years, then it's possible that any interum minor erosion just isn't going in past the sterile layer that's come in since then.

Here's some pix of a west facing beach near me. This was just a few weeks ago (late march) when some swells came through the west coast. We got hundreds of coins, some silver coinage, and a few pieces of gold off this. By about the 5th day, it had sanded in (despite how it continued to look, sand had come back in at the base of it). And as impressive as this cut may look, for this beach, it's "par for the course". It needs these towering cliffs (which occur every few years under the right conditions), or else it's no good. At other beaches near me, we get goodie pockets with much less impressive looking cuts, low spots, slopes, etc.... Just depends on the beach, and what it's acclimated to.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

And just to give you an idea of how much things can change as to standards of "what constitutes erosion be-fitting of good detecting", here's a beach that is a mere 7 miles away. This one is semi-protected in a shallow water harbor type cove, where rarely do waves/swells reach in (unless at a very unusual compass angle of attack along the coast). As you can see, these cuts are just knee high. But when we get nubby cuts like this, at this particular beach, coins back to seateds and such are not uncommon.

 

[golddredgergold]

Tom thanks a bunch for taking the time to post. I am now with you on weather or not the goodies will be there. I think it is going to take a big storm with the waves just right to give me a cut that might give up some goodies. I think the sand is just so deep. Probably 30 to 40 ft to the bedrock bottom that there is no way I will ever get at the heavier targets that have worked there way down to that point. I have been watching the beach very close the last few days and I am guessing but I would say there is a good 10ft of sand and rocks at least getting hauled in out out everyday on the whole beach. Today it was sanded in and high up yesterday it was pretty low and rocky in spots. I will just have to wait for the rare cut. Thanks again for the info!