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The secrets of finding the deep ones(Chapter II)

The technique that I have been using to extend the depth on my detector has been performing beyond my expectations and I have been finding many deep coins along with a thin gold band at 12 inches or greater. This technique will work anywhere but the mineralization will limit your performance. With this technique you can go back to those old sites that you thought were worked out and the great old parks that contain the really good old coins and you can out perform anyone else who is discriminating iron.

I have refined some of the parameters of this kind of hunting as they are confusing sometime to veteran hunters but they have proved to me that they seem to be acting in a stable, repeatable manner and you can learn this and move up to the veteran hunter category and have great finds to show for it.

When you first swing your coil over an iron target that includes a coin ID "spike" you are certain to be confused because if you dig them they are not where you dig and if you find the object it is iron and not a coin.
I use the term "spike" to refer to the signal that occurs as you sweep across the iron from either side and the spike you receive as you lift your coil. Anomalies to this effect may be that the object is shaped irregular. Over the iron you will generally get an iron tone which is repeatable but new hunters are confused by the coin signal that seems to shift around the object as they move their coil differently. Take a very good look at the picture and see that the brown is the area around the object that indicates iron and the gray area is the "spike" effect that has been the reason for frustration by beginners.

The MOST IMPORTANT thing to remember that you are looking for extremely deep or small objects so press the pinpoint button and perform a target profile to assure yourself that the signal from the object is very faint and perhaps barely discernable on your depth or pinpoint reading. Strong signals are not deep signals unless of course you have found a car buried ten foot deep or so. You hope to find a deep old coin or gold ring then it must show as deep and a weak signal. Beware! there is a tricky exemption from this rule and that is when you come across a small shallow iron oxide deposit that shows up as a deep iron signal when in fact it may be only an inch or two deep and once you dig them you can't find them anymore because the deposit is broken up.

Remember from Chapter one that you are looking for that deep, small, iron signal that will give you another id after you move the coil across it 8 to 10 times. Now you know for sure how to tell a real iron object from a gold ring. You MUST move the coil very close to the soil and flat repeating the movement many times and I often walk around the object testing it to assure myself that I am not passing up a diamond ring. You know from Chapter one that you use NO discrimination and max out your detector as best as you can.

Any detector may use this to some measure but I find the ones that can find deep iron may work the best and of course you will need a pinpoint mode and perhaps a depth indication not to mention a coin identification whether it is tone or meter. You may use some of this to help you even if you are using a beginner detector.

I have found that hunting in autotune will give you another bit of information about iron signals and sometimes you can find a small iron tone with the ID on but when you switch to autotune you notice it null out as you move across it or you notice it make a waver like there were two objects close together. Avoid digging these kinds of signals. The one you are looking for will indicate a slight positive whoop as you move across in autotune or pinpoint but remember you are looking at very deep objects and any signal that is fairly strong or too wide is not generally worth digging. When I water hunt I sometimes dig the wider signals because they may be deep watches or large rings but not very often. Lastly I want to say that I use this when there are not too many iron signals like a truckload of nails scattered around. Use good sense and only look for these signals in a very good hunting area that you have found very good deep finds and you will find that you can now achieve better and older finds.

Today I was searching deep and came across a small, faint, and very deep object that indicated iron and an a pulltab signal. I dug over 14 inches deep very carefully scraping away layer after layer to discover a pulltab. You might get a laugh over that but I'll bet if that pulltab signal turned out to be a diamond ring you wouldn't!