Winter hunters who work salt beaches are much the same everywhere, they sit around the TV or the web and look at the weather all the time and may become a better weather forecaster than some professionals. I monitor the sea buoy offshore, a camera on the beach near me, satellite pictures on the internet, radar on the internet, and local weather on TV. We look for different conditions that will push the water far out exposing the floor of the swimming area for a short while. Might I add that a short while is often a couple of hours perhaps. This means that you have to be there no less than an hour early for this event and you must cover several acres of sand. This is not for those that are out of condition(maybe it is), because in my experience, I work very fast swinging the coil eight feet at a swing very fast. This means that for more than three hours I will only pause momentarily to dig and I am fast at that too. No rest for the weary!

You would rightly wonder why anyone would pursue this kind of metal detecting but then once you do it correctly you will find jewelry and coins that you likely never would see on the dry sand. Our beach is excessively poor this year and there are many seasoned hunters that work the winds and tides and still come up with poor finds but if there is anything there you will certainly find it with this kind of hunt.

I have made mention before about wind direction but perhaps I have not told the whole story. I can speak only for my beach and of course all are somewhat different but all hunters there will find that there is a certain direction and degree on the compass that will drain the beach. It provides a very strong offshore flow which drains all bays and estuaries and pushes the water far offshore. Once you determine exactly which degree this is for your beach then you also know that this wind has to blow at sustained wind speeds which may raise gale warnings along the coast. I have found that under optimal conditions we can reach gusts over 40kph and sustain it for at least a full day and night with somewhat reduced winds the following day and night period. The hunters on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts are far luckier than that because they can reach hurricane wind speeds during certain conditions which will severely cut slices out of the beaches and strip the sand down to expose treasures that may have lain there for hundreds of years!In addition to having the cuts and offshore flow you still need one more thing for the maximum conditions to occur and that is a good minus tide. You need that to move the water even farther back in order to expose all of the area you wish to hunt. A normal tide may raise to a high of 3 feet and drop a foot to two feet but the minus tide will actually be below mean sea level and therefore (-) will precede the number and may reach over a foot below mean sea level. If you do not know which wind direction will drain the water down and provide an offshore flow then either check out the beach under all conditions or talk to some of the older veterans who know. Most pro's will not tell you the real secrets of top beach hunting and let you pickup coins in the sand after the pro's have walked away with all the gold rings. You should value this advice and work on learning the beach until you know it under all conditions.

In the last few days here we have had good conditions which is about the best we can expect. No deep beach cuts like on the Atlantic or Pacific coasts and the old silver and gold is still there waiting for the next time a hurricane blows in but due to El Nino and other changing weather conditions there have not been any good hurricanes here since 1961. When there is you will probably find us on the beach just after the eye passes working the offshore flow.

We hit the beach yesterday before the first signs of day in a moonless night and worked the good pockets before the competition hit the sand. We can hit a beach and strip the pockets and move on so fast that all folks see is holes when they get there and those are quickly filled by the onrush of incoming tide. It was wide open but like I say we had worked it once before under those conditions and picked up some nice jewelry too. It is time for the spring breakers here and they will replenish the sands with silver rings and coins but the water is still too cold for swimming for anyone except the foolhardy of whom there are plenty in that crowd.

The picture represents the meager offering the beach had to make but one day soon the gold will be replenished and we will pick it up again quickly after it is lost. We found three pair of sunglasses, a hotel key at a measured 18 inches, we found one dime over 14 inches deep, a silver spoon, lots of good fishing sinkers, $3.20 in coin, a 1965 JFK half dollar and four nice rings. Not a lot but no one else found anything. I think that I remember that someone said I move too fast but then again we find those deep coins along with the shallow ones. My better half found a penny at 17 + inches measured. We mark the shovels with the depth as we scrape the sand inch by inch on the deep ones.