"The Ring Thing" by Gregg MacAlpine

As a kid I always was fortunate enough to have lived on the lake and spent my time pursuing hunting, fishing, boating and outdoor activities on the lakes and sandy beaches of Michigan.

Fishing was my number one activity and every day after school my best friend and myself would head for the lake to do some fishing. It seemed we would always run into an elderly gentleman from the neighborhood that was always on the beach fishing for perch. This guy was a die-hard and was always out there, patient as ever, waiting for the next bite. We made friends with this old guy and he ended teaching us many things about fishing, and over the years we became very good fishing buddies.

Sometimes the weather and the lake were not conducive for fishing and when we would get off the bus from school we would see our old friend combing the beach with a strange looking gadget in his hand. Typical kids we just had to find out what he was doing with this gadget. He called it a Metal Detector. We followed him around fascinated as he pulled coins, rings and jewelry from the sandy beach. That's all it took for me to become hooked on the idea of finding treasure.

My parents bought me a metal detector for my birthday and I bugged the old guy to take me treasure hunting every chance I got. Each day it was too rough to go fishing I would show up on his doorstep after school with detector in hand and pester him to go metal detecting. Most of the time he humored me and took the time to go to the beach with me and hunt till dusk. I learned most of the basics from him and even though I thought I knew it all, he was constantly teaching me something different. He always had the knack for knowing just where to go on the beach to find the gold rings, wristwatches, coins, etc. He had hundreds of rings, watches, and other jewelry items along with coffee cans of coins he had recovered from the beaches. I was in awe of him. By the way, the old guy could fish like no other human I had ever seen too. He always had a bucket of fish when nobody else was catching any.

I learned a lot from this old guy and as I grew older fishing and metal detecting took a backseat to partying and chasing girls. When I was about 18 the old guy passed away. His wife had a garage sale and sold most of his stuff with the exception of his metal detector, which she gave to me. I used that detector off and on for the next 10 years and thought about my old friend every time I would unearth a nice ring or a special coin. After loosing interest in the hobby for several years I gave the detector to a neighbor kid when I moved and took a job in the city.

Five years later I got the fever again and bought a new top of the line metal detector. The detectors have come along way from the primitive model I started out with, and even the top of the line model my old friend had given me. It was like learning things all over again. The one thing I did seem to retain were the lessons the old guy had given me, on where and how to find treasure. Once I got to learn my new detector I was pulling goodies out of the ground left and right. I found my share of coins old and new, but somehow my interest was always on the things that excited me as a kid, the rings and jewelry! Now in the last couple of years it seems that that is my main pursuit. I have switched detectors many times now in the last five years and now have 4 different detectors. A Whites XLT for coin hunting, a Fisher CZ-20 for water hunting, and a Tesoro Sidewinder and Shadow X2 for jewelry hunting. The Tesoro Sidewinder has been my main machine for jewelry hunting on land in the shallow water. I have just recently purchased the Shadow X2 and have been using it for both jewelry hunting and coinshooting with good results.

1998 was by far my best year ever jewelry hunting. I ended up with 207 rings that season, with 108 of those coming from the land and 99 from the water. So far for 1999 I seem to be on the same pace as I have 41 rings recovered already and almost a dozen gold and silver chains. All of these have come from parks, schools, playgrounds and beaches which seem to be my bread and butter so to speak.

I find that what my old friend told me many years ago still holds true today. To find jewelry you must go to the places where lots of people congregate. He said, where you find lots of coins, you will also find jewelry. And I have found that pretty much to be the case. Outdoor concerts at parks, sunbathers at the beaches, hoards of kids in the playgrounds, and multitudes of people in the parks and make these spots the prime hunting grounds for me. No beach, playground, schoolyard or playground is too small. It seems I find gobs of coins and jewelry at all of these spots. My favorites are the pea gravel playgrounds, the sugar sand beaches and the shredded bark or wood chip parks & playgrounds. You drop a coin or a ring in these mediums and they quickly disappear.

It has also been my experience that some of the poorest or bad areas of towns hold the most goodies. I do not have a death wish, and I hunt these areas only because I take precautions. I wear my police garb and carry a police radio and pepper spray when I hunt these areas. The bad element keeps their distance from me but you should try to work these areas with a friend or a group of people to minimize your risk. Also make sure you carry a cellular phone or some means to summon help should the need arise. If you hunt these sites in the morning hours on overcast and rainy days you can further minimize your risks for any encounters. I suggest you drive by the area many times prior to hunting it to ascertain the risk or people you may encounter at these sites. If it is too risky, do not try it! It's not worth losing your life over.

My land hunting techniques are to hunt slowly and walk off the area in a grid fashion making sure to overlap my swings. I also hunt with zero discrimination or in all metal mode and dig it all when hunting for jewelry. Many times I will hunt the site again in the opposite direction and I am always surprised to find targets I had missed. I always try to hit places like underneath playground equipment, under park benches, under bleachers, soccer fields, baseball diamonds, around tennis courts and basketball courts, fence lines, hiking and bike paths, and other major foot traffic areas.

Lake hunting is another great pleasure for me. With the tool of the internet I have tried to gain as much knowledge from the masters of the water like Norm G. and Bob Rohrlack and have done pretty well harvesting lost jewelry from the lake floors. Being fortunate enough to live in a state where there are hundreds of inland lakes and swimming beaches in addition to the hundreds of miles of Great Lakes coastline, it's impossible to hit all the swimming beaches and lake frontage in a one season. I hit as many as I can and go back to the popular ones that are close weekly.

My water hunting techniques are to also hunt the lake in a grid fashion perpendicular to the beach using the lake depth as your guide. Again, it is imperative to hunt slowly and to overlap your swings so not to miss anything. This is especially important for water hunting because if you miss a target by an inch it might as well have been a mile. I use Norms and Bob's method of hunting in all metal mode and switching to discriminate to identify a target but I end up digging everything anyway just to make sure I'm not leaving anything good behind. Recovering items in the water is an art in itself and will take some practice. Make sure you have a long handled scoop with a mesh insert like Norm advocates and you will be sure to snag those small earrings and things that will fall through the dime sized holes of your scoop otherwise and drive you crazy.

I have found that most of the good jewelry finds are in less than waist deep water, so you do not have to have a waterproof detector to do some shallow water hunting. Also do not forget about boat launch areas. You would be surprised at how many items I find that people loose while launching their boats.

Well, that’s it! That’s all my secrets and tips for finding rings and jewelry. However, the biggest secret of finding these items is persistence, patience and practice.

Sandman