AquaChigger....I am not...what a day (long)

I have logged many gigabites watching AquaChigger's YouTube videos. It was only a matter of time before I decided to go after the muskets, cannonballs, and belt buckles that must be in the creeks around some of the camp sites I have hunted for years. So I decided to go get me a few of them. The only thing I could see a problem with was figuring out how to get all that stuff in the back of my truck after I found all of it.

I loaded the action camera, the MX Sport, my waders, my new super magnet on a stick, and off I went.

The first trouble I ran into was I noticed a familiar looking truck parked near one of my old sites. Lo and behold it was another YouTuber that I had not met up until today. I knew we dug in the same camps here and there. He goes by Hornbush on the YouTube. Anyway I talked to him for a while and he tells me he has already hunted that creek with his AT Pro and didn't find anything. Bummer. It wasn't going to deter me though. So after talking a while, I let him get on his way and I went on my adventure.

I made my way to the creek. Before I even got in the water, I had already spotted a snake. I'm not afraid of snakes but I do like being able to see them first. I got in the water and balanced the machine and started hunting. Problem #2 quickly showed itself. I don't have one of those magnets or picks like Aqua Chigger has. My magnet was mounted on a piece of scrap lumber I found at the house. So I had my detector, my magnet stick, and a pick. Well this is a lot to carry when trying to keep your balance on slick rocks. Then when you get a signal you gotta do something with all the stuff in your hands. My magnet stick floated off from me several times. I also learned that the creek was not full of muskets or cannonballs. Instead...it was full of snakes, soda cans under big rocks, and big slick rocks. I had been there maybe 15 minutes and already had seen 3 snakes. As I stumbled my way on the rocky bottom, I step on something that didn't feel like the other rocks. Hmmm. Why is this rock moving? It was then I realized...I had stepped right on a big snapping turtle. He or she wasn't very happy with me. Another set of problems quickly arose. It was 90 degrees...I was in water...but my dang waders were making it feel like I was in a sauna. Then there were the biting flies. Oh man. I made my way up stream, digging cans and other pieces of junk. When I began to smell something dead. The further upstream I got, the worse it got. Then I found it. It was a dead cow in the creek. Great...here I've been down stream of this rotting thing for the last hour or so and ain't even found a minie ball, much less a truck full of muskets. I also figured out that the 6x10 coil on the MX Sport is a good coil in trash...but not a good coil for water. It wanted to float when I got into the deeper water. I didn't try the stock coil down there. SO long story short...I abandoned my quest for the day in the water.

So on my way to another site, I noticed my bullet field had just recently been mowed for hay and the grass was about as low as you are gonna find it. I stopped in there and checked in with the land owner. I was already drenched from head to toe from humidity and those stupid waders. The bullet field is just that...a big open field that has fired 3 ringers in it. It also has 4 and 5 bar hot dirt. I had not had the MX Sport in a place with dirt that bad so I was curious as to how it could handle it. I went and got some Gatorades at the store down the road...cause I knew that open field and 90 degree sun would not be a good combo. I ended up drinking 96 ounces of the stuff and could have drank more. I spent quite a bit of time in the field.

I had the GPX in the truck with me...for some reason, I brought it with the 12x15 DD coil. Lemme tell ya...I just weighed it and that setup weighs 8.27 lbs all together (with Doc's screamer battery pack on it too). My arm is killing me. The ground was hard as a brick, and my normal big shovel just couldn't do it. Then I remembered I had an old e-tool like Keith uses in my truck. I put it in the trench mode and went at it. I must say...I'm not as good at it as Keith is. I totally hit every bullet I found today and about cut two of them completely in half. I would use the GPX to locate potential bullet signals and then go get the MX Sport to see how it responded to the targets.

I was happy with how it responded to bullets. On all but a couple, it gave a signal I would have dug....with surprisingly good VDIs and tones. Two signals were really deep minies that only the GPX could hit. I laid the GPX down and hunted with the MX Sport for a while. Mainly to give my arm a break. I was NOT super happy with how the machine hunted in that bad dirt there. It wants to false A LOT in the 4 and 5 bar dirt. You will be sweeping along and get a signal one time, and then it disappear. The ground also changes a lot in the field...and the MX Sport did not like that. I was constantly having to re ground balance it. It would not be a favored machine for 5 bar soil...the pulse machine still reigns dominant in that soil. Once you had a bullet located, it would do great on it...but the noise you have to endure between signals was enough to show me the GPX is still the best for that soil type.

