randy
11-11-2011, 07:41 PM
Couldn't hunt at all last weekend >{ >{ but vowed to make up for it during the week.
Monday was back to the small park in an 1890s neighborhood that produced a barber Q and a few other silvers on the last hunt. Slowly expanding the grid, I pulled 4 more silver coins :happydance01:, tho nothing older than rosies and mercs.
Tuesday was back to the same site hoping to pull something older, but the fish just weren't biting. 4.5 hours of hunting netted 11 wheates, but nothing shiny >:{. The wheaties were telling me I was doing the right thing by patiently expanding the grid, but all that matters at the end of the day, when all the thinking and rationalizing is done, is the shiny in the pouch, and it was nada. I have quite a nice streak of consecutive silver hunts going, and while I shouldn't be thinking of such, its hard not to, so I blew out of there, and decided to hunt sidewalk strips until I got one silver coin to keep the streak alive, and hopefully still have time to make it to work on time. Hunting fast with an E-Trac is impossible, so I'm hunting slowly fast lol, and only digging sweet sound of silver targets (and if you've never hunted sidewalk strips before, its bit different than than parks, as there's even more trash, so the signals and tones are even more mucked up), but eventually I got one in the trash that turned out to be a merc; blew out of there and made it to work by 4:02 :crazy: Close enough :clapping:
Wednesday -- while I love the previous site, its hard, grueling, and intense. All the silver is hard and in the trash, and the auto tracks as low as 13. Its great site, but it requires intense focus, and I needed a break from that intensity. Decided to hit another site in the same town that I've hit twice previously, both times with zero silvers. First time was with another machine, and second time was with the E-Trac but in the dead of summer when the dirt was bone dry. In retrospect, both hunts were not at the best part of the site. Now that I'm better at research, reading sites, and the E-Trac, decided to give it another go in a different section.
First hour was digging deep 60s and 70s clad (which is a good sign), and eventually got a wheatie :happydance01: This opens the site, as I like to say ('cause you always have to worry about regrading and the like), so I kept at it, and soon hit a walker at just 5 inches <: :happydance01: happydance02 Are you kidding me? This is my 6th walker of the year :shocked03: and 10th silver half of the year :omg:; personal records that I will never never never ever break. Kept at it and hit a silver Q in the next 20 minutes happydance02 and decided to set up a grid between those two points.
Hit three silver dimes in that grid for a 5 spot on the day before having to get to work. Perhaps another honeyhole on my hands.
Thursday -- Back to Wednesday's site, expanding the grid in the promising direction, but nada. Not even a single deep clad. Was mystified. :confused: :confused: Played with channels, stressed out about why no deep targets were hitting. Stressed out about my long silver streak. Decided I'd give it 'til lunch to find something deep, then go elsewhere. Nothing by lunch, so went elsewhere, but in the same park. One thing about lunch is I turn the machine off and take off my gloves and so forth. After lunch, was hitting deep targets in a different part of the park, including a hunt saving rosie. Did turning the machine off and on reboot a key circuit? I don't want to think so (and I don't think so), but I make a mental note of such (especially after working in the software biz for over 20 years lol). Anyway, the hunt-saving rosie was the only silver to be found in 5 hours in what yesterday looked like a honeyhole. At least the silver streak was still alive.
Friday is the traditional farewell hunt day, cycle the found clad back into a local restaurant lunch, but I wasn't ready to farewell any of the sites in this town yet, so I decided to go the original site that lead me to this town but was closed on that day, and thus lead me to my 127 silver honeyhole site a couple blocks over.
Site was still under construction, but accessible. Bulldozers has scraped off the top layer grass <: <: <: and I was ready to roll. Hit a wheatie and a merc fairly quickly, but the dozers made the digging tough due to the packed dirt. Site is also very exposed, and the cold wind was biting at me, but at least my silver streak was still alive.
An oldtimer who lives next to the site is waving to me, so I go over to talk to him, hoping to get permission to hunt his oldtimer house >8) >8) >8). He's lived next to the site all his life, and gives me the intel on where the kids played baseball, football, the current construction project and prospective regrading, and so forth :happydance01:. Totally valuable intel, and he asks me if I can find a water plug on his property. Sure, how hard could that be? What's it made of? Steel. How big is it? Six inches. How deep? On the surface. So I go AMM and auto, not exactly sure what I'm looking for, and hit target after target; its clear he doesn't want me digging in his yard >:# as he scrapes the area with a knife, and eventually I get an overload signal, and its clear that that's this water plug, and sure enough it is. He's happy, and while I didn't get to dig for rosies in his yard, I'm happy, as no doubt he's a veteran given his age (tho we never talked such), and I hope my minor good deed is something in face of his major good deed on this day.
His intel did not pan out. No deep targets in the zones he suggested. No problem. The intel will be valuable later, and if not, the experience certainly was, so off to lunch.
After lunch back to the 1890s neighborhood and park, and local sidewalk strips. It would be nice to end this long story with the details of how I pulled a seated coin from such, but the fact is that I pulled nada after lunch (except a wheatie and enough clad to buy next Friday's lunch), so tell it like it is. But one thing that was really cool was all the people who stopped to talk metal detecting -- no less than three people stopped and said they had a machine, but that it was just gathering dust, and they rapped with me about getting out. I don't suspect that they ever will, but these are the experiences that make metal detecting fun, the shiny in the pouch notwithstanding.
