Hi All... New to the Detecting Board...

DenverDave

Reading the past & present threads has re-sparked the Detecting Bug in me...

About 15 years ago I did a little detecting but lost interest for lack of good fines and lots of trash...

Now I think I might just have the right attitude and outlook to make it a go...

Now is not the best time to start up here in Colorado but the Bug is the Bug...

What do you Northern guys do during the winter to get your fix...?

kevinstang

Well, I read the posts here all last winter to get up for going hunting in the spring, I hadn't used my detector much in last ten years either. Bought a new digging tool and a sharpshooter coil (after reading about stuff like that here and elsewhere). Got ideas on sites to hunt etc. and then had my best season ever detectoring! Know what you mean about the season coming to an end in the north/etc., snow is my forcast for Friday!

Dockwalliper

Last year winter kinda skipped us, so I got out Beepin'more than any year. Usually I spend the winter tumbling my finds and reading about other peoples finds.

StrikeOutXXX

Winters give me pretty frozen dirt in western NY, so I don't even bother for the most part. My winter metal detecting related activities are:

Actual detecting:
The local park where they drop the snow from the municipal parking lots (front end loaders load snow into dump trucks and they dump the snow at the local baseball park). Lots of keys and change and a jewelery item or two can be found in what the drunks lose downtown on those snowy nights that get scooped up. I only detect the piles of snow, not the ground itself. The first semi-thaw of the year this is the first place I hit.

Dirt basements - although I haven't done many of those, a few neighbors when the bug is really bad is all.

Other:
Clean what I call the "Winter Buckets". I didn't get out as much as I would have liked this, year, so I only have one large jug filled with "Stuff". 95% of it will get tossed, but I sometimes find something to stick in the treasure chest. This involves all the rusty unidentifiable blobs of metal I found over the summer. Balls of tinfoil that needs unwrapped, unknown pieces of metal that needs cleaned to see if it's junk or something interesting, etc.

Do your research. Spend time at the library, talking with friends, looking through old books & postcards, etc. Find that spot everyone forgot about that is now part of a corn field to hit in the spring (with permission of course).

Other than that, I sit semi-paitently and wait for the ground to thaw and spend time with the family knowing I get out of the house as much as possible in the spring.


Welcome to the boards.

DesertRat

Welcome!

DUBBA

welcome denverdave.....in the winter i just go out and do it living in florida does have its benefits....good luck out there!.....hh

marym

Actual detecting:
The local park where they drop the snow from the municipal parking lots (front end loaders load snow into dump trucks and they dump the snow at the local baseball park). Lots of keys and change and a jewelery item or two can be found in what the drunks lose downtown on those snowy nights that get scooped up. I only detect the piles of snow, not the ground itself. The first semi-thaw of the year this is the first place I hit.

What a brilliant idea StrikeOut! Living in Maine, there is truckloads of opportunity for me detect snow-dumps in the winter! I wish I had thought of that myself.
Mary

IndianHeadMan

In the winter.

I can hunt anytime it's above 40 degrees.

Otherwise I research. Research is the key to good finds.

StrikeOutXXX

<< <i>Actual detecting:
The local park where they drop the snow from the municipal parking lots (front end loaders load snow into dump trucks and they dump the snow at the local baseball park). Lots of keys and change and a jewelery item or two can be found in what the drunks lose downtown on those snowy nights that get scooped up. I only detect the piles of snow, not the ground itself. The first semi-thaw of the year this is the first place I hit.

What a brilliant idea StrikeOut! Living in Maine, there is truckloads of opportunity for me detect snow-dumps in the winter! I wish I had thought of that myself.
Mary >>



The municipal lots here have no surrounding grass or dead area, so it's almost always trucked out to the park when we have serious snow each night. The lots that do have room to stack the snow until it melts, I just try to pay attention to where they concentrate each year. It seems to vary each year based on the plow contractor, but I try to keep an eye on the high school, grade school, parking lot at work, wal-mart, etc. When a 10 foot tall, often 20-30 foot long snow/ice pile melts, there is sometimes treasure to be found in the early spring.

BentFork

Stay indoors and research. Hope for a nice day!

KeithinMD

I try and go out. Winter is sometimes the best time to detect. Fewer pests and the weeds/grass are shorter. Where I live, this summer was so hot and dry you almost could not dig the ground.

DenverDave

Thanks for the warm welcome and great ideas...

One thing we do have is piles of snow, I bet the parking lots at the Ski Areas might be worth a day trip also...

There are several sites that date to the late/mid 1800's to early 1900's near my home...

Time to hit the books and do some more research, I can see where research is the key to open the door...

I also have some friends in the southern states that have been on me to come down and visit...

Thanks Again for the encouragement and ideas...