I was able to find two coins in the field though. Had I been hunting with the GPX I would have not dug them....both are nickels, and nickels give a high tone on the GPX. This tells you that it is low conductive. In this field, we only dig fired bullets and they ALWAYS come in with a low tone on the GPX...so I would have passed right over the nickels. The MX Sport on the other hand, will give a good tone on the deeper bullets, but the VDIs wont lock like they do on shallower bullets. So I dug both of them with the Sport. One is a dateless V nickel and the other is a Jefferson nickel from 1940 something. The V nickel was deep as my pinpointer is long.

Here are the finds today. No muskets or cannonballs. Just a lot of lessons learned for water hunting. Next time, I will have bug spray and a magnet mounted on my pick like the Chigg. And I am ditching the waders. Not sure what I will get...those rocks are SLICK. Note that most of them have digger hit marks from having to chop them out of the hard ground. Keith is the man with those e-tools.

Daniel,
I have had some detecting days like that....with nothing as cool as bullets to show for it, though. good story.

Wow, what a day! I'm glad I don't have snakes like that. Sounds like you had a fun day.

Rick

LoL!

River huntin ain't as easy/fun as it looks/sounds = that's for sure!

Nice finds to round out the day there though Daniel

PS
I'd need flamethrower for snakes

Sounds like you had an eventful day Daniel.

Some nice finds too.

Did you try tracking GB on the sport to see if it would quieten it down a bit ???

Whites coils........ even the water ones tend to be floaters....... and can be worse in salt water. Id think a good many of those leads would move toward the shore area dropping into cracks much like gold and sinkers...... right along with all that trash. Creeks can be tricky to hunt...... especially those that have a tendency to have a lot of water flow during rainy season.

Enjoyed your post daniel. Recently went on my first legit water hunt and was humbled as well. It's amazing how much modern junk was in such a remote area. I think I have a better understanding now of where lighter things like cans will settle vs the heavier keepers.

Only keeper was a brass pommel guard, which was encouraging. Keep the MX sport posts coming. I've really grown fond of mine. Honestly if I had to own only one detector, this may be it. Hope the little sniper coil pans out.

I'm sure with a bit of experimenting, it should be possible to add some concrete etc weight to the coil or lower shaft to counteract the bouyancy. It won't sweep through the water so easily afterwards, I guess.

If I continue the creek hunting expeditions, I will eventually figure out my own system for doing it or just quit it all together. There are a lot of signals in the creek but it will take some effort to recover all of the signals to find out what they are. The creek itself is approx 16 feet wide and as of yesterday, was average of knee deep. Some places are deeper though and the water is murky so it does make it hard to see more than 6 inches into it. The bottom is all rocky; from fist size to sizes bigger than I could move. I think having the magnet on the pick will help a lot; I have one like AquaChigger's coming.

I do have a question about super high strength earth magnets though. If you get them close to a metal detector search coil or control box, can they damage them?

There is another creek that is smaller, that runs by the main winter encampment. I want to hunt that creek but am having trouble finding the landowners. We used to have a state wide property viewer that showed each parcel of land and who owned it but it has not been working for that county for a couple years now.

The snakes don't bother me. I have learned to know what to look for with snakes. They are kind of like arrowhead hunting...most people that don't know what to look for will walk right by them and never see them. I am sort of decent at spotting them. My dad has an eagle eye for them. The snapping turtle thing threw me off guard though. I see them on our creek at the house all the time in the summer. They will lay on the bank or on a log in the sun. This one was sitting in about a foot of water with no mud around him. He/she was as big as a wheel on a truck.

Thanks for the comments folks and for the tips too. I'm eventually going to find something in the water besides reptiles and dead cows. Hahah.

should have grabbed that snapper and sold him to a restaraunt....we used to do that as kids for all the spending money we needed.....lopped the heads off though.

