Why do some folks have the type of success that you would love to have? What is it that makes the difference? How important are the different sites we hunt in? These are the kinds of questions we all ask of ourselves when we think about improving our finds. I think about fishing when I hear those questions and it reminds me about reading the fishing reports in the newspapers where someone caught a boat load of fish at such and such place. Well, I can tell you that it never did me any good because detectorists like fishermen hardly ever tell exactly how or when they find the stuff and it was always there yesterday at a certain time and when that moment was past you could forget it. Treasure hunting is about the same and seems to me to happen at certain times and places where you could never find anything before or after, like the gold coin I found at the beach, one day it was there in the spot that thousands of hunters have covered for 30 years but who can tell when to go or how to hunt or where to hunt?
There are some things that seem to occur when we do find things though. First of all we "must" go expecting to find something and not just try logic because all of my logical hunts turned out like my logical stock market picks (a waste of time and money). Think about the fisherman again, how someone who really loves and lives to fish will take his tackle box and clean it all out and stack just everything in place and clean his equipment and build his expectation up to the boiling point. That is very different than dragging the old beeper out of the closet that hasn't been cleaned from the last several trips and the batteries are low only to make a trip to some old worked out park only when it is convenient and to piddle around a little to pick up some pennies. Has it become more important to spend thousands on detectors to prove you can find the one penny that everyone else has missed in the old park? Do we buy detectors for a power trip, or has it become a status symbol? I rather think it may be more to the point to be a successful hunter and ply your skills against the competition to display your finds with pride and a sense of accomplishment.
Do you begin to see the difference? One person hunts only at his convenience and the closest and easiest site without putting himself out for anything. I think again to the fishing analogy because like fishing I have found the very best finds for the large part when I prepared my equipment and timed my hunts for the very best conditions and then I got up before daylight and all to discover that when I got there I was expecting to find something and committed to searching hard and covering a lot of ground and digging most everything. Some folks I see are more interested in their beeper than finding anything and simply do not believe that they will find anything. They are the ones who always want to know what every one is finding instead of knowing how to find it for themselves. It takes motivation and the desire to succeed but there is something more and that is that spark that tells you that this is your day and you move faster to investigate every signal with the feeling that it may be in the bottom of the next hole you dig. We have all seen those people who get a beep on the detector and then just stand around playing with the detector trying to decide if they will dig it or not while it could have been in their pocket already along with the next find too.
If you just can't stir up enough feeling or get the hang of this then you have to backup to research and begin the process. It helps to visualize what you are looking for and spend time at the libraries looking through old newspapers, home plats, and historic books and maps that may be available. That brings me to another point that I wanted to talk about that is that metal detecting is highly site dependant. You may see places every day that are simply loaded with very old treasure whether old coins, artifacts, or perhaps gold but you would never know it to look at them so you just drive by. The sites we hunt around the world vary so greatly in mineralization and types of treasures that it is almost impossible to tell you how to do it or what to look for. You will need to discover that for yourself.
Do all of the finds you made last year fit in the palm of your hand? Do you hunt to find enough to buy the batteries? On the other hand you may have five gallon containers sitting in the closet with this years coins and you may wear gold rings on several fingers and that nice gold necklace and pendant you are wearing you found last week. That is how wide spread are our experiences are and to simply say you metal detect doesn't get across what you find. Just because you enjoy going to that worn out old park and find another Indian head coin doesn't necessarily mean you are getting the most out of your hobby. The fruit of our success of course means different things to different people but my point is that there are wonderful finds there to be found and I am sure that you would like to find your share but you might have to work and plan a little harder to reap the rewards.
If you hate research and cannot bring yourself to look for another site then just work what will produce good finds most of the time. Many of us can hunt the beaches or swimming lakes and that is where you are going to find the best finds. I hate to say this but do you have any idea how many Indian head pennies you can buy with a bucket of clad coins? Quite a few! The swimming beaches and lakes are available for everyone to hunt both on the beach and in the water. Only yesterday while water hunting the beach near me another hunter told me of a find that they had just discovered, a gold Kugerand coin with diamonds around it, and last year they found an Olympic gold medal! Would finds like that get your heart to pumping? It should, and if you excuse yourself because you only hunt old pennies or silver coins then take a minute to think about it. Maybe you are taking the wrong approach to hunting.
In the swimming areas you will find plenty of coins and jewelry in the dry sand but it gets even better if you wade the shallow water and you can do that even if your detector is not waterproof. If you don't dare to hunt the deep water then you can still find enough in these areas to satisfy you. My wife and I have found 18 rings in about 3 weeks not to mention other gold jewelry and over $60 in coins. We only hunt a few hours a week which anyone could manage even with the pressing requirements of job and family.
How many people here will say "Oh I never hunt the beach because I never find anything there" and most of the folks who comment like that have only tried it once or twice with no knowledge of where to hunt, or how to do it. People in this country have swam in the creeks long before swimming pools and many of these creeks go dry at times during the year when all you have to do is just walk down the middle and find the old goodies. Remember too that in the old days there were no bridges and people forded these areas long before the bridges were built. Generally there were ferrys built in the old fording places and then later on the bridges were built.
Remember people have always lived and played around the water it is there where you will find your best hunting areas that will work for everyone and replenish on a regular basis. I believe that discovering good finds on a regular basis is far better than hunting and finding something now and then which may have little value. Everyone would like to enjoy the successful feeling of showing your friends your finds or taking them to your club to display. Try working around the swimming areas and I believe that your finds will improve and you may find you are having more fun too. The nice benefit of hunting around and in the water in the summer is that the sand is always easy to dig and the water is cool to wade in not to mention the view is often nice too.
