Today's dig and a few questions along the way. (Warning: Lots of photos)

mrpaseo

Today my DW went to work which left my DD (15y/o) and I at home to fend for ourselves. I planned a fishing/Metal Detecting trip close to home which would get us out of the house to burn some calories and have a little fun while we were at it. As I lay out the evening I will ask a few questions, if you don't mind answering them, just put the number preceding your answer and we will be able to follow along.

We packed our gear and headed down the street just on the other side of the bridge (About 300 yards away).

We brought the usual items that included:
Two knives/digger tools
Hand (Plastic) shovel
Garrett AT Pro
Pin pointer
Pr of gloves
Plastic bags (Zip lock)
Hand Sanitizer
Phone (Camera)
GPS
A few bottles of water

Travel tackle box
Two fishing poles

During our outing we decided to add a few trash bags and some hand wipes to the bag for the next trip. This leads me to my first question.

1. What gear do you bring with you when you metal detect? (i.e. bug spray, type of food, tools). Please list only items not on my list.

We arrived to the site and this is what we saw:


Looking around.


Right side of bridge and water


Right side of bridge


Hole on right side of bridge


Right side of bridge with water and Courtney

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Local plant on the left side.


Left side of bridge


Courtney fishing on the left side


The left side again.


View of the top from the left side.

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We sat down on the edge of the old bridge pillar and did some fishing first. We each managed to pull one in before I decided to do some detecting. I figured over the years this pillar was used to sit on and fish, or a place to jump off into the water so I envisioned coins falling out of pockets and cloths thrown about.

I turned on the detector and started to swing. As soon as I put the coil to the ground it started sounding off like crazy. Looking at the scale and listening for the higher pitched noise I narrowed in on my first prospect 6 to 8 inches down. I know this place has been here for awhile so I envisioned a coin being dropped many years ago. Hoping for silver I started to dig... and dig... and dig... moved a rock... dug some more... then when I was questioning if I wanted to do this... I dug some more.

It wasn't long before I questioned

2. How long do I spend on a hole.

and

3. How deep should I go?


From reading, I remember, "When you first start, dig everything". This will help me learn what the detector is telling me. From the video's that I saw on the tube, I saw how people dug and brought the dirt up and close to their detector. I mimicked this procedure until I hit the rocks. I pictured back in the days a coin falling down between these rocks so I figured I was close to the prize. I continued to dig, stand up, re-run the detector over the spot (In case I moved the coin) then dig some more.


First dig: How deep do you go? How long do you spend on one hole?


Hole depth reference


The first hole.

After at least 20 minutes of digging this hole, I ran the detector over the pile of dirt that I made, I heard the loud ping, telling me I had moved the item. I narrowed it down to a clump of grass that I had pulled out from the initial plug... I hope it wasn't in there all along. So here it is, my first dug coin. I worked for this one. Though it is not silver, I'll take it.


My first official dug coin (Dime) 1970-D


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Looking around on top of the pillar I found two more dimes.



Dime


Dime

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We also located our first quarter on top of the pillar.


Ledge where we located the quarter


First Quarter dug

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We decided to go down next to the old bridge to see what we can find. This is where I realized I did not have the MD on the "coin" setting... I moved it over to coin and started detecting. After finding a few caps, cans and junk I spotted my first cent of the day.


Surface find (cent) but I had the MD in hand

Yes, it was a surface find but I did have the medal detector in hand so I'm counting it for the day.

4. Do you count surface finds in your totals while out MDing?

I went on to locate two more cents, one on the bottom left, one back on top.


Cent

(I didn't get a photo of the last cent)

5. What do you do with your zink cents? These three are partially corroded (As in gone). I do not want to roll them into rolls, should I just bring them to the bank and ask for them to change them out? What do you do?

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I did not look on the right side, I'll be back in the future to check out that side. There are still plenty of places to look at this site so I'll be back.

Here are the miscellaneous items we found. I found the LARGE square nail interesting. We also found some fishing hooks and weights that are not shown.


Misc found items: Large square nail, fishing lure, reel handle.


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CITO = Cache In Trash Out, This is a term we use when doing geocaching. I decided to adopt this practice while MDing which is why we need to bring trash bags with us from now on. Some of the items were dug, most found laying ont he ground.


Lots of junk in the area (Dug Tin can cover)


Lots of junk/trash


Bag of trash that we took out.

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Overall we were out for a few hours, we caught three fish (Catch and release) and found .58 cents. We also removed a bag of trash from the woods. My DD helped a little with the MDing but every time she dug a worm, she ran back to the pole to try to catch more fish...lol. I didn't mind, just hanging out with her was awesome.

Thanks for reading, any pointers/comments are welcomed,
Ray

Meltdown

Looks like a great day! I don't have any advice to add, I'm a newb myself... but I think I would have ben tempted to spend
more time fishing. That looks like a nice, deep resting spot for some rainbows.

mrpaseo

<< <i>Looks like a great day! I don't have any advice to add, I'm a newb myself... but I think I would have ben tempted to spend
more time fishing. That looks like a nice, deep resting spot for some rainbows. >>



Thanks, I was eager to get to the detector so I knocked out some "Father/Daughter time" then hit the dirt. She helped periodically but she was there to fish. That's alright, I had a wonderful day.

,
Ray

mrpaseo

I just found out something about this area,

<< <i>The construction of the park is anticipated to begin as early as late April, early May. According to the Clarksville Parks and Recreation representatives, it is their goal to have the park ready for use by late June. >>

It looks like this place is going away real soon. Maybe I'll hit it when they dig up the earth

Ray

ricko

Seems as if you had a great time with some good finds - that is a good first MD trip. Your pinpointer should have helped more in the first dime find...use that instead of passing handfulls of dirt under the MD. That is what people without PP's do...that site will have more coins. When they start construction, the site may be off limits.. check that out. Trash bags are a must in areas like that, good move. Zincolns do corrode quickly... not sure the bank will replace them if too far gone. Recommend a small rock polisher, or, a cheap method is to put them in an old sock and run them through with a load of laundry - be sure to tie the top of the sock . Get a good digging tool when you can...they are important and a real time saver.
Cheers, RickO