Good write-up, Daniel. I've done a good bit of wet wading (no waders) for mountain trout in western NC, VA, and east TN, but the cold water limits the varmints. Occasional dead deer, though.
Wading warmwater streams, not for the faint of heart. I commend you for the effort. Keep at it and you will be rewarded, I'm sure, but at a price....
I've found the e-tool to be the best digger in woodsy sites (and really hard dirt anywhere you find it) and have gotten pretty good with it. Just have to do your chopping well away from the target and carefully dig and scrape right over the target. Hard to stay patient but impatience can destroy a once in a lifetime find in a hurry!
Now if you just had that Nokta Relic to check against your Sport in that hot ground...

Wayne

Pleasant Garden, NC
AT Max, Nokta Impact, MX Sport, Nokta FORS Relic, GPX 4800, Infinium, Racer, Deus, F75SE, Nautilus DMC II (order of acquisition, last to first)

Does an archeologist argue with a plow? A bureaucrat with a bulldozer?

Here's what I use Daniel

except my mag is square not round (200 lbs pull force)

The pick is called "The Hermit" ($69 shipped)

careful with a mag like that though - you can smash your fingers/hand between stuff! Ask Aquachigg = he did!

Enjoyed reading that, Daniel. I am also not as good with my aim (whilst using my WW2 trenching tool) as Keith is. So I second the fact that Keith is the trenching tool master! Anyway, enjoyable read and it strengthens my resolve to have an MX Sport. If I dig half as many bullets as you dug, I always consider it a success. Well done.

Time for a cold drink....just reading that post gave me a dry mouth.....here up North they sell several different type metal thig a ma jgs for walking in snow without slipping ...bet they would help your footing....water hunting of any type is exhausting so eat your Wheaties....

I watch all his videos. AquaChigger is something else. I'm tellin you I learn something every time I watch him. With that being said there is no way I'm getting in the water like him to hunt. Call me chicken, squeamish or just a plain old sissy. There is stuff in the water I want no part of. If I would step on a big old snapper I think I would probably scream like a little girl. You have my admiration for even trying. And that is just the stuff I can see. I worry about super germs and pollution being deposited in my ears and stuff. I swam in creeks when I was a kid. I just didn't know any better I guess.

Dan-Pa. Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Time for a cold drink....just reading that post
> gave me a dry mouth.....here up North they sell
> several different type metal thig a ma jgs for
> walking in snow without slipping ...bet they would
> help your footing

You'd constantly be getting "hits" from your feet; especially if that super magnet finds one of them <ouch!>

Pleasant Garden, NC
AT Max, Nokta Impact, MX Sport, Nokta FORS Relic, GPX 4800, Infinium, Racer, Deus, F75SE, Nautilus DMC II (order of acquisition, last to first)

Does an archeologist argue with a plow? A bureaucrat with a bulldozer?

I always heard felt souled shoes were good for slippery rocks. That's what fisherman wear on rock jetties.

Michigan Wayne -- That is the pick I have coming. My magnet is round but only 150 pound pull. I seriously doubt it though as it is almost effortless to pull off of solid objects like axe heads, etc. I got mine off Amazon instead of from a magnet store...that may be why mine is weak.

NcWayne -- You're in my neck of the woods if you are fishing western NC and east TN. I'm about 45 mins from the Tn/Nc line up around Tellico and an hr or so from Robbinsville,NC. I used to trout fish a lot up there. Those streams are cold enough to make your legs numb when wading in them. Ironically, I see more snakes up there than down here in the warm water areas. Just no snapping turtles up there.

Oh and one more thing. Those GoPro imitation action cams are useless in the waterproof case. The buttons dont work half the time and you can't hear any sound. I guess that is why Chigg uses the Olympus TG series waterproof cams.

Daniel

you bought a separate mag for the pick? B/cuz the tiny one that comes ON the pick itself is a joke

I bought mine from a mag dealer and took the small one off the pick and installed the new large 200 lbs pull force one myself and she don't let go! You gotta fight it to pull it off large/r objects.

Notice how large it is in comparison to my hand = this thing ain't no joke!

