Big Boys Hobbies

Some Central CA beach action

Tom_in_CA

Tom_in_CA

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Joined
Dec 23, 2013
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We FINALLY got some swells to line up with the tides, earlier this week. Even then it was hit & miss to find out where mother nature was eroding.

Got onto a pocket at a certain beach on the northern end of Monterey Bay. So I put the word out to a few buddies, who came down and met me there. We were each getting some coins and targets out on the wet, and were "pushing the boundaries" trying to determine the spread and direction of the pocket.

I noticed that the more I worked up towards a certain point beneath a cliff frontage, that the target concentration was getting more and more thick. We eventually found ourselves in a zone, about ~ 10 yards square around, that was super thick. So thick that as soon as you dug 1 coin, there was another on the side of the hole, and another underneath it, etc.... Sometimes 2 coins per basket, etc.... And sometimes even eyeballing them on top of the ground !

My take from this zone was nearly 100 coins, all clad (and another 40 or 50 coins from other zones on the beach, for a total coin count this day of 147). So I'm guessing that the coin total of all 3 of us, from this little honey hole, was easily 200+ Even though it was all clad, it was a rush just to hear machine gun fire beeps, haha

All I had was some junk jewelry. But my buddy "Mike" got the prize this day: 25 grams of 18k : A rope gold necklace. He has allowed permission for me to post pix. Maybe he'll hop on to claim-his-fame :)

It was a very difficult signal on my Explorer II . Coming through as nearly iron, at best. As most discriminators have trouble with chains, of course. But his Nox was able to get a hint of conductive on it, since the Nox can be set up to be hotter on low conductors. Quite humbling to admit that I probably wouldn't have dug it !! :mad: But it was fun to see the "hole in one" moment :) If my calculations are correct, that's over $1k in scrap melt gold alone, eh ?

Our other friend Sam also got gold: A ladies birthstone ring of some sort. Maybe he'll chime in with a pix of that.

1st pix is my coin pile and junk jewelry. Next pix is Mike's chain. Way to go Mike !
 

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I was about to PM you on your hunt. Your friends really scored. And so did you -gold. Targets up high , just like down here. When I get into a clad fest , I DIG EVERYTHING knowing there is jewelry/gold nearby. Once I clean the obvious easy signals out , I then go very slow listening to the faints. You seem to be really hung up on that explorer. Maybe it's time to switch to something else. The writing should be on the wall for you. Don't be scared ! Anyway , great hunt for you guys with all those targets...
 
Tom, Thanks for posting this and sharing the excitement! Hope we get some great action like this on the Southern end of our home range!
 
Hi all! I’m the lucky dog. Thank you Tom and Sam!

Tom was kind enough to invite me to where he was hunting and I swooped in on his chain! Kinda rude of me, but I wasn’t gonna put it back!

The first day I did not find any real patches, but I ran into another forum member who had their own patch going, but I moved on to not crowd them (I did spiral out a bit after walking upon a quarter just past him and got a penny, but then moved on, to not be rude). I did not do too well that day, but it was great experience to get out and test the theories I had learned.

The second day I got into a patch right away and never left that spot digging all 86 coins in the one area.

The third day...
We had all been exchanging what we were seeing in our hunting and on the third day Tom invited us to join him at his spot. I kept trying to stay away from his patch and wandering off scouting, but he kept saying to have at it, and that he couldn’t dig them all, and he just wanted to see them out of the ground, etc, so I hunted in his patch some, scouted some, then I was spending a decent amount of time between the main large patch and the water hunting in a bunch of iron and lead hoping for gold as it would be my first...
...Tom comes down and tells me get up here and hunt this little patch, there are multiple coins in every hole! I said alright, but being the new guy I still felt like, don't crowd the guy, so I hung back and Tom says, really, I just want you to hear them all, get up here! So i headed up into the small patch. There are now three of us working and he wasn’t joking. Multi coin holes. Tom moves away to let us have at it and there, not more that six inches deep in dry sand, the 18k chain. I did not know what to do, but I remembered being told early on, don't stop hunting because you found something good... So i took a quick pic and video and showed it to the other hunters to check out/listen to and stood there in shock for a few minutes, then got back to work! I couldn't sleep that night. It was a beautiful hunt and event.
Three gorgeous days of hunting and big gold on the third day? Did I mention these were my first three days of shore hunting? I’ve read and learned a lot, but hadn’t applied it until this erosion event.

I owe a huge thanks to Tom for the invite and the sharing of his spot. He was more than excited to have others digging in his shore spot and I would not have found that chain if he hadn’t pushed me into that patch.

All the best to everyone out there :)

-Mike
 
Great story and haul. Noithing wrong with lots of clad. And by the way, we have erosion here on the east coast but we call it plowing

Steve
 
Mike (CA) said:
Hi all! I’m the lucky dog. Thank you Tom and Sam!

