The last couple of days I noticed the ten year anniversary of the big 1715 Fleet 300th anniversary find. I was a few day early, but I'm often a little early or late on things. Nonetheless it is still there to be read. Today I'm going in a different direction.
Above is a puzzle that will test your creative problem-solving skills. You mi ght have seen this puzzle before. I think I even presented it once some years ago. It illustrates something important that applies very strongly to treasure hunting.
Here is what you are supposed to do. Connect all nine dots using only four connecting straight lines without hitting any dot more than once.
It might seem difficult, but it can be done.
Here is one hint: think outside the box. I don't generally like that expression, but in this case, it is very fitting.
The same thing applies to metal detecting. People often metal detect "inside the box." Here is a very good example. I once stopped at a place that had picnic tables on an inland waterway beach. There were a couple posts a little way out in the water and at the north and south ends of the parking areas.
I did some metal detecting in the water in front of the picnic and parking area. I could tell that the area within the rectangular area defined by the posts and the ends of the parking area had been very heavily detected and cleaned out. Not so much as a pull tab was to be found within that area. However, when I detected just outside of the rectangular area, there were targets. In fact I found three gold rings very quickly just outside the bounds of the area marked by the poles. It seemed that the previous detectorists took the poles very much like people take the dots in the puzzle as the outward bounds of an area. That is natural perceptual closure. While people stopping at the picnic site may have mostly used the area within the poles, they sometimes ventured beyond that, but the detectorist or detectorists that usually detected there, evidently did not.
Similarly, the solution to the puzzle above involves NOT seeing the dots as containing an area defined by the posts acting as corners. Our perceptual system naturally sees the outside dots as a creating a border or boundary of a closed area.
The same thing happens many times in life and with metal detecting. Most detectorists walk out onto a beach and turn on their metal detector at around the same area and then metal detect in front of the parking lot area. Often you will find that going a little farther in one direction or another will produce more finds as you go a little farther than most detectorists. I said that before one time and got an email from one reader that tried that and said they found more than ever before at a particular beach when they went a little farther north than they usually did.
Detectorists tend to detect the easiest areas and avoid some nearby areas that could be more productive. I've often found that a mowed yard will be pretty well cleaned out but found some good things by sticking my coil in under bushes around the border. Don't stick to the most obvious or easiest areas to detect. There are times to think outside the box and the boxes are more numerous than than they should be.
Areas close to beach chairs or metal fences often produced good finds. You can learn to detect those areas that others might find difficult because of the metal. Very often a beach in front of a resort will be pretty well cleaned out but by learning to detect closer to metal chairs or other objects like that you can do well.. In fact, it seems a lot of things are lost right at or under the chairs. Watch for signs in the sand indicating that chairs have been recently moved.
You can also learn to detect along chain link fences. You can do that by using an all-metals or pinpoint mode and moving the coil very slowly parallel to the fence - not back and forth towards and away from the fence.
Don't stop with those ideas. That is just a beginning. Think about other areas that you might have been skipped. You can learn to detect other areas that might not be so easy to detect, such as around rocks that many won't bother with. You can sometimes move things such as rocks too, or cut weeds, bushes or trees.
Watch for perceptual boundaries and break out of them. Get to know how your perceptual system and break out. Break out of your old habits. That will open up surprising new territories even if they aren't neat squares. In fact, they'll often be squiggly odd areas.
People are very similar. That is why creative solutions are so rare even if they were staring you in the face the entire time.
I recently noticed an article that popped up on the internet talking about TV viewers discovering "fakery" on the American Pickers reality TV program. ( American Pickers viewers spot 'fakery' in reality TV show as ratings plummet). In the past I've done posts about the fakery of reality TV. How real can you expect reality TV to be? You realize that reality TV shows are produced and edited to produce drama and get attention.
Of course there is fakery in reality TV, but what the article was talking about concerning the Pickers show seemed very trivial to me. The criticism was something to the effect that Jersey and Mike were talking as they rode to the pick together in one van, but the viewers noticed that Jersey got out of a different van than Mike at the site. I didn't pay much attention to the details of the article but I hope that everybody realizes that TV shows are produced and there are camera crews and much editing before the show is complete. What you see is only part of the story, and what you don't notice may be an even bigger part.
If you were of age in the 1970s, you probably heard McLuhan's theory that goes something like, "The medium is the message." The point is that the content blinds the observer to the medium.". In other words, you see the content but at the same time don't pay attention to or notice the medium. You can get lost in the content and forget you are looking at it on a 2 dimensional TV or movie screen. You don't normally analyze how the shots were made or the scenes put together (or how the illusion is created) but the medium is a big part of the content.
The point I'd emphasize here is that humans have selective attention. They are drawn to focus on some things while ignoring others. The perceptual system is very active. It reorganizes and filters. That leads to natural tendencies. You might them ruts.
I very often go along a beach and later return the same way. And often I find myself stepping on my own footprints coming the other direction. I don't do it intentionally, but I choose a path, which often coincides whichever way I am going. People react to cues in the environment more than they realize. Maybe they are drawn to a certain area of the beach not too far from or close to the water, or avoid seaweeded areas, or walk along firmer areas, which are slightly easier to walk on. There are many things in the environment that shape behavior on a subconscious level.
I just ran across an old (1997) magazine containing an article by H. Glenn Carson, who wrote several metal detecting books and published many magazine articles and was an editor for at least one magazine. Glen was well known back in the day but passed away in 2013. The article was about paying attention to subtle and often overlooked clues in the environment. That is one thing I am recommending today.
Here is the solution to the puzzle.
'Flesh-eating' bacteria Florida update: Vibrio vulnificus cases rise to 13.
Four Floridians have died from Vibrio vulnificus infections in 2025, with 13 cases reported statewide.
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| Surf Forecast for the Fort Pierce Inlet Area from SurfGuru.com. |
More days of flat surf for the Treasure Coast. Good time to take a dip.
Make sure to not get overheated and stay hydrated.
Good hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net