Any adice on this Tom .. or anyone?

I've been thinking that I'm just not cut out for this detecting hobby because I never find anything good. Well, rarely anyway.

But I've got this competitive thing going on inside me that just won't let me qut. I know what the problem is ... I don't get out enough. It's that simple. And I add to the problem myself, by being too anxious when I DO get out to an awesome site like an old homestead over 200 years old with only 1 day to detect it.

I played with my settings while detecting that old site. Strike 1. I went in with batteries I put in this spring and I've detected enough this year to wear them down. Strike 2.

Strike 3 comes when I'm completely out of a detector, so that's not gonna happen. I'll always at least have a base hit wherever I go. Even if it happens to be a walk to first base ...

I've got a new game coming up on Sunday. Again, this is old property that I don't believe has ever been detected. I just have to pick wich "field" I wanna play in. There are at least 3 foundations sitting up in the woods waiting for me. It may be tough swinging, but I'll be there.

The foundations are off this old county road:


Here's one foundation I found last weekend. I never found the others, and this one wasn't even on the old 1912 map:



I poked around this one for a bit but didn't dig anything. I could see metal in the bottom of the foundation and it had been there a long time. No signs of movement.

This is the well that accompanied that foundation:



And here's something else .. It appears to be an old entrance to something. There's a break in the rock wall and if you look at that tree on the right, there's an old sign. No signs of what it might have said.




So ... in these types of conditions, what kind of settings should I be running on my Fisher CZ-3D? Should I notch out up to coins on the discrimination? Should I run the ground at the turn on and go settings? And the sensitivity ... well, I usually can't get much above 3, which is the turn on and go notch.

Any advice?

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/13/2007 01:35AM by Snowy.

Hi Snowy,

Here in Florida.... it is rare that I hunt the woods. Modern Zinc pennies have been found at 11" & 12" in most areas. The target sink-rate is too fast. Once in a while, you may hit a patch of dirt, where.... for some reason, old targets did not sink out of range. My recommendation is to run Disc on '0' so you can hear all of the tones..... and run Sens as high as possible without having too much overdrive/falsing. Detect several areas until you find areas with the most targets. Now.... slow down and focus your energy on these 'busy' areas. Sample/recover the mid-tones and high tones. If the targets show good depth..... but the targets are modern trash,,,,,..... switch to another area where soil is more stable .. and will produce older items at detectable depths. Look (audibly) for areas that have a lot of iron targets. Nearly all of the time.... these are the older areas. Don't be affraid to sample some of the iron targets.... to see if they are hammered square-nails, cut square-nails.... or more modern standard nails. The iron trash/nails will render info on area 'era'. The older the site... the more iron trash presense exists. Newer sites produce more aluminum trash. And if you believe the site to be quite old.... but you are only finding aluminum trash,,,, the target sink-rate is a failure. Welcome to most sites we hunt!

Once again... sample a good handful of mid-tones and high-tone targets. This will dictate your labor & direction efforts.

Tom

Thanks Tom ... and for the record, that's my husband in the picture .. not me ... He's the one that got me into detecting even though people told him, "She's a girl and girls don't like to dig in the dirt!" LOL ...

Anyway, I'm going to give this a shot. I've never detected in the manner you suggest so I'll give it a shot tomorrow. These sites are very old ... the homes were there in the early 1800s (built late 1700s to early 1800s). Some are marked on the 1912 map but not all, and by 1941 all of the homes were gone from the maps. These foundations are off an old county road used to get to the ferry to cross the river before a bridge was built further up the river.

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Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.

Let us know how you do in those woods!

Tom

Nails, nails, nails and even more nails. I first tried around an old (and very dead) apple tree and got nothing but a nail ~ square, long, and only 2 inches from the surface. In other areas they were up to 7 inches down. But they were all square nails ~ nothing modern. No one found any modern trash. My husband found a crotal bell at 2 inches, and a friend found a very old button at about 6 to 7 inches.

We didn't detect the foundation pictured in the post above. We walked past it to find another one we had heard about. It was a hike about a mile UP, but it was worth it ... strange foundation shape. The area is EXTREMELY clean of modern trash. This is a place that's been forgotten. No one goes there. The couple that told me about it only noticed it while jogging one day. We detected for a little over an hour up there and got rained out.

I'd bet a few paychecks this place has never been detected. The land owner doesn't even know it's there. It's not marked on any maps. Historians don't know about it. AND ... there are no signs of any bottle digging.

I've got a vacation in October (I take one in the spring and one in the fall for detecting purposes). I'll be up there again soon to spend an entire day, but if we don't get visit the site as much as we'd like this summer we're going to be hiding out up there during the day on vacation.

Tom ~ I couldn't get my sensitivity up above 3. I don't know if it's just me being sensitive to the signals or if it was falsing.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/15/2007 06:22PM by Snowy.

Hmmmm..... I believe your detector has a 'stability' issue? Uncertain. ..... Also,,, what would be ideal for this site is if you had a 5" coil for these old square-nail infested sites. I'd be recovering all non-ferrous targets now. You may be surprised! Keep us posted.

Tom

Well, all I've got is the stock 8 inch coil. I've been wanting to get additional coils but just haven't been able to yet.

I'll be visiting the site again within a couple weeks and I'll try the sesitivity again. You've told me several times you believe my detector has a stability problem. I've sent it in once, but perhaps I'll send it in again this winter. It's my only detector so I don't want to be without.

I'll be digging a lot of signals ... and I'll be the only one walking away from the site with junk .. again. lol ... But this is a dream site. The foundation isn't on an 1812 map, nor a 1912, nor a 1941. We're guessing it was pre 1812 and shorter lived, or somewhere between 1812 to 1912. It's hard telling because on the 1812 map the wooded road leading to the house is shown, but no foundation. It's also in a very early settled area in western Maine. I've been to many of these locations before, but none that were this untouched by detectorists and bottle diggers.

I wish you were closer to hit this one with us Tom. I sure could use some good help since I'm alone in the Fisher world around here.

We'll see.

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Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.