When do you dig? When to give up?

[MuSKeR]

Hey guys,

I thought it would be interesting to see what other people's opinions may be?

When detecting, at what number does it need to be for you to even start digging? Obviously I know that all detectors are different..

The next question is when you think you have hit a target how far will you go to get it? Twice today it was pinging and I dug nearly to china and still couldn't find it.

Clearly I need to learn my detector more..

So just wondering on your thoughts.

Cheers

Rob

 

[Goldtarget]

Rob, it's hard to describe but after a while you start to form a pattern. Each location will be different but the age layers are often the same. Key clues are 2c and 1c pieces, beavertail pulltabs, old style screw tops (Fanta, coke, etc) and then into predecs.

You just need to take a mental note of the depths and know when your more likely to be at the right depths.

Using a pinpoint function to scan from different angles can help to tell you the outer dimensions of an object. But on occasion I start to go deep on an old piece of lead or brass and you can tell it's getting beyond the area depth for regular coin/treasure finds.

I realise this is park or dirt hunting advice, beach hunting is different, but hopefully you will find this helpful. The more retrieval time you spend the more this will make sense. I dig a lot of junk to assess depths when starting deep hunts on new territory to get a feel for these levels.

I would approach the beach hunting guys for clues about what types of finds deposits where, they often speak of groupings and can tell the difference between a sanded in beach and a stripped one (the later better for hunting deeper older finds).

All I can say for sure is the guy I got my detector from gave it up for a machine to get out in the surf to pick up all the rings from hydrated hands. Last I checked he was killing it.

 

[clegy]

I keep Digging until I find the Target, I have chased the smallest bits of crap for the longest time, just to make sure I am not going insane.
Everything says it's there except my eyes. LOL

As for VDI Numbers, Like GoldTarget said, depends on the venue. As trash and treasure are so often very close in Number and Tone
I quite often dig loads of mid/low tones and I have an impressive trash collection. There are some cool relics Low down, so in a relic area I dig everything.

When that treasure comes out of the hole though, I forget about every bit of trash that has been dug before.

Occasionally you get justification for chasing all those dodgy signals and that's why I keep at it.

As for the beach, I dig every signal except the heavy duty iron ones. I once dug up an Anchor at about 2 feet and that was the end of Low tones on the beach for me.

I always watch the sand and as soon as a cutaway appears on the bigger tides I hit it, Loads of pebbles and shell grit on top is also a magnet for me and have found some old crusty rings in amongst the shells and small rocks.
The beach for me is the most frustrating, yet rewarding place to hunt and I hardly ever even look at the numbers, if there is a noise I am digging it up.

Have fun man and get a pinpointer if you haven't got one, once I just put a handful of dirt in my finds pouch as everything said there was something there.
At home found a tiny bit of lead that looked like a tiny rock.

Happy Hunting

 

[grubstake]

The next question is when you think you have hit a target how far will you go to get it? Twice today it was pinging and I dug nearly to china and still couldn't find it.

This quite often means that you didn't correctly pinpoint the target before starting to dig, so it's now in the side of the hole and going deeper won't help matters. A handheld pinpointer can be useful in this situation, to quickly narrow down the target location. Alternatively, you may need to widen your hole, which is OK on the beach, but bad practice in parkland and the like.