Dissappointing beach hunt

I was at Fort Walton Beach FL this past week with the Equinox 800 and waterproof headphones. I would usually hunt in the mornings and evening/night. I hunted the sitting area (beach combers came through every morning) so not much there but some shallow change.

Then in the water? Nothing. No signals what so ever. I did my best to grid areas, but Still nothing. What am I missing? Are there special places you guys look for when water hunting in waist deep water or less?

G

XP Deus
Minelab Etrac
Minelab Equinox 800
Garrett Carrot
22 silvers, 2 silver rings, 1 Gold Ring -YTD 2018


Some of my random digs: [www.youtube.com]

It may well be sanded in like most of the Fl beaches right now putting targets to deep to find. You get a gaggle of hunters on a popular beach and targets can be far and few..... which i dont mind really.... gives me time to work the deeper targets others pass up because they are moving to fast. If you get a lot of wind and waves in the Gulf .... lighter targets tend to move to the flip up line or higher up on the wet sand. Depending on the tide height........ stuff gets sucked out to far to reach too. It can shock you on very popular beaches sometimes how few targets there are in the water. Regularly hunting a beach you get a lot more information of whats going on and where to hunt it. There are spots that can be more consistent gold givers. Knowing the tides and where it puts people from one day to the next helps too. Sometimes its just better to hunt the shallow than to waste time out deep. Change it up...... wet sand/shallow one day especially if you have been seeing hunters out deep.

Special places? Yep.

Could of been sanded in
Could of been searched
Could of been a bad spot
Could of been a bad tide
Could of been 20 other things...

Some days I find so much and other days in that same exact spot I don't even get a beep.

_________________________________

Nox600, CTX, CZ21, Excal II and White's DF with 920i stealthscoop...I live and hunt at the beach in Wilm NC

adam-bomb and dewcon are right : Sounds like sterile sand had been coming in. In which case it won't matter HOW much traffic was there splashing around the days/weeks before. If 10" of sand comes in to the inter-tidal zone overnight, then ... you will have nothing but silence.

Contrast to when erosion is taking sand out (multiple feet in a single night), I've seen conditions where you can't even move your detector coil without getting multiple beeps with every swing

Here in the southern California beach's after spending 1 hour with no targets hunting the low tide wet sand with the PI

It's now time to get the VLF detector for the dry sand hunt.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/2018 09:49PM by Rob in (ca).

.. double post ..



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/2018 10:05PM by flgliderpilot.

Gannon Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I was at Fort Walton Beach FL this past week with
> the Equinox 800 and waterproof headphones. I would
> usually hunt in the mornings and evening/night. I
> hunted the sitting area (beach combers came throug
> h every morning) so not much there but some shallo
> w change.
>
> Then in the water? Nothing. No signals what so eve
> r. I did my best to grid areas, but Still nothing.
> What am I missing? Are there special places you gu
> ys look for when water hunting in waist deep water
> or less?
>
> G

Nice weather, light winds, and short tide deltas make for lots of soft bottom. The stuff just sinks until it's out of range.

Us west coast FL hunters have to be patient... because the good days are far between.

We have all been there. A bad day beach hunting is better than a good day at work. Sit back and watch the pretty sites.

I feel your pain........ hit a busy beach today.... that just wasnt busy because of all the red tide. I got 9 rings....... just one 2.2 gram 10K gold with stone.....couple silvers in there. But it was work..... 8 hours worth. there were so few targets i was digging ANYTHING. You know..... there is a lot of junk jewelry out there along with those bobbie pins lol. Thats a big part of this hobby..... just like fishing... no guarantee..... but we keep going.

Being a “land lubber” lol this was my first time actually hunting in the ocean. Last year at Destin I found LOADS of bottle caps, oil tabs and a silver rind in the chair sitting area.

When I arrived the ocean was like glass.. waves were just lapping up shore. No rips, no cuts no flats. As the week progressed strong storms came in and pulled a lot of sand.... it seemed
As a wall of sand was present. Yet, the swash zone was still absent of signals. I guess it really is just the luck of the draw when it comes to sanded in beaches or not.... alas... maybe next time I’ll get lucky!
G

XP Deus
Minelab Etrac
Minelab Equinox 800
Garrett Carrot
22 silvers, 2 silver rings, 1 Gold Ring -YTD 2018


Some of my random digs: [www.youtube.com]

I am just a tourist when I go to the beach and don't know how to read beaches, nor do I have the luxury of lots of time and being able to hit a beach at the perfect times. I have read several books on beach hunting and try to apply those things when I go. Despite that...my amateur beach status really shows. I normally hunt at night when I go, but have only detected the gulf beaches....in which I can barely see a difference between the low or high tides. It's not like the Atlantic side of Florida for sure.

