10 Tips for Beach Detecting

Intro: 

Hey Everybody. Welcome! To Episode 63 of the metal detecting show podcast. My Name is Ciaran and I have been Metal Detecting for nearly 30 Years. This week as we are gretting back into summer I want to give my top ten tips for Beach detecting so lets get on with the show.

Music

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Content:

Hi All I hope you had a great Week this week I guess I was wrong last week when I predicted another week of Irish Rain as Ireland went into a two day hot streak with temps hitting a mighty 21 degrees C or 70 degrees F. 

Which is probably laughably winter like conditions for some of you listeners but this is hot in Ireland resulting in the one day of the year where Irish beaches got packed to the gobbles and my son James says. 

I got out for a quick blast of my thimble beach with more of the same finds of some toast and copper bits and bobs but nothing major however knowing that the beach’s were packed out I planned another hunt today when everyone is back working. 

im writing and recording this episode early this week so by the time this episode is live ill have hit the beach’s again and hopefully ill have had enough to buy myself a coffee wink wink trying not to curse myself here. 

So with the heat wave I thought it would be a good time to recap or recount my top ten tips for beach hunting. 

Now most weeks I would have to do some level of research for the topic of the week however I have been detecting beaches successfully for the last god 20+ years jebus and I generally measure my success by the following metric. 

Do I find enough targets to pay for my current metal detector for example I used the minelab quattro for a few years and was able to say after about three years that I had easily covered the 1000 dollar cost of the machine. 

Right now I use the equinox or CTX on the beach but to be fair if I’m hunting relics or historic targets I go with the 6 inch on the CTX so I class my equinox as my go to detector for beach hunting and have I been successful enough to pay for this detector over the last few years not a successful as the quattro however I have been varying my detecting looking for more historic targets but I would be confident that if I did go back to focusing on Coins and Jewellery hunting on beaches I would most definitely have paid for the Equinox by now. 

So here is my top ten tips for beach hunting in no particular order and starting at 1.

1.     Only go to beach’s that are popular with sunbathers picnicer’s and swimmer’s, What I mean there is very little opportunity in searching a beach which is popular for dog walking and not popular for actual beach activities. If you have to travel a few hours to these place then do it it is always worth it and worth the extra gasoline money.

2.     Golden or dry Sand is not your friend. Two points here Firstly if your detector only operates effectively on dry sand then you need to change up your detector for one that does you are limiting your search area too much just to focus on the dry sand. most rings fall off in the water and if your detector cant handle the wet or the salt then change it up if you are going to focus on beach detecting. Second point if you look at a beach and watch how the sand moves you will see that it forms dunes or banks of loose sand and a lot of people do sit on these and drop stuff but if you have ever dropped anything on deep sand you will see how quick that drops down through the sand never to be found again even with a detector because it drops down beyond the detection field of the detector or is moved with the shifting sand to somewhere else on the beach.

3.     The opposite to point 2 look out for the cut what’s the cut I hear you say. The cut is where waves have eroded the sand away due to some topographical difference in the sea bed pulling the sand of the beach leaving hard compact sand and stones exposed this is the opposite to thick golden sands but can be a hot spot for targets as they have fallen through the sand to rest on the hard packed sand previously. It also acts as a sluice capturing any targets that make be in the process of being pulled out to sea by snagging them on rocks or pebbles. But be warns just because a Cut may be there one day it could be totally gone the next so if you spy a cut on the beach hit that first because you never know when you will get the opportunity to hit that spot again.

4.     Use a Long handled Sand scoop, speed is key for beach detecting and in my opinion a long handled sand scoop is more important than a pin pointer on a beach. A Sand scoop normally has a large head so pin pointing the approximate location with your detector should be sufficient for you to pull the target out easily and quickly.

5.     Know what you’re looking for your not looking for relic’s on the beach so set you detector accordingly what you’re looking for is setting your detectors discrimination up for coin shooting and high conductivity targets. Mask out all Iron if you can this will filter out all those bottle caps and cans but don’t go to mad remember pull tabs often give a similar signal as gold rings so I’m actually happy if I’m pulling up pultabs it means that im not gonna miss a high value target and remember it only takes one high value target to make your year. I don’t dig 50/50 targets any more I used to but I know that the time I would spend digging a 50/50 signal is better served getting to the next target which may be a keeper.

6.     Turn down your sensitivity im not talking about having to turn it down to make your detector work properly on a beach but actually turn it down to remove very small targets think about it realistically. You could have your sensitivity up full blast picking up every little target under the sand but whats the liklehood that these will be good finds very slim remember sensitivity adjusts the size of the detected target at depth not your depth and it has been shown time and time again that adjusting sensitivity has very little effect on depth. So I turn down my sensitivity to anything below a penny size leaving all the coins and jewellery I may lose some lost earings but that’s the price im willing to pay.

7.     Probably linked to point 2 about golden sands the closer the Sea or river the less rubbish will be present making it easier to pick out the good targets this is why surf detecting is so popular however expect to not to have to dig loads of finds so you may go for long periods of time without any targets resulting in the desperation dig where your just digging the target because you just want to dig something.

8.     Look out for hotspots for example under piers or streams where people may clean there feet and hands or wash there bits and bobs. Coffee docks ice cream vendors all attract the use of coinage for now anyways so look for the path of least resistance to these places because it is likely stuff gets dropped on the way there checking to make sure you have enough cash and back checking you got the right change. Public toilets are a favourite of mine I pick a line up the beach to the public toilet and hunt till I get to the exit which I hit hard till it gives up its goodies.

9.     Be Prepaired to hunt on the rocks or in the rock pools this can be a taxing hunt but rocks and rock pools are essentially a large net snagging and capturing any and all targets in the area. I specifically hunt these with a hori knife or a trowel but remember you don’t want to be scraping a 1c coin out of a crack for 10 mins so make sure you focus only on the high value signals here.

10.  Hit the dunes not to be confused with golden sands dunes are formed when sand gets trapped due to vegetation becoming essentially a mixture of sand and grass but a popular spot for canoodling or picnicking for coin spills go to the dunes.

11.  Bonus tip use Stratification or Granulation to your benefit. I have found success in the past with the following technique if I find a small lead sinker I know this has a density that is very close to gold so I will scribe an imaginary line along the beach matching the sea in my head and follow this arc across the beach. Knowing that there is a good chance that any gold will have been moved into this band based on its density. granulation is the same effect but occurs because of object size did you every go to a Stoney beach and see the stones graded from large to small this is Granulation and can be used to help you grid the beach. 

12.  Bonus Bonus Tip wear sunscreen and hydrate. Keep warm and dry for a longer hunt.

Wrap Up 

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Once again, I hope you have enjoyed this episode and we will chat to you all again next week. 

Get out there eyes down and Happy Hunting.