Written by the TreasureGuide exclusively for the treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.
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| One to two foot cuts on one Treasure Coast Beach this morning. |
I thought I better get out to see what the beaches were doing, so this morning I took a look at a couple of places.
Here is one photo of what I saw. There were some cuts. The water had been up over the first step and I think took some sand from the second step.
At one beach I found 0 to 1 to 2 foot cuts at various places.
At another beach I saw up to three foot cuts. Despite the three foot cuts I didn't feel conditions had improved enough to start producing cobs yet. The front beach was still pretty mushy in places.
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| Up to two-foot cuts here. |
On one beach targets were very few. On another beach there some scattered modern coins and a little jewelry (See below).
The productive spot was in front of a three foot cut and was in sand covering shells that were down about a half foot to a foot.
The coin line was about half way between the water and the foot of the cut.
If the wind continues from the North long enough we might get enough improvement to increase my Treasure Beach Detecting Conditions Rating, but it isn't there yet. I'm still at a 1 on my beach conditions rating for now.
Yesterday I showed how James F. used his GPS and map overlay software to show where he had been detecting. That could be quite useful, especially when you hit some good finds or hot spots and map them over time.
When I check a beach, normally I'll first try to determine where any good spots might be. If I had previous experience with a specific beach, and knew where good things tend to be found that would be my first consideration.
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| 14K Band Find |
Knowing your beaches really helps. If you know a beach very well, you know where the hot spots are, where you have found things in the past and where they tend to accumulate. You might even know how the hot spots tend to change with the seasons or other conditions.
When you get to the beach, visually scan it from the water to the dunes and as far as you can see north to south. Some people take binoculars so they can get a good look at the beach for a long distance. Of course, check for any erosion, low spots, or movement of sand. Check for shell piles and notice accumulations of rocks and the different types of sand.
I also go a lot by the feel of the sand. Notice where the sand is soft and where it is firmly packed. You can tell by feel when the sand is covering a layer of shells. Determine as well as you can what is under the top layer of sand.
After doing all of that I would either focus on any areas that look promising or I would start a loose scan pattern with the detector to gain additional information. Are there areas where there is a lot of aluminum, copper, iron, coins or whatever?
After all of that, you might be ready to focus on some of the more promising areas and really tighten up your scan pattern. When you find enough evidence to indicate a productive area, tighten up your scan pattern, perhaps using a tight grid.
The first thing I hunt is a good area. Once I find a good area where I want to spend some serious time then I can get down to mining a more or less dense accumulation of targets.
I normally wouldn't use a tight grid until after I locate an area like that. If I can't find a good well-defined target-rich area, I'll either move to another beach or be content with hunting whatever scattered targets there might be.
According to the surfing web sites we have a 3 - 4 foot surf around the Treasure Coast today. It looked to me like it might be a little rougher than that.
The surf is not predicted to increase the next couple of days.
A lot depends upon the wind and wave direction. If the waves hit from the North through the next high tide or two we might get a little more improvement. I'm not expecting much though.
Happy hunting
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