I seldom find more than WW2 training bullets, fishing sinkers, and clad when I go to the Gulf Shores/Orange Beach areas. I've found one junk tungsten ring on the beach there. I do see occasional detectorists when I have been there but none in the wet sand...all in the dry sand poking around the chair line. Most of my targets have been in the damp sand between the chair line and the water line. But again...I've no idea what Im doing other than having a ball waiting for the next signal Checking out the sights along the way. Night time on the beach can be interesting. I usually pick a condo in the distance and work my way til I am in front of it...then decide if I wanna go back or keep going. I've walked miles doing that. Peaceful. Til you walk up on two folks goin at it on the beach about 2 in the morning. Haha.

This might have something to do with your results.

FL beaches, like may others are regularly “repentished” enormous amounts of offshore sand are dredged up and pumped onto the beach.

[www.nwfdailynews.com]

Rick Kempf
Gold Canyon AZ- where there is no gold

That may be true Rick...... but its more for the West coast. The N/panhandle gets a constant push when the winds shift to the South. Which is a good part of the year. We get the push when the winds are shifting S to West. S. winds stop the natural flow of the sand S. They did all the way from Clearwater to Venice a couple of years back..... that sand they put on is fine and comes from way out and is even filtered. Looks nice...... but doesnt stay long and where do you think it ends up....... in the water moving S...... ugh. That of course changes the natural long shore drift and it takes several years for the beach to REDESIGN its self.

My point about finding all those rings and jewelry yesterday is .... i hunted the same area just two days prior. Those werent recent drops...... and ive not been the only guy hunting the area.... in fact there were two others that day. You kind of have to know whats going on that can affect your finds. Simple things like which way the wind blows or the waves.... tides.... even things like the whole beach being taken up by volley ball tournament for the whole weekend.

Here is a link to keep you Jersey beach hunters hopes up and your excitement above normal.....probably not new to you ole beach hunters.

[njmaritimemuseum.org]

The shipwrecks off the coast of N.J. number in the thousands since the 1600's.

My opinion: When they pump sand to replenish the beaches......sometimes old coinage etc, comes in with the sand.
Hurricanes and Northeasters shake these wrecks up a bit....glad they do.

You never know what will turn up off the Jersey coast, named "Graveyard of the Atlantic".......tough coastline to navigate with masted ships.

I think the state has gotten wise to that..... the screens and I bet archeologist sift thru a good bit of that. Places like podra island .... and here in Fl were good examples. Fisher dont want all that loot going anywhere either.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/07/2018 03:25PM by dewcon4414.

dewcon4414 Wrote:
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>.... I bet archeologist sift thru a good bi
> t of that. Places like podra island .... and here
> in Fl were good examples. ....

Ok, sure. And the less those archaeologists (who might gripe) think of us .... THE BETTER. Odds are, that they spend 99% of their time in their ivory towers university offices "doing research" anyhow. And when/if they DO get out to dig, it's at a single 6' x 6' pit that takes them months to complete .

Tom....... you forgot to say....... some one other than them found the site and the government/arks just swooped in and put it off limits. We are incapable of preserving anything........yet the gov/arks would rather let a lot of the relics ect we find rust away than allow to have them. There doesnt seem to be compromise.

Dew, the screens or grates aren't small enough to sift out coinage.

Here is a paragraph from an article I pulled up:

< "New Jersey has been home to some well-publicized discoveries, including more than 1,100 pieces of munitions pumped ashore during beach replenishment work on a mile and a half of sand in Surf City and Ship Bottom on Long Beach Island in 2007. The items, mostly fuses, prompted temporary bans on the use of metal detectors and the digging of holes in the sand more than a foot deep. It also created a cottage industry in T-shirts with slogans like "Our beaches will blow you away!" and "I got bombed on L.B.I.!"

This is just a small sampling of what they found pumped in from offshore. Quite a few articles about discoveries that came through those pipes.

Also, the pesky little steel/iron chips on the beaches are from huge pipes used for sand transport from offshore, I believe.

dewcon4414 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Tom....... you forgot to say....... some one other
> than them found the site and the government/arks j
> ust swooped in and put it off limits. We are inca
> pable of preserving anything........yet the gov/ar
> ks would rather let a lot of the relics ect we fin
> d rust away than allow to have them. There doesn
> t seem to be compromise.


Yes. The private sector "evil diggers" have done more for the preservation and knowledge of history, than credentialed archies. For example: When they want to identify bottles, buttons, relics, etc.... that they just dug, what resource reference books do they turn to ?? Books written by detectorists & diggers. Doh !