The beach has always been a favorite location to do metal detecting for novice and experts alike. There are a plethora of reasons why. First, beaches are always frequented by a lot of people, and all that running around can cause them to go careless with their valuables. Coins and valuables easily get lost in the sand because they get buried under all those piles the moment they drop, and a metal detector is just the perfect device to find them. The fact that most people apply slippery sunscreen raises the probability of losing metallic baubles and trinkets, as well.
WAIT UNTIL THE COAST IS CLEAR
Just make sure that most people have already left before you go treasure hunting. When the coast is clear, everything you find is fair game.
GRAB EVERYTHING YOU FIND
Don’t discriminate too much when you go metal hunting. What if that ugly shard you picked and threw away is an actual arrowhead? Sometimes you’ll never know what you are really finding until you have them under close inspection. So grab a big bucket to drop your finds and set your detector’s all-metal search option on.
CONJURE GRIDS IN YOUR HEAD
What you can do is draw an imaginary line in your head between the low tide mark and the high tide mark, then extend 10-12 feet from each side starting from the middle. You can use both sides as your search zones, and treat them as your demarcation lines. After mapping it all out in your head, it’s up to you where you want to start, as long as you try your best not to miss any spots.
KNOW HOW TO USE THE METAL DETECTOR
Some hunters miss out on important finds because they were doing it too fast or were too impatient. It is always wise to draw search zones in your mind before you start skimming the sands. The proper way to use a metal detector is to sweep the cone from side to side, with each full sweep spanning 4 seconds (give or take a few nanoseconds). This allows your detector to have more time to probe deeper under the sand, and will make it difficult for you to miss out on any important finds.
Now during your search, it is important to “grid the beach”, meaning, you need to keep track of the spots that were checked and those that weren’t. To ensure you don’t miss a square inch, you can employ the zigzag pattern as you skim through the “grids”. Going back to retrace the search is also a good way to ensure that nothing has been missed.
There’s a certain pleasure to be derived from metal detecting at the beach. It’s like golf – you have a purpose in mind but don’t ignore the simple pleasures of walking the greens. When you go metal detecting at the beach, don’t disregard the fragrant smell of the sea breeze, and the sound of the waves as they crash into the coast. Metal detecting at the beach is not only a hobby, it’s also a way of life.