Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.
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| Saturday Morning View of Beach South of Fort Pierce Jetty. |
Above is a view from Saturday afternoon. There are a couple of things I noticed. One is a very small, but insignificant cut. The more significant is the number of people on the beach up by the condos. The weather is beautiful and has been for a while. The snow birds are coming back and the weather has been so nice that a lot of people have been going to the beach.
There is a lot of good metal detecting this time of year. Not just the beaches. You can find modern losses from beach goers, but it is also the time of year when we can get a few cold fronts and some higher surf. But there is even more than that. This time of year, the undergrowth is diminished. And we've had especially dry weather, so you can more easily detect some of those overgrown wooded areas that are normally thickly overgrown and hard to detect.
If you are a beach detectorist you might not like getting out in the trees and brush. It can be a pain if you are accustomed to the beach where there is easy swinging and digging, so if you do get into the weeds and brush, be prepared. There might be vines, thorns, spiders and roots everywhere you need to dig, but it can be done, and you can find some interesting things doing that. That isn't for everyone, but some of you might enjoy the challenge and you might find something good.
I like doing various kinds of detecting because it seems it forces you to learn when you have to deal with other kinds of environments and types of hunting.
I've had a great time out in the boonies where everyone told me there wouldn't be anything good. I've found gold as well as historical artifacts and coins in the most unlikely looking places. You might think nobody has ever been there to lose anything good, but my experience is that people have been almost everywhere, even if there are no signs of human activity.
You'll probably have to make some adjustments to your equipment and how you detect, but if you put any real time into it, I bet you'll learn some things that will help you when you get back to the beach.
I'm often amazed by how much is found where you've never seen a single person, but if you can get there without extreme hardship, other people have probably been there no matter whether you are talking about the Everglades or mountain hillsides.
There are times when the most unlikely looking places turn out to provide some really good hunting. For one thing, some of those kinds of places haven't been detecting much or at all. The kinds of areas I talking about won't be heavily detected like our world-famous beaches. Our beaches have been detected to death, yet you can still make good finds there. Think about finding a place where no one has detected before.
I like to detect places that look like they've never been detected before. You can usually tell that fairly quickly when you start to detect and see what is or is not in the ground. A lot of those places don't' change daily, like our beaches, and the finds might be right where they were dropped hundreds of years ago.
I talk often about reading beaches, but you can read any site. There will always be some signs that suggest spots you will want to check. But one mistake many people make is to detect the easy spots. Most detectorists will be drawn to the same spots, while some spots remain untapped. Sometimes you can find those areas by walking a little farther or working a little harder or smarter.
Many will have some areas that anyone would detect first and other areas that most everybody will pass up. Even a lot of the old abandoned beaches will have bushes protecting some areas. I always like to stick my detector back under the bushes and make sure to hit any areas that have other obstacles that a many people will avoid. Not only will the branches and roots cause others to miss protected targets, but they can also trap coins and things. A limb or fallen tree can guide the currents and trap coins and things. I once picked up five mercury dimes in one scoop at the end of a fallen palm log on a beach.
I like to hit steep areas on hillsides. They tend to steadily erode and remain bare rather than collect leaves and build (like a building beach). It might be hard to detect on such a steep hillside but can definitely be worth it. You might need a good set of cleats, or even a rope tied around a tree, but it can be done. Those areas will generally be avoided by most detectorists but often produce good finds. Back down the hillside with a rope around you and a shortened detector rod to detect the ground right in front of you. I've told about doing that before on a Caribbean Island. Not only was it fun, but it produced some of my first Revolutionary War era artifacts.
The point of today's post is to get you to think about trying new things when your old habit might not be producing so much. As I've often said, there is always somewhere to detect and something to find. This is a great time of year in Florida for metal detecting. Try something new. Maybe even something that seems a little crazy. I bet there are some areas near you just begging to be tried.
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| Surf Chart from SurfGuru.com. |
Tonight we'll see a bump in the surf but the chart, but it will be quick. Notice the wind shift on the chart.