Beach South of the Fort Pierce Inlet This Morning.I stopped here yesterday morning and was surprised once again by how many coins you can find on some of the Treasure Coast beaches. There are so many detectorists out there and some of the beaches are detected to death, but other beaches evidently aren't hunted that much.
Yesterday I stopped by John Brooks to see what was going on because I got a report and wanted to see it for myself. When I got there I could see that conditions weren't good at all but detected for a little while anyhow. I think it's a good idea to test your ideas every once in a while, because sometimes you'll find something strange and other times you'll learn something new.
By the way the beach conditions at John Brooks deteriorated even more last night.
Anyhow, after spending just a little time there yesterday, I moved on, and on the way home decided to stop at the spot shown above. Some old finds were made there in the past (both shipwreck and WWII) and found what I would describe as a large (both wide and long) coin line.
You may remember some of my posts on coin lines from the past.
I wish I had my camera then, because it would have made a great illustration. Not only was the line easy to see from my holes, but you could also see my scan pattern because there weren't any other tracks in the sand. other than mine. You could clearly see my path and the holes that I dug. Maybe I'll try to draw an illustration of that when I find time.
I didn't want to detect long or hard since I strained my back a couple of day before and wanted to take it easy. Well, I ended up digging almost continuously for a little over an hour and almost all of them were deep enough that I had to take at least three or four scoops in packed wet sand. That wasn't exactly what the doctor ordered for the back, but I hate to leave a coin hole or coin line without cleaning it out. This time I probably left a few because I didn't want to push my back any more.
Speaking of testing your ideas - I found that this line was upside down. In most ways it was classic, but the quarters and nickels were at the top of the slope and the zinc pennies at the bottom of the slope. That is not typical. The zinc pennies were also buried deep - and the quarters were relatively shallow. That is also sort of unusual in my experience.
There was two layers of densely packed sand, the top more coarse and loose than the second, and then there was a third deeper layer of shells averaging about seven inches deep but varying to as much as twelve or more. Many targets seemed to be laying on the top of or near the layer of shells.
As much as I hate to leave a coin line or hole unfinished, I'm sure I left some items behind this time.
One reason to work out a coin line is that sometimes something more interesting pops up in between the coins.
One thing to take away from this is that there are places out there still holding a lot of modern coins even when conditions are not good for finding shipwreck coins on the treasure beaches.
Now the reason for the title of my post today. I went back to Fort Pierce today figuring that I would see how much I left yesterday. Well, there was several feet of new sand on top of the layers that I was working yesterday. There were still some quarters and nickels at the top of the slope near the dunes. I was surprised how much sand built up there last night though.
Sometimes good holes last only a few hours and sometimes the erosion and hunting conditions continues to improve at a specific spot for days or weeks.
Forecast and Conditions.
Even though conditions aren't good on most of the treasure beaches, there has been enough movement of sand to produce useful erosion in some places like the one I found yesterday.
By the way, did I mention that they are planning to renourish Indian River County beaches again very soon. That is the report that I got.
Right now, look for places where there are just to the south of any obstacles to the natural flow of sand, such as south of jetties, inlets, rocks, walls, etc.
Yesterday the beach at Fort Pierce was eroded almost all the way back to the sea oats. A few of the sea oats might have even been washed out too. Yesterday that beach provided a very good example of how you might find some decent hunting where there is simply some sort of obstacle to the flow of sand.
I would suspect you might be able to find some other spots like that out there somewhere.
The wind is now from the north/northeast and the high tides are still coming up nice and high. Seas will only be about f feet today and then decrease for a few days.
I'd then be looking for some nice low low tide areas.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net