Equinox Freshwater Hunting data

A lot has been said about the Nox on salt water beaches and on land. Not a lot has been said yet about freshwater hunting. Here will be my shake down of it. Maybe someone will pick up on something to help them, or maybe someone out there will be able to help me.

First off, the yellow Koss/Minelab headphones still suck. They did for the Excal, they did for the CTX, and they still do for the Nox. They are uncomfortable for several hours of use, and do not block out enough surrounding noise. Just an example...there were 5 teenagers today that got to the swim area I was hunting, about an hour earlier than the other depositors. They started playing Marco Polo in the water and splashing around, laughing, and doing the Marco Polo thing. I was approx 75 yards down from them and they were so loud I couldn't hear the detector anymore. The volume itself comes out to about 65-70 Db of output with a Db detector on my phone. It is moderately loud as far as tones go but they just don't do a good job cancelling out the surrounding noise. After market phones are a desperate need.

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I don't have any trouble at all seeing the screen on the beach or in the water; that is with me wearing polarized sunglasses. The CTX didn't do well with polarized sunglasses or in direct sunlight. So that's a plus if you like seeing the screen for target ID or for making setting changes.

I don't like how the machine swings in water. There is a lot of drag and torque on it, especially knee deep to chest deep water.

The extreme sensitivity to the coil edges can come back to bite you in deeper water when you are already scooping blindly. Since I am hunting for recent drops on a lake bottom that consists of clay and rock, the stuff isn't deep. I was comfortable backing my sensitivity off to around 10-12 ish. This helps tame the sensitivity and the double blips of shallow targets.

My first few visits to the local swimming holes, I was using my Stealth scoop with the 1/2 inch drain holes. Approx half of my targets would fall through the holes, meaning they were small. HOWEVER...this changed when I started using a different mode to hunt in. I had been using Field 1 & 2 for my relic hunting and even coin hunting. So my first couple of trips to the beach, I kept it in that mode and didn't think anything of it. Those targets that ID in the 1 to 11 range were everywhere and I was curious as to what they were but most all of them fall through the scoop. This changed when I hunted last week. I decided to try Park modes instead of the Field modes, just to play around. Almost immediately I noted how the machine was running dead quiet most of the time. I wasn't getting those low number hits either...not as many of them anyway, and the ones I did get, I was able to get in my scoop. Using those modes, Park 1 in particular, I was able to recover several rings and one small silver charm, and approx $8 in clad in the water.

So in the mean time, I decided I needed a scoop with smaller holes. I bought one with 7mm holes...which was the smallest one I could find in my online search.

Today was the maiden voyage with the smaller holed scoop. I started off at the beach I like to hunt and was in Park 1. It was so quiet I was beginning to wonder what was going on. I had a few scratchy signals but nothing I liked and felt like I should dig. I hunted a few grid lines out to chin deep water and then decided to swap modes over to the Field modes and briefly go through the same area. The area came to life with those small low digit hits. I would get a signal in Field mode, then swap to Park mode to check it, and it would sound like crap. Every one of these targets = SMALL junk. With the small holed scoop, I was able to get most of them up to see what they were. 90% of them were small split shot fishing sinkers, followed by swimming trunk grommets, and then odd pieces like .22 bullets or casings. These ring out loud and clear in Field modes and sound broken up in Park modes.

I'm convinced now that I've found my preferred modes for freshwater beaches. That being, Park modes and digging the clear sounding signals. The rings I found the other day came in loud and clear, so did the charm. If you wanna gamble on some small micro jewelry, then Field modes are going to bring to life a whole world of low conductors and make them stick out in audio. I don't have any gold chains to test to see where those might come in but I'm going to GUESS that hunting in Park modes is NOT going to make those stand out like the Field modes might.

I've also convinced myself that I like a scoop with 1/2 inch holes a lot better than the small hole scoop. I've decided that if the target is falling thru the holes, I'm gonna say piss on it and move on to the next one hahah.

ALL the above info was in Multi freq and manual GB. This beach is a hard one to hunt due to there being very shallow exposed bedrock/shoal. A detector with a preset GB is useless there...before I had a waterproof machine, I would go when they put the water down at winter pool levels and hunt the areas where the water is during the summer. Even some manual GB machines struggle there. I remember the Excalibur was in a constant null when I took it up there. I did not try any of the Single Freq modes...it actually never has crossed my mind to try them but I will update this to include that data when I make my rounds again next week.

I didn't see it are you using the 600 or 800? Not that would make a big difference. Great report. PS don't pee in the water!