I have spent many a rainy several hours watching Aquachigger. He seems like a good man who genuinely enjoys sharing with others that they might have further insight into this awesome hobby.When I had my GPX 4500, I would watch his "Land Metal Detecting" topic videos and rewind and pause and listen. He is an asset to the Metal detecting community in my opinion.

Michigan Wayne -- I ordered my pick without the handle and just the head. It was cheaper that way. It hasn't got here yet; ordered it Friday I think it was. The magnet I have is one I bought off Amazon that I intended to use for magnet fishing. I quickly saw it wasn't fit for that. It has to be within a couple inches for it to pick anything up, and it has to be on the flat side of it or it wont pick up at all. I've actually had magnets out of a car speaker that were stronger than this one. But I guess that's why it was $19 vs the ones from K&J of the same size that are $40+.

Goodmore is right about felt soled shoes. I used to spend a lot of time in mountain streams with a fly rod and a spinning rod. I'd use the fly rod until I was about ready to leave then pull the ultra-light spinning rig out, bait it with corn and catch the supper that had not been hitting my flies all day. I did it in tennis shoes and boots and froze my ass off until I broke down and bought a pair of waders with felt soles and my days of slipping, sliding and freezing were over.

Before you spend the money on a dedicated pair of wading boots go to a sporting goods store and pick up a pair of replacement felt soles and a tube of shoe goo. Cut the felt to match the soles of an old pair of shoes/boots and use the shoe goo to attach them. Slick soles work best. You can scuff them with a rasp to help the glue get a bite. This an effective, cheap way to see if felt soles suit you. For that matter if you get a good bond there's no need to buy anything else. Just keep the shoe goo on hand and re-glue them if they ever start to come off.

Sounds as though you had an interesting time though lol. Few saves are better than no saves. I'm like you on the snakes, as long as I see them first we're good. It's those sudden in your face HELLO! That gets me lol

Glad ya got out bud

Daniel you must have the luck of the Irish. A Snake and Snapping Turtle and you come away with out getting bite and all your toes and fingers. Man I want you to pick My next Lotto numbers. LOL!

When I'm in water that has nasty snakes, I strap on a snake whacking stick on each leg. Its a 3/4" oak dowel rod , 32" long. I attach one to each leg with 2 rubber bands . The rubber bands are just strong enough to hold them in place, and easy enough to brake , should I need one in a hurry. Better to have and not need.........

The main to remember on Digging with an Etool in hard soil is to not dig where the target is at..I start out in the front of it and try and bust the dirt up ...create a hole in front of the target then bust the dirt up from below the target as you come back....

Big wide holes..

Nice Digs!!

Keith

“I don't care that they stole my idea . . I care that they don't have any of their own”
-Nikola Tesla

The last couple outings have been slow. It is unreal at the amount of garbage in our creeks/streams. Everything from car parts, tractor pieces, to cans and everything in between. To date, these are the only 2 Civil War relics I've recovered in the water. I am the unluckiest person alive when it comes to US ovals. I have found 2 and both are in the absolute worst shape. This one is a box plate and has seen better days. The ones AquaChigger finds are in very good shape. There is probably more keepers in the creek but a person can literally stand in one spot and dig for an hour due to the number of targets.

Cool digs Daniel - nice Williams cleaner?

How does that MXS do on large brass like that US plate? I mean - does it hit em nice and strong/solid tone? Or does it like almost wanna disc them out? Or overload? Etc?

I know your neck of the woods well....whitewater kayaked for many many years... Tellico was one of my main creek runs (Baby Falls is a hoot), nearby Citico is good too...takes a lot of rain though....Ocoee just to the south. You ever try your luck at detecting for gold on Coker Creek?

sekypalo -- I was just up there yesterday on the Tellico side. That's where we still go swimming. And that would be a big YES on the gold up there. Coker Creek is where it's known for it...but where the water runs now that people call "Coker Creek" is not the original creek channel. They changed all that when they put the new road through there and diverted its flow. They changed the panning rules up there a few years ago and now it is a pain to go up there and try to work. But here is some Coker Creek and area gold I've found over the years: