How to find valuable targets before the competition

Trusting in your metal detector and using a little metal detector discrimination will help you make the most of your metal detecting time at the beach.

The old metal detecting adage you have to dig it all does not apply to tourist beaches or other areas you are not likely to recover old artifacts.  

Metal detector technology has really changed over the last decade making it easier to reject objects at the beach you clearly know are not valuable targets.

I consider every piece of junk you dig at the beach to be one step further away from putting you and your search coil over a good target.

For years I have used my favorite metal detector the Minelab CTX 3030 to take full advantage of the competition at heavily hunted sites, where I know at least a dozen regular beach hunters hit those sites hard.

I know other people using metal detectors will not pass up digging quarters, dimes and pennies, so I leave them behind for other beach hunters because I did not become a beach treasure hunter to search for chump change. 

When I check targets on my CTX 3030 screen and interpret target audio tones I can easily tell if my search coil is over a wide variety of coins and I can pass on scooping them up.

You can have those I say to myself as I push on for platinum, gold and silver jewelry the high value targets I go to the beach hoping to find.

Yes I am sure I do miss the odd piece of silver too, but very little of the silver jewelry I recover avoids the scrapping process anyway.

Now I know more than a few beach hunters will be reading this blog thinking about hitting the comment button with a "What if you miss this or that" question, but seriously you cannot worry about missing the odd high value target by digging every piece of junk at the beach.

Digging hundreds if not thousands of small pieces of iron, bottle caps, hair pins, fish hooks, corroding pennies and chump change every year will not justify your metal detecting time wasted digging junk you really do not have to waste time on.

I make the most of my metal detecting time by only scooping probable high value targets at tourist beaches or other heavily hunted sites. 

I wonder how many people have followed me metal detecting at a tourist beach and mistakenly believed I was not that good of a beach treasure hunter because of the amount of coins I left behind for them?

Perhaps it was just a metal detecting ninja trail of clad coins, bottle caps and unwanted junk I clearly knew was not platinum, gold or silver,  thanks to well trained ears and a darn good metal detector with an array of discrimination bells and whistles.

Again, why dig junk at the beach when searching for platinum, gold or silver jewelry?

Cherry pick the good targets and enjoy the fruits of being a discriminating beach hunter, platinum and gold bands are some of the most common jewelry finds if you get to them before the next beach or water hunter. 

Remember, every piece of junk you dig at the beach puts you one step further away from what you are really searching for so the faster you learn how your metal detector responds to junk targets compared to good targets the better.

Use a metal detector like the Minelab CTX 3030 or Minelab Equinox with visual target IDs and excellent audio target tone IDs and you can set yourself apart from the beach hunting completion. 

You sometimes have to dig the trash to get to treasure, but only when you search for old coins and artifacts. 

Learn where and when to use discrimination to increase your chances of detecting and recovering precious metals at crowded beaches.

For more metal detecting tips and tricks check out my beach treasure hunting guides at www.garydrayton.com