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Permission to hunt this...

n0madic

Junior Member
Joined
Feb 15, 2015
Messages
35
Went out scouting today. Tried to get permission to two awesome places, one built in 1870. One place the owner wasn't home, the other said no. On my way home I stopped at a third location I've been eyeing for awhile and the owner was extremely nice. He gave me permission to the yard but said he and a buddy had hunted it before and found a ton of old silver. Kinda bummed, he quickly pointed me to another house, even older, and to his knowledge it has never been hunted. I spent about 2.5 hours hunting. I found several old car parts and one really nice ax head that was a foot deep next to a rock wall.

One thing I noticed that happened several times with my F2 was that I'd get a dime or quarter signal, repeatable, deep, and when I'd start digging I'd run into tree roots. On several of them I dug pretty thoroughly and found nothing. I was using the 8" coil and didn't try the 4" at all. Also noticed that several old cans showed up as dime or quarters.

After an hour of digging junk I discriminated out everything but dime and quarter. I found no coins at all. Granted I only had a small amount of time to hunt and wasn't really doing,any sort of grid, I really expected to find some silver. Anyway just wondering if I need more time on the F2 and more locations, or if a better machine would be more beneficial.

Any thoughts would be appreciated. I'll attempt to attach a pic of the house.

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Looks like a pretty sweet spot. I don't know what to say about the detector issue. I just use an Ace 250 and it works pretty good for me. I've been thinking about the AT Pro. Seems like a lot of people have good luck with that. Either way, I would definitely be hunting that place again!
 
Nice spot to hunt!

It sounds like you haven't used the F2 a whole lot unless I misunderstand you, so this area is a fantastic training ground for you to get used to what it's telling you. I don't think there's a thing at all wrong with your machine, and the more you use it, the more you'll understand it. I really am just getting to the point where I kind of know what I might have under the coil about half the time, and I've had my machine now for 15 months and hunt every chance I get.

With the F2 I usually run either all metal or, if there's too much iron, just disc out iron for a first going-over in a new spot. Beer cans, potted meat cans, etc, usually do ring in the dime range and bigger cans and other big metal can ring at dimes, quarters, and high numbers. Other things that will hit in the dime range are small tins, small nuts & bolts, and other fairly solid but small metal items. Some hotwheel type cars will ring from dime to quarter depending on the style. (Probably not many of those at the site you're working tho...)

Only after I clear out the junk do I start to disc out other metals. Once it's nice and clean you can run full disc to see if you missed any goodies, but you can miss a lot by taking out the other metals too soon. And while you're learning it's a great opportunity to watch those numbers and listen to the tones. Try to remember what each item you dig sounds like, what the numbers are, etc. It will help you down the road when you start putting it all together.

Here's one of the things that cues me in that I have a coin under the coil, or small round item, ring, button.. when I go over the spot slowly I'll get a double tone very often. It's kind of a bing bing sound instead of just a single bing. Not every time on every coin, but often enough that anything that does that little double bing gets dug.

Also, if it's a coin or other small item, the area the machine tones over will be small. If it's a big can or other big target, you'll get a larger area for the tone proportionally. If you use the pinpoint function over a large item it will kind of give you an idea how large it is by where the signal begins and ends as you go over the target, and the same for a small target.

Those dime signals you're getting under tree roots may be well worth taking the time to carefully excavate. A lot of times things get grown over by roots of trees and can be trapped beneath them. Sometimes it's worth the work to dig them up and other times it's just another darned tin can but you can't tell until you dig it. If you dug real deep and are still getting the signal, it may be some big chunk of metal way down there. I've had that happen quite a bit.

I would also take out the 4" coil and work that place over with it. They are great for learning the machine because you can't help but center up on your target with the little thing, and you can get between trash with it like you would not believe. I've found my best stuff, my recent Morgan dollar included, with that little sniper coil! You cover less ground per hour spent detecting than with the 8", but you also can zone in on certain areas and really pick them clean.

If it's a place you can return to often, start by digging the trashy stuff out of the way and go real slow. You can find some great stuff while clearing trash. If you keep after it you'll find the good stuff as you go, it takes patience.

It may help you also to read Digger27's F2 posts, he's written an encyclopaedia on the F2 here on the forum, and his observations and descriptions have helped me immensely. He's kind of an F2 guru or something and really knows that machine.

Good luck on that site, something tells me it has some great surprises waiting for you to find them.
 
Thanks BBsGal! I really appreciate the lengthy, well written reply! You are correct, I haven't been out much with the F2. I purchased it last month and have only hunted it a handful of times. I'm going to bury a few coins and do some testing. I'll also check out Digger27's info too. Thanks again!
 
Thanks BBsGal! I really appreciate the lengthy, well written reply! You are correct, I haven't been out much with the F2. I purchased it last month and have only hunted it a handful of times. I'm going to bury a few coins and do some testing. I'll also check out Digger27's info too. Thanks again!

You are more than welcome. Keep us posted on how it goes and your finds!
 
Just nice to see a piece of land with no snow. Thanks

Sorry man...........had the AC on and cut the grass a couple times already. I've given up that cold stuff and never plan on going back. I am envious at times since most the history is North and considerably less MD'ers as well.

GL & HH
 
Wow, looks like a great place to hunt and should be something there regardless if it's been hunted before or not. As mentioned by BBsGal hunt those tree roots more, try to uncover those signals. Larger trees have been a good spot for me and others, however, can make for tough digging but could also be worth the effort as some will just move on and not dig those type of targets. You just never know. Search the perimeter of the house, entrance ways (front/back) and along the fence lines, rock walls, etc. and if time permits grid the entire property. It just looks to good to pass up. Best of luck and keep us posted.
 
PS. do check out Digger27's posts, a lot of good information there as well as using the search tool above. Again, best of luck!
 
You do know nothing is hunted out...EVER. I have gone over old spots that detectorists have given up on and I always leave with gold or silver. I would pound that spot and dig all tones. Most guys do not dig nickel signals and a spill with a nickel in it will not read correctly on the f2. Go to historical aerials site and look for areas of activity. Most guys will not look in tree lines or hard to get to areas. Good Luck.
 
Thanks for the information everyone, really appreciate it! Thanks sgtwilks, I was actually thinking that as I left the place. I'm going to try to get back there in the next couple days and hunt that yard. Like you said I'm sure they missed something!
 
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