• Forum server maintanace Friday night.(around 7PM Centeral time)
    Website will be off line for a short while.

    You may need to log out, log back in after we're back online.

Farm Hunting

No advice from me but I hope you get some advice I can use. I've been hunting a farm that's been in continuous operation since 1932. Be prepared for lots of iron, tractor and farm implement parts, mule rig parts and the ever present shot gun hulls. I have 3 wheats to show for 15 + hours of searching and I loved every minute of it.

Cheers,
Ken
 
No advice from me but I hope you get some advice I can use. I've been hunting a farm that's been in continuous operation since 1932. Be prepared for lots of iron, tractor and farm implement parts, mule rig parts and the ever present shot gun hulls. I have 3 wheats to show for 15 + hours of searching and I loved every minute of it.

Cheers,
Ken

Thanks Ken! I expected that for sure. I'm running an AT Max and was curious about which mode to run, discrimination of any kind, any hints etc. I'm usually just an urban gold miner-parks, schools...not very experienced in older relic hunting. I have an opportunity to sweep a lot of nicer, non field land.
 
There is going to be a burn pile area. You will know it when you find it. I have wasted so much time picking through old burn piles and have found it to a waste of time. Farms are filled with so much junk its crazy. If you find an area were the junk signals fade out a little you may have found the orchard area or the clothesline area. I have found nice old coins there. Good luck
 
Ain't that the truth. No garbage pickup back in the day. Everything that couldn't be feed to an animal went to the burn pile or used to fill up a hole.

There is going to be a burn pile area. You will know it when you find it. I have wasted so much time picking through old burn piles and have found it to a waste of time. Farms are filled with so much junk its crazy.
 
If you're hunting around an old farm house bring a small coil and lots of patience. Don't dig one way, broken or clipped signals at first - only solid repeatable signals. If the old house is still standing you may find some silver & copper in the yard, if it's been demolished then you'll be working really hard for every find...

I've made some really cool finds at old farms over the years and I've also spent hundreds of hours detecting and finding nothing but trash.
 
I live in an old farmhouse and have been poking around it for years now. My best advice is to change your definition of treasure from things like gold pocket watches and rare coins to horse shoes and random interesting but junk type items. That way, you will avoid disappointment and disillusion :laughing:

For coins, I've had good luck on natural pathways from the doors to places like the outhouse, barn, and driveway. This doesn't necessarily mean sidewalks or walkways, but the shortcuts from A to B. I've found old coins out in my horse pasture which was covered with dirt from a pond dig-out. The pond's about 60 feet from the front of the house and the coins were beyond that. Go figure :?:

Tractor parts are plentiful around sheds, but I've found horse tack there, some old tools too, and a mid 20th Century pocket spill. It takes patience there and I don't get my hopes up but it can be fun in a sick sad way.

Good luck, happy hunting.
 
I've been metal detecting for about 3 years, with the last two the most intense, but this isn't that long as experience goes compared to the good folks on this forum, so take this for whatever its worth.
I seem to hunt junky areas a fair amount and also use the Garrett AT Max and a Garrett AT Propointer. In my current location, I do much of my hunting in Zero Mode with Iron Discrimination @ 38. I generally run without Iron Audio and everything notched out below 40 in Zero Mode. Owing to corrosion, I'm not going to find very much in the way of interesting iron here in Charleston, unless its a cannonball. Besides rust, I find coins, tokens, jewelry, brass garden doodads, aluminum gutter snippings and bottle caps and firearm cartridges. I'm hoping to find more silver coins as I widen my search area. I'm keying on the high end ID numbers and tones and digging a lot of 6" plus pinpointer indicated depths, some to 1'. I celebrate when I get a worthwhile target with a 2" depth signal. I do occasionally get some interesting signals that are at the effective depth limit of the AT Max in All Metal mode. I've got to excavate a patch of ground hitting 90s very weakly, but regularly with little Iron Audio growl (at that depth I have to reach for the deepest signal resolution I can get). The dark soil is about 1' thick with blondish semiconsolidated, friable sand below. Most rusty stuff seems to be scattered throughout the dark soil interval. The ground balance numbers are high 80s to low 90s, so the soil is pretty mineralized. There are actually frequent gravel sized black rocks in the dark soil that generate a metal tone on the AT Max (magnetite?). This is probably way more than you want to know.
I get out to Colorado reasonably frequently and lived in the Rockies for many years before retiring to warmer climates. Your iron objects last a lot longer out there than they do here, so close to the sea and with regular brackish flooding. The Rocky Mountains present lots of MD opportunities if you are able to hit the boonies. Charleston is delightful, also, and rich in history. I does get hot and humid and summer digging is best in the shade with a icy pitcher of lemonade nearby. I hope this helps.
 
The first 20' in front of the farmhouse is where you will find 80% of the coins and small relics. The other 20% scattered but mostly in the old driveway area. Around the barns and sheds mostly horse tack. Unfortunately on mos farms a lot of regrading around the farmhouse was done in the 50's - 60's after most farmers got a front loader for they're farm tractor and decided to have at it with that. IMO farmhouses are boom or bust. If the original front porch is still there that's a good sign the front yard may not have been regarded in the past. Front porches rebuilt with concrete are usually bad news as they regarded or filled around the new porch after concrete was poured. With all this said I still think all old farmhouse are worth a shot no matter what. Your first hour there will till you if site has been filled/regarded or prevously hunted.
 
Or the other outbuildings - and the path from the house to any of them.

I found my first nice coin (a Walking Liberty half!) In between our detecting site and a former house site. My buddy was focusing on the iron-filled sure if the old mil land I branches our into the fallow field, and then Ding ding! - the poorest sound I've ever heard from my AT Pro!

k2gleaner
 
Back
Top Bottom