Back to the park I talked about in the previous post for a short hunt...
Can you say ridiculously target rich?
Old park from the early 1900's, abandoned by most hunters since they culled the easy silver from it probably in the 60's to 70's but they did that at all the parks around here and I know better...there probably are still great old coins here, jewelry too, just not easy to find.
Over 100 years of trash doesn't make it any easier, either, but who doesn't love a challenge?
It's a process, I will have to come here a lot and get tons of signals and targets out of the way, lots of trash included, before the stellar stuff starts showing up but I got the time and this park is only like three miles from my house so I'm all in on this one.
This tiny park also has a tot lot built in the 90's and that's loaded too plus all it has is dirt, been a few years since I came across one that didn't have that rubber padding so I am having fun in there, also.
As a matter of fact I did something yesterday I haven't done in years, I crawled under a big structure and just used my carrot to comb the surface and came up with like many more cents, both copper and zinc, a few nickels and that tiny leaf pin you see sitting on that button in the pic below.
The goal in this tot lot is jewelry so nice to have found some even though it's just cheap junk.
I tested it at home with the F5 and Sharpshooter coil and I was happy to see in my house with Wi-Fi and the gain turned down to 40 and the thresh at like -4 it still picked up the pin hovering over it at about 6" .
It was 05, iron, but the F5 can notice micro jewelry easily and that is a great thing to see.
Another thing I found was that knife, Bama of course because that's where I am, falling apart, missing the blade and not really deep also found in that tot lot.
Could have been there since before they installed the play structures, in the 80's this park had a bad rap because of the hookers and druggie types that took over this park for almost 10 years before the city cleaned it up.
A big overload signal, I dug it just to get it out of the way thinking it was some piece of useless metal junk but I love finding knives of any kind in any shape so a nice surprise.
Otherwise, I am doing my job, getting signals and digging a lot but honestly there are so many here, especially zinc, I am leaving more of those in the dirt than I am digging...for now.
Except for a few in the high 40's to lower 50's because 5 10k class rings I found came in there so I always dig those no matter what.
After awhile I almost considered avoiding some of the higher number coins, quarters are usually a normal 80 or so but dimes and copper cents come in anywhere from the low 70's up to 90 depending on the area and depth, my mineralized dirt just does that, and I love finding dimes but so many of these signals are copper cents which I would rather not spend the energy on digging right now but they have to be dug eventually to get a shot at noticing the better older coins and who knows...one of them might be an early surprise silver dime or silver ring.
I said I almost considered avoiding all these signals but in reality I never will, I am just programmed to dig high tone and high numbered smaller targets after over 10 years in this hobby.
If I actually stopped digging even one the what if's would bother me to no end, I stopped letting them do that to me a long time ago at most sites I hunt trying to avoid trash but in an old site like this they would return with a vengeance in a high tone coin signal and as I said they need to be removed eventually over time so one by one they will get dug.
This is like work, still fun but I have my eye on the prize and believe there will be a very bright light at the end of the tunnel if I persevere and do my job.
I have lots of patience, if any site needs lots of that this one does and despite all the trash and extra expended energy digging newer copper cents and some junk I still have much joy spending my time here.
As usual the F5 was excellent, quiet and stable with my Silver Slayer Settings using maxed out disc and only nickels and zinc notched back in and pegged out gain and thresh and still pretty great when at times I switched back to normal lower disc, gain and thresh settings and everything in just for a change looking for a some other decent signals in the other areas.
Sometimes ya just gotta change things up from time to time to keep from being bored.
On my last hunt here I found no nickels, unusual for me because I have always found a ton of them since I entered this hobby.
This time I found some in the tot lot with my carrot but I found a few more with the F5...When I slowed my swing way down.
I have been cautioned that the F5 letters a bit slower swing and especially so if I use high disc which I have been doing...a lot.
Not super easy for me to remember to do this all the time because I am a naturally fast swinger and all of the detectors I have used have had reputations for being blazing fast and that has been true for every one but if I remember to concentrate on just small areas it seems that slower speed does work better.
Lots of the targets I have found were masked with very short and quick signals, just my dirt again, but slowing down definitely me notice them better.
I will get it, I can change and learn to do anything over time if it is to my advantage to do so.
Hunt two down out of many more to come...targets galore and it is not slowing down as of yet so looking forward to the future, for sure.
Your high-level grasp of metal detector operation, best hunting areas and conditions, plus the 3 P's necessary: (
and hunt.