My bad...Equinox 600 is what I have. Performance wise between Field and Park modes, they should be the same between the 600 and 800. I had both and decided to keep the 600 and sell the 800 while they were still going for close to what I gave for mine new.

Good report Daniel

That's why I like my modded Lobo ST in the water. I put it in a small backpack and get out chest deep. The thin 8" concentric sweeps thru the water with ease. I am using the Equinox in the water too. We need a thin 8"-9" coil for water hunting. The 6" coil is going to be small in the water.

I got stainless steel 3/16" screen I put on the bottom of my scoop and 1/2 way up the back for the fine stuff. I used plastic ties.

Today I took the Equinox to my local state park in the water and was only there for a little while and a ranger waved me in and told me metal detecting is banned in the park and the water out 100' from the boundaries in the water. I knew the park was banned but didn't know they could ban the water. Not all state parks are banned.

So the state can ban detecting in the water. Probably Federal too. Nobody else can right?

Rick

Daniel your conditions must be quite different from mine. Here is a post I made recently over on Steve's forum

Nox fresh water settings

regarding the edge sensitivity, in my clear lakes I consider it a bonus. When moving forward at slightly faster than normal pace I was overshooting some fairly deep targets by a foot or more having to backup the coil to get them centered and yes, centering them can take a bit even raising the coil way off the bottom to reduce the signal intensity.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/27/2018 08:27AM by Jackpine.

The drag....... obviously they dont do much water hunting...... this thing is a piece of cake .... try swinging a CTX in the water.

Headphones....... make your own. You can get some aircraft gel pads and plug the drain holes if you want to reduce noise significantly.

You have a lot more options with the modes/freq that can be used in fresh water over salt. A lot will depend on what you are looking for....... narrow that down and you can improve your hunting and trash to treasure.

Fresh water hunters needs a sifter IMO. So much easier since its going to be like hunting a trashy dry sand beach...... nothing desolves very fast out there like salt water.

Dont discount field 2 mode......

If you use manual GB...... its a fixed GB which may be ok since you really arent looking for a lot of depth..... otherwise id play with the other two options. You might find thou you loose a little depth..... tracking works.

Even gold mode may work since its threshold is a true threshold.

Hi Dew

I'll be 66 next month and the long term effects drag, although I hope not, could end up being an issue for me. I have other VLF's so can switch off if needed.

Haven't tried field 2 but it and the gold modes are next on my list to try . Field 1 is a smooth operator and I hunt some beaches where sawmills and boat works once stood so iron, tin and other black encrusted crap abounds. Have to go by the audio to sort that crap out but it's very doable with the Nox. After realizing the benefit of tracking GB It's in play always!

A sifter would be of little benefit to me since most of the small targets I try for don't stay in the scoop long enough to make it to the sifter.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/27/2018 09:10AM by Jackpine.

Peltor HY 80 pads make those yellow headphones much more comfortable on the ears. My ears would ache from those cheap stock pads.

"Good info Mr. D...thanks!

A river in my area is undergoing some 'work' and I met a guy the other day who told me that "a lot of coins and bits of jewellery were found under a buttrice" and as the water is flowing E> it stands to reason that if I locate myself E> in the shallows my chances of finding some are good?"

Field 2 is where I started in the water. Like I said, it's the mode I prefer for relic hunting so I just carried it over into the water. Field mode in my findings, enhance the signal clarity of small targets. VERY similar to "ghound"s video he posted the other day regarding the Nox and coke; showing the difference between Field 1 and Field 2 response to masking. I could go back and forth between Park and Field modes over a LOW ID READING target that sounded great in Field mode, and it wouldn't sound nowhere as good in Park mode

The manual even points this out in the mode section. "Park Mode is for searching in urban parks, or other recently inhabited sites where there may be coins and jewellery. There is often also lots of common metal litter including aluminium foil, pull-tabs, bottle-caps etc. Park Mode is a good starting point for other general uses, such
as freshwater detecting, or use for artifact hunting by accepting all ferrous Target IDs. Park 1 is optimised for modern coins and larger jewelry.

That's exactly what I am seeing too....coins and bigger jewelry that wont fall thru a 1/2 inch hole in the scoop.

Field modes in the manual say that the signal is enhanced to detect small hammered coins at depth and on edge. Which from what I've seen, means that it will also enhance the signals for small lead, aluminum, etc...which is exactly the kind of stuff that will fall thru a 1/2 inch hole in the scoop.

