Heavily hunted, so what?

In my opinion there is always something to find somewhere, including at beaches considered by many to be heavily hunted.  
Im used to competition for metal detecting finds living in South Florida and I could walk on to any local beach this morning and see several people swinging metal detectors.
Instead of worrying about who is finding what and where, I simply plan on finding my share.
You could say I thrive on competition as it keeps me on my toes and reminds me not to be complacent.
I know if Im not out there finding Spanish treasure on shipwreck beaches or modern jewelry on tourist beaches, there is a darn good chance some other motivated person will be.
Im always trying new search areas, but I still hit sites considered very heavily hunted.
Just because someone is using a metal detector at a popular beach it doesn't necessarily mean they know how to use it, giving you plenty of opportunity to recover what you are searching for at heavily hunted sites.
Perhaps the user is new to the metal detector and hasn't got the metal detector set up correctly, or has the search coil too high above the sand, walking too fast or haphazardly meandering around hoping to tag a lucky find.
Even so called experienced beach hunters chop and change metal detectors at heavily hunted sites, when experience should tell them they should have already found a good metal detector fit by now. 
From time spent hammering and still recovering bobby dazzlers in heavily hunted areas, the easiest way of going home with something good from a heavily hunted site is to do everything better than the competition.
In metal detecting terms that means using tighter search patterns, sweeping lower and slower, hitting the best looking areas first and using better equipment than the competition.
If the locals use 11-inch search coils, use a bigger search coil, if the locals use VLF metal detectors use a pulse induction metal detector, what ever it takes to outgun them.
Even poor target recovery skills make a difference, every minute wasted trying to recover a target either because of pin-pointing or an inadequate recovery tool prevents you from getting to a possible good target before the competition.
Heavily hunted sites are always worth searching when you know what both you and your metal detector are capable of doing.
When you and your metal detector are working together you can detect and recover what you are searching for on a regular basis, instead of waiting for and relying on beach erosion as your sole source of finds.
Waiting for good beach conditions or buying the latest and greatest metal detector will only help you a small fraction of the time at heavily hunted beaches, insure you get your slice of the beach hunting pie by actually being the competition at heavily hunted beaches.
                           
                                            

                                              Available at www.garydrayton.com