To dig iron or not to dig iron?

Make no mistake I know there are Artifacts hiding in the iron ...No matter what machine is used we are missing targets. To dig iron or not????? [youtu.be]

I know some guys who have tried to be a hero, and "dig out all the iron" . Lest they miss something being masked. Or to sift an entire site.

But I agree with your video : At the end of the day, the time vs rewards don't add up. Only in rare exceptions would it be worthwhile to dig up all the iron. You will go psycho is some of the sites I've been in.

Does that mean you'll miss a coin under a RR spike ? SURE ! I'd rather use my time to move on to the next site, and merely rely on machines that are good at iron-see-through.

I agree 100 percent!

calabash digger Wrote:
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> I agree 100 percent!


Same here

last year (my second year hunting), I took a 6o foot square piece of a park built in 1800 and tried to see if I could "dig it all" .. I removed every signal my detector sounded off on, regardless of what I thought it could be .. at first it was mostly modern 1920 to date and about 8 or 9 inches at the deepest .. but the more I cleared the deeper the targets went and the older they got .. during this time six different guys stopped by to see what the 'new guy' was up to .. the first four told me they dug everything years before .. I would show them what I found that they missed .. by the time the last two guys stopped in I was digging early to mid 1800 coins and stuff (relics) .. I took an extra fifty or so pre 1900 coins from that park past the 8 inch mark, all of which couldn't be heard when I started and learned much more than what I set out to learn .. I am now down to a bed of nails and the charcoal of some sort of fire .. though no known buildings were ever erected there .. I wish, in retrospect, that I recorded what I was finding as it related to the detecting, but I wasn't expecting what happened to happen .. I'm sure that many more coins than I've dug were dug by the guys before me, but still that park has been a good stop for digging and still gives up something good every once in a while and I know there is a lot more still undug just waiting there. .. I'm thinking that next year I will start removing the square nails to see what they are hiding.

Scott..... That was an admirable experiment worth repeating. Thanks

Chris

Scott..........man after my heart. I have done exactly this...... most of my life. In fact..........I have written many articles exclusively pertaining to this.,.,.,.,.,., and posted them on this forum. . . . . . with all of the logged data.......usually in the capacity of: ""ratio's"".

Thanks for the heads up Tom .. I will be looking for your articles as time allows .. this is one corner of a four corner park .. I may try another corner and record my findings/doings there .. I was quite surprised with this corner .. totally unexpected as to what happened .. it changed the way I think of metal detecting and has been really enjoyable .. there are very few "virgin" spots around me .. but there are still a lot of good targets just waiting .. and I still dig targets from that park that are shallow and were somehow missed the many times I've gone over them. ..so my original intent to dig it all hasn't been realized. .. tonight is the first heavy freeze for the year, so this maybe a goal set to start next year.

There is no way that many holes would be allowed to be dug in any park I ever hunted. I would get booted and signs would go up. Private yards? Not going to happen. The places to dig every signal and actually find enough coins to make it worth while are rare. Really rare.

goodmore................that is correct. And for many places. But.............there are still many places that will accomodate this. I access them all the time.

We dug a 20 ft long pit 5 ft wide and almost 3 feet deep in a front yard of a Colonial House. We recovered one Eagle Button, few flats, brass pieces , dish, aluminum foil, cans , etc, also about 200 square nails if I had to guess.

For me the time and work were not worth it but thats just me.

From a scientific view point I could see where it would have a benefit.

Tom a friend of mine who is passed he was 80 turned me on to this forum and a article you had written about a field you had detected. It was about this very subject...

To be clear, this wasn't done in a day .. it was spread out over the course of a few months last year and a bit into this spring .... the other thing is that even though I didn't need to, I had permission from both the mayor and parks department .. both of which stop by from time to time to ask me how things are going ... you can do that (or anything) anywhere you want, as long as you have permission.