BuckleBoy
Gold Member
Hello All,
As many of you know, the Iron Brigade has been trying to find a difficult housesite for a week now. After two separate hunts leaving empty handed, and double and triple-checking the GPS coordinates, and more research, I'm pleased to say that we finally found it.
Since it was *only* going to be 93 degrees today
, we got an early start. After arriving on the site and entering the new GPS coordinates, we loaded our gear into our packs and got deep into the woods. To be honest, neither of us felt much like getting into those same woods that we'd been swallowed up and beaten by the last two hunts. On our way in, we realized that we weren't alone. This little baby was sitting there stock still. The only thing moving were its nostrils.
After a good hike through the brush, we got to our location and set up base camp.
Well...those changes to the coordinates I made since last hunt Certainly paid off. We took about ten steps away from base camp toward the east and found the iron patch.
Although we'd not had a good iron patch to whet our appetites in several hunts, I wasn't quite convinced yet. Not until that first cooking pot fragment, eating utensil, cast iron stove piece, or other housesite item came up would I be ready to do some dancing...
It didn't take long. The first decent target I got was a suspender clip. We gave some Serious high-fives and Hallelujah's, then started the Serious hunting. Here's Rodeo beating back the brushy, ticky woods with his Ace 250:
We dug some harmonica reeds and pewter spoon fragments, but the targets were very thin and the iron patch was very small--perhaps 30' x 30'. It appears that the structure was an old log cabin. There was no trace of it--not even foundation stones or a cellar hole. I think the small size of the iron patch was one of the reasons we didn't find it earlier. I also think that the geography played a role as well. There are lots of small knolls everywhere--each of which could easily have been the site of the house.
We brought a tarp with us--so that we could have a place to sit or lie down without the Ticks crawling up us the whole time. With the forecast High Temperature being what it was, I didn't want to take chances on us running out of energy. And so we took breaks between shifts of hunting throughout the morning to lay on the tarp and relax a bit. Here I am having a leisurely, sweaty cigarette on a Highly Flammable Tarp deep in the Tick-Infested Woods.
Now let me preface this part by saying that most of the time I don't thumb the knobs on my Fisher 1266-X before I dig--unless it is an "iffy" signal to begin with. It's faster to just dig it out of the ground.
Well... I got a typical signal just like any other (the analog users will understand)...but what I didn't know is that if I had thumbed the knobs on the Fisher it would've read Strong "Coin"--probably "Quarter." So it was a Beautiful surprise when I saw this in the hole:
It was an excellent Large Cent--1851.
Here's a photo I took of it back at the car after the hunt:
So we continued to work the site hard, drinking up and sweating off gallons in the process. A few more interesting items came up, including some nice suspender clips for Rodeo Recon, and a GREAT little buckle. When the finds had become very slim, we packed our gear and headed home.
Here are the cleaned up clips, buckle, and Large Cent:
And all of the iron, tin roofing, and junk we dug to get the goodies:
And of course, some photos of the cleaned-up LC. I only used water and a soft tootbrush, since the coin seemed like it wasn't very corroded.
Regards,
Buckleboy
As many of you know, the Iron Brigade has been trying to find a difficult housesite for a week now. After two separate hunts leaving empty handed, and double and triple-checking the GPS coordinates, and more research, I'm pleased to say that we finally found it.
Since it was *only* going to be 93 degrees today
, we got an early start. After arriving on the site and entering the new GPS coordinates, we loaded our gear into our packs and got deep into the woods. To be honest, neither of us felt much like getting into those same woods that we'd been swallowed up and beaten by the last two hunts. On our way in, we realized that we weren't alone. This little baby was sitting there stock still. The only thing moving were its nostrils.After a good hike through the brush, we got to our location and set up base camp.
Well...those changes to the coordinates I made since last hunt Certainly paid off. We took about ten steps away from base camp toward the east and found the iron patch.
Although we'd not had a good iron patch to whet our appetites in several hunts, I wasn't quite convinced yet. Not until that first cooking pot fragment, eating utensil, cast iron stove piece, or other housesite item came up would I be ready to do some dancing...It didn't take long. The first decent target I got was a suspender clip. We gave some Serious high-fives and Hallelujah's, then started the Serious hunting. Here's Rodeo beating back the brushy, ticky woods with his Ace 250:
We dug some harmonica reeds and pewter spoon fragments, but the targets were very thin and the iron patch was very small--perhaps 30' x 30'. It appears that the structure was an old log cabin. There was no trace of it--not even foundation stones or a cellar hole. I think the small size of the iron patch was one of the reasons we didn't find it earlier. I also think that the geography played a role as well. There are lots of small knolls everywhere--each of which could easily have been the site of the house.
We brought a tarp with us--so that we could have a place to sit or lie down without the Ticks crawling up us the whole time. With the forecast High Temperature being what it was, I didn't want to take chances on us running out of energy. And so we took breaks between shifts of hunting throughout the morning to lay on the tarp and relax a bit. Here I am having a leisurely, sweaty cigarette on a Highly Flammable Tarp deep in the Tick-Infested Woods.
Now let me preface this part by saying that most of the time I don't thumb the knobs on my Fisher 1266-X before I dig--unless it is an "iffy" signal to begin with. It's faster to just dig it out of the ground.
Well... I got a typical signal just like any other (the analog users will understand)...but what I didn't know is that if I had thumbed the knobs on the Fisher it would've read Strong "Coin"--probably "Quarter." So it was a Beautiful surprise when I saw this in the hole:
It was an excellent Large Cent--1851.
Here's a photo I took of it back at the car after the hunt:
So we continued to work the site hard, drinking up and sweating off gallons in the process. A few more interesting items came up, including some nice suspender clips for Rodeo Recon, and a GREAT little buckle. When the finds had become very slim, we packed our gear and headed home.
Here are the cleaned up clips, buckle, and Large Cent:
And all of the iron, tin roofing, and junk we dug to get the goodies:
And of course, some photos of the cleaned-up LC. I only used water and a soft tootbrush, since the coin seemed like it wasn't very corroded.
Regards,
Buckleboy
Upvote
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A lot of my sites are like what you have described, small, and basically same type of artifacts found. Congrats on the late year Large Cent and just who is that guy taking a break? 
LOL
you guys did good!!
