If you have to travel to detect a beach, you can be sure someone has searched that beach for years with a metal detector and knows the beach like the back of their hand.
Local beach hunters have a heck of an advantage over people who either travel to detect the same beaches or people who have just got into beach hunting.
I rely on local beach knowledge a lot, knowing what areas look good and what areas I have recovered good stuff at in the past.
There are beaches I travel to that I know better than locals who have only been searching them a year or two.
The conditions present and what a beach looked like at when I recovered a good find are very important memories to me.
Over the years I have seen my local beaches change dramatically, after hurricanes have ripped them apart and after the city has dumped tons of sand back on them to make them higher and wider.
Every so often a window of opportunity opens up at a local beach and I get to put my knowledge of local beaches to good use.
It may take months or several years before I see something I know is a good sign, that is the point of today's blog knowing where and why a local beach is open for business.
A week ago I found good stuff at a beach that I have not recovered anything good at in a long time.
Two years to be exact, but I never stopped checking the area out and took advantage of an opening.
A good friend of mine once described shipwreck salvage guys as sand movers, they are just moving sand.
Unfortunately beach hunters have to wait for sand to move, but it does move eventually.
Behind many of my best finds there is a reason why they ended up in my finds pouch, it almost always has to do with knowledge of a local beach and previous experiences in the area.
Local beach knowledge is not just about knowing where you are likely to find stuff, it involves knowing what conditions change the beach.
Long term studying of surf and wind directions at your local beaches will help you to figure out when sand will move.
Just a few hours of constant surf from the right direction may change a beach for the better.
Much higher surf hitting the beach from a different direction may actually sand in the beach more.
You have to learn what type of surf improves conditions on your local beaches.
I often use beaches similar to ones I search to gauge beach or water hunting conditions, checking beach cams.
If I see one beach is losing sand, I know other similar angled beaches are losing sand.
Using beach cams saves me from having to waste time traveling to check beaches out.
The better you know your local beaches the easier they are to search.
Local beach hunters stay on top of the best sites at the beach.
A few years ago, I made a three hour round trip drive to a beach after seeing a cut on a beach webcam.
Twelve pieces of gold jewelry in a five hour beach hunt and three more pieces of gold the next morning, putting knowledge of that beach and previous hunts there to good use.
Oh and finding a gold pendant with my name on was pretty cool too.
Oh and finding a gold pendant with my name on was pretty cool too.
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