Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Metal detecters - fun hobby or waste of time?

I always wear a good set of headphones. It does feel a lot different wearing them as in it isolates you from everything else. I liked to have my pitbull with me back when I used to go a lot. He would make big circles around me in the woods keeping me in sight, that would help keep away that feeling that someone was sneaking up on me.

When I was on deployment to the Med in the Marines I was out flying with my CO. He was real interested in Roman history on the African continent. He had some maps of certain Roman battles and we landed in Tunisia, out in the middle of know where and he got out with his metal detector and started looking for Roman artifacts. He had planned on doing this since he had taken command of the squadron, knowing we were going to deploy to club med.

Train him to sniff out truffles

Not only dig everything, but after you dig down and find your target, make another sweep over the hole with the coil to make sure you don't get another ping. On more than one occasion a deeper nugget has been found over a shallower one. And not to mention many cases where something valuable was left after something was found on top of it.

Exactly.

Likely not going to get rich, but it gets a feller outside.

I bought one years ago with the idea I'd use it to look for lost aluminum arrows behind my backstop. It works great for that.

I've used it to look for coins in a dirt parking lot at a couple of boat ramps with the permission from some park rangers. After looking for a couple of hours, I didn't have enough change to buy a cold drink. Part of the deal was that I throw away any trash I dug up. I doubt that I could get that permission again and don't think I want to try.

I have found several rings and necklaces, but I had a general idea where those were lost and was asked to look for them.

The greatest value was the time I spent with my boys when they were growing up looking for stuff. They would get as excited about an old button off some kids jeans as they would have if we had found a gold coin.

I use a Fisher QuickSilver. Mainly for coin, it picks up round
semi-round objects. I use the headphones, the tones help alot.
Always check under old clothes lines. I need to go out more.

That'll get you shot in a lot of places...

I had a Radio Shack model back in the early 70's, it picked out plenty of junk and I grew tired of if quick, preferring my bicycle and Yamaha 60.

I avoid crowds pretty much all of the time, but I did think it would be fun to search Buffalo Bayou west of downtown Houston after a big event, like FreedomFest.

always wanted to try it, i like hiking and it goes along with the rockhounding and fossil hunting i already like to do....may have to look out for a good lightly used model from someone that decided it wasnt for them whole lot of homesteads around here.....

Weren't you a your ex involved in a newspaper? With connections to other local publishers, especially ones who have archives of old printings, I'd think you may be ahead of the game from the git go as far as research goes.

yeah she owns part of two area papers.....prolly have a couple years worth of spots without touching the archives though, my family has been here for most of 100 years and know some places ild hit and even have permission to be on....

Way back when, it was common to bury/hide valuables...the older the location, the better...if you decide to do it Sheridan, remember....dig every signal you get...clean the area the best you can & then return with a "Minelab" pulse induction (GP series) model. You'd be amazed at how much deeper they'll find stuff...especially the bigger targets. Be forewarned though...I've dug boot tacks almost at near 2' depth...

Here in SC one of my former coworkers was big into it. IN addition to the verrrry nice detector he had this little hand held unit that you could put into the hole after digging to see if there was anything there. He paid for his by taking it to Myrtle Beach and sweeping the beaches at dawn every day. he would also work the fields and similar areas after concerts and football game parking areas, that kind of thing, so it is not like he was finding treasures or any of that, and he was less than scrupulous about advertising the lost items found

That said, if you are into ti, good luck