The beach is very rarely in shape to hunt, but when is, there are only a few minutes to work it before either the wind rises or the tide changes and it is gone. I wait for long months sometimes while high waves and tides roll on the beach. I wait and hope that tomorrow something may change. Every morning I look out the beach camera to view the sea and I have become pretty good at evaluating the wave height offshore and can see small changes in the currents and tides.

Last week the old lady of the sea smiled on me and it all came together. Well, at least I did not sleep through it! I was there and not only myself and my wife but others had also figured out that it might be good. So much for me sharing all my knowledge... Nevertheless the tide began to withdraw and the sea to roll back. At first there were great surges of sea that came rolling over the beach and back again before the old lady tired of that game and the sand became exposed. We worked it quickly and with patterns once we discerned that there were good targets to be found. It is important not to miss one square foot of good hunting ground when it is like this. There is no time to rest or even slow down and I know that I would have filled the back of a pickup truck with all the sand that I dug out!

Out came coins, keys, sunglasses, chains, silver rings, and sure enough gold rings. What fun!! We had a good run for a little while before it was cleaned out and the hunting was over again. We hunted the shallow water and wet sand but with the nature of the low tide you need to know that an hour or two may be more than you will have before it is gone.

I have often reminded myself that I sometimes work like the sandpiper. He runs in and out with each wave to grasp a goodie and he is always on the move. That is the key! You cannot fiddle around with your target, you cannot fiddle around with your detector, no time to change batteries, no time to sit down to cool off, NO TIME!

Success relates to speed, and you better be there early, have new batteries, you better be ready to move fast, and you better bring a shovel and have a strong back. There is only minutes to grasp the treasures when the old lady smiles in only a bit the smile will fade and the tide rolls back over the treasures and they sink deeper in the sand as more sand is deposited daily.

There is one more little secret that I will tell in this article. That is when to hunt the water and the deeper cuts. If I decide when to hunt in the deeper water I generally want to do it on a nice day, sun shine, and calm waters. I am a short guy and the big heavy surf is a dangerous place sometimes. Last year over a dozen people lost their life in the surf and they too often take it for granted and that is a tragic mistake.

The secret has to do with the underwater troughs, or cuts that lie in between the sandbars. When the water is clear and the sea is calm you will find almost nothing there! Only fresh drop (if any) and all the accumulated jewelry is perhaps several feet deep under your feet. I had often wondered why I never found anything out there like that. The secret is that the color of the water must be brown with sand to have removed much of the sand in the cuts and not clear and pretty!

There is a obvious danger to hunting when there is heavy rolling surf, large waves, and bad currents and many have lost their lives in that kind of water but that is when you may find the cut laden with golden treasures.

I find that I can just about manage in knee deep water as long as I don't walk into a rip tide. The breakers often toss water over my head but that is the cost of finding treasure in the surf. The current that runs along the beach sometimes is so strong that you cannot swing the coil along the bottom! I have found that when it pulls my scoop straight out from me in the direction of the current that I must leave the water or loose my footing in the terrible current. It is hard to hunt like that but it removes the deep sand like a vacuum cleaner and exposes loads of treasure!

You may hunt the low tides or the rough seas but it is all fun and you have to be good to find your share. No still water hunter can understand what surf hunters have to go through to find our gold. It is a challenge, but it is exhilarating and rewarding and it brings a satisfaction to have the right stuff to play the game.

The pictures in this article of finds were found in only the last few days this month. They were found by running the sand and quickly reaping the harvest that the sea provides. There is much information in these articles to help you learn to run the sand too. Treasure quickly appears and disappears in only minutes not matter how strange that sounds. Yesterday supper was cooking in the kitchen and the TV showed a picture of my beach, well, in only a minute we turned off the supper and in 35 minutes we were on the beach and moving quickly to find over $400 in jewelry. Supper was at 11:30pm but we didn't care....