Now I will say that I did modify the default settings a bit. I accepted the whole non ferrous range in discrimination and am running iron bias a little hotter than normal. Like I said I'm not chasing deep stuff...my lake bottoms are mostly a thin layer of sand and then clay/rock. One beach site was a former logging camp and there is a lot of iron there. I upped the iron bias to 3 there. And I am running a much reduced sensitivity setting. Most people are afraid to lower it any lower than 20. I finished yesterday's water hunt with it on 12. It helps too when you hit those underwater coin spills, in being able to pinpoint where to scoop. Twice yesterday, I had multiple coins come up with one scoop.

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Regarding drag in the water. I actually hunted with the CTX almost exclusively in water last yr. In moving water, it was a bear to swing. In calm lake water though, I found it to be really easy to swing, especially when the whole unit was under the water. In shallower water...out to knee deep, there was a lot of pressure on the lower part of the detector which did make it a little rougher to swing but nothing bad, and you couldn't feel it twist like you can the Equinox. I hunted with it at least twice a week in the water from the week after Memorial Day on into October. I prefer how it handles in water to the Equinox to be honest...and that's one of the few things you will hear me say I liked the CTX better for. There has been a lot of talk about the flex/wobble in the Equinox shafts. Mine doesn't have the wobble but I can sure feel it torque in the water....again, not so bad with the whole unit submerged but half in and half out, I can really feel it. I'm going to assume that it would be easy to develop a wobble with as much stress that the water is putting on the shaft when it torques.

Floating Sifter - I could see a sifter being handy with the scoop that has 7mm holes, IF I choose to use it a lot. Otherwise, with the Stealth scoop and 1/2 inch holes, the targets will fall thru before you even get it to the top of the water. What happens is you end up chasing moving targets, thinking that you just missed it all together or that you scooted it instead of scooped it, until you realize what is happening. I still think 1/2 inch is too big for lake hunting but a 7mm is too small. I'm thinking something like a 3/8 would be a good compromise. Maybe that would be the size of material/screen for a sifter.

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On a side note, my buddy that I sold the Multi Kruzer to, decided he was going to pursue another hobby and is sold/selling all his detecting equipment. He bought the unit from me and in the mean time, had bought a pair of the underwater headphones and a 7 inch concentric coil for it. He said both were brand new, never used. He offered the whole package back to me for $400. I figure the extra coil and headphones are worth $200 of that...so needless to say, I will be getting that one back. I never tried it in the water, so I'm interested to see how it handles there.

I guess ive got it down ...... because i use 1/2 holes on my starvr scoop and if i know im dealing with a small target i just take more material and dont shake it. I know an 80 year old lady down here who hunts with a sifter and she does great with it. BUT ..... if you are looking for larger gold/targets then you should be good. I put my ML shaft up ..... use it as a travel shaft...... i use an Andersons that Pete sent me to test.... great shaft. Im 66 years old as well........but id say im in pretty good shape. I found a .6 gram 10K cross today...... smallest gold yet with the Nox. I have no problem chasing YELLOW that falls thru the scoop. In the wet sand ...... if its tiny and i cant see yellow i dont waste a lot of time looking for it if i dont see yellow.

Dew -- Just curious, how much freshwater hunting have you done on the Nox? Are you still using the Beach modes in freshwater or do you use one of the other modes? Most of what I've seen you post is in direct relation to gulf coast beach hunting but I know there are freshwater areas not far inland from the coast. I just never have seen you mention freshwater hunting when talking about the Nox. You have mentioned several times that the Beach modes not being as sensitive might hinder the Nox from finding micro gold, or smaller gold items...that's why I was asking. The size stuff I am talking about is mostly fishing weights and or small caliber bullets. I know you guys don't have coldwater trout down there but in these TN and north GA mountains, rainbows and browns are huge, and some can even survive in the mtn lakes that I hunt the most. People fish for them with smaller removable split shot sinkers...the packages on them will read in numbers instead of weight...like #4, #6, etc. I'm finding a lot of the smaller ones...they weigh approx 1.5 to 1.8 grams, or around 1/17 of an oz. I've found some smaller than that too, the BB size that is roughly .56 gram. All of that sounds off pretty good in the Field modes on the Nox, and will read lower numbers, but due to stratification, will find its way to the bottom of a scoop in saturated material with little to no sifting or shaking of the scoop. Just the uplifting of the scoop from the bottom of the top is enough to do it. I've not played much with the Beach modes in freshwater but I was under the impression that it reduces the sensitivity to those smaller things, so it is possible that you might not be encountering them in Beach or as many of them as we are while hunting in the other modes. Especially Field mode. I'm also guessing that not many people use those super small split shot while surf fishing either.

