Put yourself in their place

[james45]

Nothing scares people worst then to see someone carrying a long shovel.Carrying a hand spade is the better tool to use.I guess it all depends on the location and the owners.

 

[hoser]

I agree. Nothing would give the detecting hobby a black mark like someone using a full-size shovel. In the woods is one thing, at a park is not good at all.

 

[MasonDixonMding]

I’m not a park hunter but I would agree. I have hunted a park a few times. I would us a folding surplus shovel. I could cut a nice plug and make a job. I was there once and saw someone had been there detecting there also. But it looked like they used a screw driver to dig the holes. They didn’t fill any of them in and left the trash. There holes went across the baseball field. I fill the ones I saw so if someone saw me there they didn’t think it was me.

 

[cellrdwellr]

Never had anyone mention anything about the length of my shovel, but I guess it could happen. Not many people out in the middle of the woods thankfully

 

[seagullplayer]

They don't see a guy with a small shovel in the back yard, they see a guy with a backhoe!

Same goes for every public park I have been in...

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Well sure : A man detecting in a park carries connotations . EVEN WHEN YOU DON'T HAVE A DIGGER TOOL IN VIEW. And even if you never stopped to get a target. Just simply the connotation of a "man with a metal detector".

Which is exactly why I do not hunt , in nice manicured turf, when lookie-lou passerbys are around. If that means hunting nice manicured turfed parks at 1am, then ...... so be it.

Like nose-picking : Not illegal, nor do you "need permission". Yet you opt for discreet timing so as not to offend the squemish . RIGHT ? Some people might call that "sneaking around". Ok, fine then : SNEAK AROUND. You're simply not going to please every last person on earth.

 

[IDXMonster]

OK….(conjuring….working….conjuring….) TA-DA! I’m now in their place, which is…anywhere but where I am. Cuz, you know….this is MY place. Now that I’m in their place…or my place, actually, but in their place but still being me….or something….I’m observing. Looking around….processing….working….and oddly enough I do not give one pinch what other people are doing. Ahhhhhh….now I can get back to being me….in my place! Unless someone is running full speed directly at me with an Uzi shouting “aktar abba dabba allah yahtzee!!!” I DO NOT CARE what other people are doing. The people that continuously believe that they are constantly being “observed” or “watched closely” or “obvious fodder for a severe busting”….you’re not. For two years I used a hand trowel. When I got my Explorer I went to a shovel designed and built specifically for metal detecting. In the subsequent 10 years I have been approached by people here and there, mostly passersby. Not ONCE, at ALL, EVER have I received any kind of comment regarding my shovel. Know why? 99.999% of people just DO NOT CARE. This subject keeps coming up, out of the blue, time after time, for some reason. I’ve literally hunted a couple hundred different public and well travelled locations. Schools, parks, ball fields, fair grounds….No. Body. Cares.
When a person starts hunting ultra deep coins and that’s ALL they hunt, a trowel of any kind is just a tool that is going to make a serious mess in a lot of cases, a proper purpose built metal detecting-specific shovel can do SO much better with way less damage. I’m going to do what I know from experience to be right, not what the “optics” say I should or shouldn’t do.

 

[GroundSweeper]