Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Florida bars and bling

This past weekend I told my wife I would be hitting the bar early on Saturday morning.  Of course my wife knew exactly what bar I was talking about, the sand bar opposite a busy tourist beach entrance. 
Due to work and daddy duties I have been a "Weekend warrior" over the last few months, but when I do get the chance to go detecting I like to maximize my chances of finding bling by searching the best looking spot on the beach. 
If the lower beach is sanded in, the upper beach or inside the water away from shore are the best places to search for jewelry. 
Saturday morning the low tide gave me a chance to wade offshore and search a promising looking sloped sand bar. 
I started to recover quarters and dimes, which is always a good sign when searching along the bottom slope of a sand bar.  Easily detectable coins in the area, was a sign that the area had not been searched recently by the competition. 
About 20 minutes into the early morning water hunt I recovered a nice chunk of 14K gold with 23 really nice diamonds. 


I did manage to recover a few small pieces of silver jewelry but my water hunt was cut short by the returning high tide. 
I saw five other people metal detecting in the area, three water hunters searching along the sandy first drop off inside the water, and two wet sanders walking along the lower beach.  
Many shallow water hunters on my local beaches become lulled into doing the same Groundhog day style water hunting as wet sanders, walking in a straight line just inside the water hoping to just run across a piece of jewelry. 
The lower beach can be very productive, but if it is sanded in you have no chance of finding anything if you search the same area every time. 
Stay away from being tied to searching one area of the beach or water, the more you move around, the more chance you have of finding jewelry. 
Look for promising areas and imagine where you would lose jewelry,  getting hit by waves rushing over a sand bar could be that place. 
Unless, you think all gold rings mysteriously slip off fingers when people step in the wet sand? 

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