The most overlooked asset to detecting is truly understanding the benefits of a target profile. This became even more important to me as I water detected this summer. When you are hunting in water 4 1/2 feet deep and dodging breakers you don't care much for digging three buckets of sand to recover one zinc penny! I then realized that I could forget coins to focus on finding gold rings when the season for gold was producing at its best.
The problem with that was that I hated to miss the watches and silver rings too. I began to spend much more time listening to what my detector was telling me and less just digging. Target profile is the name I use to describe the relative size and shape of the object in the ground that was obtained by holding down the pinpoint button and moving the coil in an X pattern to determine exactly how large the target is and also how it is shaped.
Now let me add that all detectors will react differently but all of them will give some indication of profile. I can tell by the strength of the signal and the size of the profile just about what target that is under my coil. I can tell the difference between a small silver ring and a quarter. I can tell the difference between a watch and a coin. Sure I get fooled. Mostly what fools me now is an old can that sounds as pulltab and has a small profile. How can this confuse me you might ask? Well when it is 3 or 4 foot deep and I think that it is only a foot deep then I have to dig about 2 feet down to realize that the old can fooled me again.
When I started detecting I would get so mad when my detector would signal quarter and I would dig up another tin can. Well in the soil the cans would only be a few inches in the ground but still fool my detector unless I performed a target profile. Many people would just say that they don't have time for that but I don't have time to dig any more tin cans. My wife just hated to take time to do a profile but after a while she saw the necessity for it. I find it a challenge to figure out just exactly what I will dig up and the profile helps a lot to distinguish the small dimes and pennies from quarters and larger coins.
As I said there is a difference between a silver ring and a quarter(the ring shows a larger profile) and when it is an oblong object I move around the edges to get an idea of exactly what the shape is and by taking time to do this I am expanding my knowledge to make the best of my time in the field.
One well known detector gives you an indication of target size but of course it's indication is always round even when the target may be a key or a pen. I hope to be able to tell the difference in the water if the coin is a penny or a larger coin or better target so I can cut almost a half of my time in the water spent digging up junk into much more productive time and much better finds.
