Friday, December 12, 2014

High surf advisory beach hunting

As expected, I received a lot of messages earlier in the week after high surf had pounded the Florida coast line.
The majority of messages were from people asking me where to hunt, during and after the expected beach erosion had taken place earlier in the week.
My advice for the people lucky enough to have time to go treasure hunting, was to look around and pick a spot.
Even though the high surf was pounding the east coast,  the lure of old treasure coins and modern gold "Tourist droppings"was not enough to make me pull a "Ferris Bueller" and go treasure hunting.
I knew from the wind and surf direction that beach erosion would be sporadic and my advise not to go metal detecting would be ignored.
Knowledge of the beaches being effected and the surf and wind direction, told me to wait a few days and scout around for sporadic cuts on the upper beach or attractive areas on the lower beach.
Sometimes, knowing when not to go metal detecting is more important than the old saying of you never know unless you go.
The beauty of knowing your beaches , mean you always probably know before you go.
The seven pieces of gold jewelry I have recovered on my last three beach and water hunts have come from areas effected by unusually high surf.
On my last three hunts, I have metal detected three hours, one hour and two hours.
Three short hunts at sites I knew would probably look good before I arrived to search them.
Beach web cams in the areas close to the sites and prior knowledge of the sites, told me where to concentrate my search.
I walked away from two other sites that were not as good as I expected them to be.
My metal detecting time is fairly limited, relying on knowledge of how high surf effects the beaches I search helps me to increase my chances of finding something good.
During times of high surf or after beach erosion has taken place, is when your knowledge of local beaches pays off. 
The more beaches you visit and search, the more future sites you have when high surf pounds the coastline. 






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