Tom was kind enough to invite me to where he was hunting and I swooped in on his chain! Kinda rude of me, but I wasn’t gonna put it back!

The first day I did not find any real patches, but I ran into another forum member who had their own patch going, but I moved on to not crowd them (I did spiral out a bit after walking upon a quarter just past him and got a penny, but then moved on, to not be rude). I did not do too well that day, but it was great experience to get out and test the theories I had learned.

The second day I got into a patch right away and never left that spot digging all 86 coins in the one area.

The third day...
We had all been exchanging what we were seeing in our hunting and on the third day Tom invited us to join him at his spot. I kept trying to stay away from his patch and wandering off scouting, but he kept saying to have at it, and that he couldn’t dig them all, and he just wanted to see them out of the ground, etc, so I hunted in his patch some, scouted some, then I was spending a decent amount of time between the main large patch and the water hunting in a bunch of iron and lead hoping for gold as it would be my first...
...Tom comes down and tells me get up here and hunt this little patch, there are multiple coins in every hole! I said alright, but being the new guy I still felt like, don't crowd the guy, so I hung back and Tom says, really, I just want you to hear them all, get up here! So i headed up into the small patch. There are now three of us working and he wasn’t joking. Multi coin holes. Tom moves away to let us have at it and there, not more that six inches deep in dry sand, the 18k chain. I did not know what to do, but I remembered being told early on, don't stop hunting because you found something good... So i took a quick pic and video and showed it to the other hunters to check out/listen to and stood there in shock for a few minutes, then got back to work! I couldn't sleep that night. It was a beautiful hunt and event.
Three gorgeous days of hunting and big gold on the third day? Did I mention these were my first three days of shore hunting? I’ve read and learned a lot, but hadn’t applied it until this erosion event.

I owe a huge thanks to Tom for the invite and the sharing of his spot. He was more than excited to have others digging in his shore spot and I would not have found that chain if he hadn’t pushed me into that patch.

All the best to everyone out there :)

-Mike
Click to expand...
Great story. I would have been like Tom as well. We've found our share over the years. I get more excited seeing a friend find gold than myself. And him calling you in....you could thank him now by cutting that chain in half...🤣
 
Great story and good on you Tom for sharing your "claim". Did I read that right- Mike's first gold ever? If so, that's got to be one of the best 1st gold finds ever! :wow:
 
KOB said:
....you could thank him now by cutting that chain in half...🤣
Click to expand...

I did almost add to the story him nipping off 30% right there on the beach with cutters :)

In truth, the first thing he said was, ok, you’re done, get out of the patch!!, Hahaha. Then I owed him my next gold ring. I told him it would be my first and he could have it. Then he said steak and lobster dinner for the wife and himself. then it changed to both of you come over and we all have dinner. Pretty rad.

I guess the true story is better, but I should have went with the, let me see that...and out come the cutters, snip! 30%! Done!
 
I was out again tonight at a different Beach. Got 50 coins and a silver charm. I am noticing that a new coil I put on my machine a week ago, is apparently not very hot on low conductors. I'm going to have to do some experimenting. There is sometimes subtle nuances between coils.

[Yeah yeah sour grapes :laughing:)
 
Compass said:
Great story and good on you Tom for sharing your "claim". Did I read that right- Mike's first gold ever? If so, that's got to be one of the best 1st gold finds ever! :wow:
Click to expand...

It really was awesome of Tom to invite other in on his patch. When I arrived, he had eight or so targets circled in the patch for me to test on to be sure I could hear good targets. They were all screamer high clad and silver numbers, and they blew my ears off, but the fact that he thought to make sure the new guy didn’t need any assistance shows you what kind of invite it is. He’s making sure others are having a good time, or have the ability to be successful rather. That made me smile.

And, yes, you read right! This was my first gold ever. I got one tiny tiny little plated religious pendant once, but this is the first real deal. I’m potentially ruined for shore hunting now :shock: :lol:

And congrats to Sam, He went back the next night and he found some gold too!
 
Mike (CA) said:
.... not more that six inches deep in dry sand, the 18k chain.....
Click to expand...

Technically, that was wet sand, not dry sand. It might have been "dry" at that moment, since it was at low tide time of day. But it was below that morning's high-tide mark, thus the inter-tidal "wet-sand" zone.

So when people say "wet sand", they don't necessarily mean that it's "wet" at that given moment. They just mean the inter-tidal zone. And as you recall, mother nature had gone all the way up to the cliffs during that morning's surf/swell event. I guess it made for a gravity pocket where all the heavy targets got swirled around, and left there.
 
Good point. It felt odd writing dry, as I know it had been the wet... I should have said damp, yet quite fluffy 👌

Thank you for the distinction though Tom. N00bs and their inaccurate language usage...
 
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