Also, how deep in the water are you talking about hunting? I'm a little over 6' and in the lake, we don't have to worry about rogue waves hitting us or going over our head. I can comfortably hunt out to chin deep water. I thought about bringing a snorkel with me next time to be able to get a little deeper out but I would probably drown myself.

Daniel..... ive done NO fresh water hunting with the Nox. We have some things that swim around down here that makes me a little antsy about jumping in lol. We have a ton of those shot sinkers in the bay...... ugh.... so i know how it can be. BUT..... you are dealing with a lot more trash in fresh water. ive not hunted with the Nox...... but i have with the Xcal and CTX in fresh water in several places including here. Im not as tall as you ...... but im out there chin deep or have used a snorkel and been under out there even further. Its not the Ocean so unless its a red flag day i can normally handle the waves and still dig. Those crazy fishermen down here you just never know what you may find out there. Anywhere from an anchor to a split sinker....... Its amazing how much lead you can run into in these Gulf public parking areas. Beach 2 has a reduced sensitivity....... but both have a salt setting. At least in fresh water you do have the option of hunting in modes which dont have the salt setting restriction. Yes im one of those crazy people wanting to dig smaller gold. You always have the option of disc or reducing the volume on certain bins and making a lot of those tiny targets go bye bye. 2 of the golds i got today rang up in the 1 digit...... one was the cross the other ........ a 10K 1.6 gram earring.....and it was 1 1/4" in dia. So it wasnt going to fall thru a scoop........but would be missed if you disc 1 and 2 like in park mode.

Note from an old,not bold pilot: Polarized sunglasses and certain detector screens don't jive--reason being the detector screen may incorporate anti-glare filters as do the polarized sunglasses. Take 2 pair of polarized sunglasses and hold one pair steady and rotate the other pair as you view the lenses---guess what---the lenses will black out because the anti-glare properties will block both the horizontal and vertical light rays.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/29/2018 12:35PM by doc holiday.

Yep that was one of the modifications to factory settings that I did for Park 1. I opened up the blocked out disc numbers...which I cant remember off the top of my head but I think it was slots 1 and 2...maybe just 1. Some of the modes also have preset lower target volume for the lower bins...might make the lower number targets not stand out as much as the coin type targets unless changed.

Daniel Tn Wrote:
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>
> Floating Sifter - I could see a sifter being handy
> with the scoop that has 7mm holes, IF I choose to
> use it a lot. Otherwise, with the Stealth scoop a
> nd 1/2 inch holes, the targets will fall thru befo
> re you even get it to the top of the water. What
> happens is you end up chasing moving targets, thin
> king that you just missed it all together or that
> you scooted it instead of scooped it, until you re
> alize what is happening. I still think 1/2 inch i
> s too big for lake hunting but a 7mm is too small.
> I'm thinking something like a 3/8 would be a good
> compromise. Maybe that would be the size of mater
> ial/screen for a sifter.
>
> -----------------------

I have a homemade sifter that I use occasionally made out of .25 plexiglas and PVC frame stuffed with foam.
Works nice, I keep it tethered to my ankle with a surfboard strap, it just follows you around and you hardly know it there until you need it.
Can save time in certain conditions, and is nice when there are alot of rocks/seashells or muck. You can just dump the scoop then check the target, if its gone you know its in the sifter, if not another scoop.
With good sifting sand though it is not needed. Not even sure what size holes I have, CNC machined it and used a variety of bits to drill the holes, then drilled some more by hand.

I'm with you on the small stuff, not worth chasing or even changing your style/methods to try to find.

Guys..... im not saying anyone should dig a bunch of crap targets. Im saying........ i want the ability to choose to dig then or not..... just like we have when making a pattern for any given day. IF the machine is capable of finding small gold .... then dont dumb it down. To me that stifles progress in the hobby. Companies are now starting to venture in all directions....... ie the Nox and Fisher with the new PI.

If you make your sifter right .... you just have to let it follow along behind you and dump the scoop and move...... you dont have to look at every targets..... thats a time saver.

I agree....... make your bins to suit your hearing. I set mine up with just the first bin...... iron being.... with lower volume. The others are full volume and i then adjust the freq on each bins to something i think will catch my ear. I know some that raise the 2nd bin to a higher freq when looking for gold. BUT..... i think we get wrap around now in the 2nd bin instead of like on most machine where it wraps in the high digits. So if you run that higher freq and any disc you will get high freq tones ..... that doesnt work for me. Iike the volume of iron ...... then setting the next bin must like the Xcal on foil.... it still lets me know its not repeatable and its iron/minerals.

Let's see if this works.

Should be rings I've found with the Nox so far in freshwater.

[flic.kr]