Monday was back to the small park in an 1890s neighborhood that produced a barber Q and a few other silvers on the last hunt. Slowly expanding the grid, I pulled 4 more silver coins :happydance01:, tho nothing older than rosies and mercs.
Tuesday was back to the same site hoping to pull something older, but the fish just weren't biting. 4.5 hours of hunting netted 11 wheates, but nothing shiny >:{. The wheaties were telling me I was doing the right thing by patiently expanding the grid, but all that matters at the end of the day, when all the thinking and rationalizing is done, is the shiny in the pouch, and it was nada. I have quite a nice streak of consecutive silver hunts going, and while I shouldn't be thinking of such, its hard not to, so I blew out of there, and decided to hunt sidewalk strips until I got one silver coin to keep the streak alive, and hopefully still have time to make it to work on time. Hunting fast with an E-Trac is impossible, so I'm hunting slowly fast lol, and only digging sweet sound of silver targets (and if you've never hunted sidewalk strips before, its bit different than than parks, as there's even more trash, so the signals and tones are even more mucked up), but eventually I got one in the trash that turned out to be a merc; blew out of there and made it to work by 4:02 :crazy: Close enough :clapping:
Wednesday -- while I love the previous site, its hard, grueling, and intense. All the silver is hard and in the trash, and the auto tracks as low as 13. Its great site, but it requires intense focus, and I needed a break from that intensity. Decided to hit another site in the same town that I've hit twice previously, both times with zero silvers. First time was with another machine, and second time was with the E-Trac but in the dead of summer when the dirt was bone dry. In retrospect, both hunts were not at the best part of the site. Now that I'm better at research, reading sites, and the E-Trac, decided to give it another go in a different section.
First hour was digging deep 60s and 70s clad (which is a good sign), and eventually got a wheatie :happydance01: This opens the site, as I like to say ('cause you always have to worry about regrading and the like), so I kept at it, and soon hit a walker at just 5 inches <: :happydance01: happydance02 Are you kidding me? This is my 6th walker of the year :shocked03: and 10th silver half of the year :omg:; personal records that I will never never never ever break. Kept at it and hit a silver Q in the next 20 minutes happydance02 and decided to set up a grid between those two points.
Hit three silver dimes in that grid for a 5 spot on the day before having to get to work. Perhaps another honeyhole on my hands.
Thursday -- Back to Wednesday's site, expanding the grid in the promising direction, but nada. Not even a single deep clad. Was mystified. :confused: :confused: Played with channels, stressed out about why no deep targets were hitting. Stressed out about my long silver streak. Decided I'd give it 'til lunch to find something deep, then go elsewhere. Nothing by lunch, so went elsewhere, but in the same park. One thing about lunch is I turn the machine off and take off my gloves and so forth. After lunch, was hitting deep targets in a different part of the park, including a hunt saving rosie. Did turning the machine off and on reboot a key circuit? I don't want to think so (and I don't think so), but I make a mental note of such (especially after working in the software biz for over 20 years lol). Anyway, the hunt-saving rosie was the only silver to be found in 5 hours in what yesterday looked like a honeyhole. At least the silver streak was still alive.
Friday is the traditional farewell hunt day, cycle the found clad back into a local restaurant lunch, but I wasn't ready to farewell any of the sites in this town yet, so I decided to go the original site that lead me to this town but was closed on that day, and thus lead me to my 127 silver honeyhole site a couple blocks over.
Site was still under construction, but accessible. Bulldozers has scraped off the top layer grass <: <: <: and I was ready to roll. Hit a wheatie and a merc fairly quickly, but the dozers made the digging tough due to the packed dirt. Site is also very exposed, and the cold wind was biting at me, but at least my silver streak was still alive.
An oldtimer who lives next to the site is waving to me, so I go over to talk to him, hoping to get permission to hunt his oldtimer house >8) >8) >8). He's lived next to the site all his life, and gives me the intel on where the kids played baseball, football, the current construction project and prospective regrading, and so forth :happydance01:. Totally valuable intel, and he asks me if I can find a water plug on his property. Sure, how hard could that be? What's it made of? Steel. How big is it? Six inches. How deep? On the surface. So I go AMM and auto, not exactly sure what I'm looking for, and hit target after target; its clear he doesn't want me digging in his yard >:# as he scrapes the area with a knife, and eventually I get an overload signal, and its clear that that's this water plug, and sure enough it is. He's happy, and while I didn't get to dig for rosies in his yard, I'm happy, as no doubt he's a veteran given his age (tho we never talked such), and I hope my minor good deed is something in face of his major good deed on this day.
His intel did not pan out. No deep targets in the zones he suggested. No problem. The intel will be valuable later, and if not, the experience certainly was, so off to lunch.
After lunch back to the 1890s neighborhood and park, and local sidewalk strips. It would be nice to end this long story with the details of how I pulled a seated coin from such, but the fact is that I pulled nada after lunch (except a wheatie and enough clad to buy next Friday's lunch), so tell it like it is. But one thing that was really cool was all the people who stopped to talk metal detecting -- no less than three people stopped and said they had a machine, but that it was just gathering dust, and they rapped with me about getting out. I don't suspect that they ever will, but these are the experiences that make metal detecting fun, the shiny in the pouch notwithstanding.