Busy or quiet part of beach?

[GiXeR Mark]

I am new to detecting and have yet to search any beach, I live in the midlands so it would be on a day trip basis. So my question is this. Do you always detect the parts of the beach that gets a lot of visitors, or would it be worth finding a quiet section away from the usual hot spots?

Ok, I realize this may seem like a silly question, but my thinking is like this, if you find a beach front that isn't so popular would you stand a better chance of finding good targets as opposed to foil and ring pulls etc? or maybe older artifacts and coinage? You know Spanish gold!
ok maybe I'm dreaming of that bit, but I hope you understand what i mean?

Do you veteran beach combers always seek out the popular parts or do you prefer off the beaten track?

Thanks for reading.
Mark

[Mega B]

It would always have to be the part of the beach that gets lots of visiitors,its logic that more finds would be dropped over time than on the quite part of the beach,also i would have thought that if its currently Busy it would have always been busy.

Spanish gold is not exactly common,but the chance that people have dropped modern gold while changing cloths etc is possible.

[Boandtia]

[quote="GiXeR Mark"]I am new to detecting and have yet to search any beach, I live in the midlands so it would be on a day trip basis. So my question is this. Do you always detect the parts of the beach that gets a lot of visitors, or would it be worth finding a quiet section away from the usual hot spots?

Ok, I realize this may seem like a silly question, but my thinking is like this, if you find a beach front that isn't so popular would you stand a better chance of finding good targets as opposed to foil and ring pulls etc? or maybe older artifacts and coinage? You know Spanish gold!
ok maybe I'm dreaming of that bit, but I hope you understand what i mean?

Do you veteran beach combers always seek out the popular parts or do you prefer off the beaten track?

Thanks for reading.
Mark


[/quote

Hi Mark

Just thought I would offer you some tips from my experiences. I only detect beaches, usually 6 days a week, on Sundays I walk them with my Mrs researching them. Usually a different beach every day, we have many different kinds here, man made, natural, black sand etc.

I usually split a beach into four distinct areas. Firstly the entrance, and edges around the beach. Always turn on your machine and start detecting as soon as stepping onto the sand, 90% of the time I find cash within the first 20 feet of the entrance, sometimes only one coin, but quite often I find over half the coins of the whole session. Around the edges of the beach there are always coins to be found, ok usually trashy true, but very often productive. These parts are not often detected !!

Next the dry sand, whilst it is true the so called "towel lines" can produce good things, this is not always the case. Many times I have hunted these areas that have been packed with people only a few hours earlier and found hardly anything. Any part of the dry sand can produce good finds.
If you are not finding much on a towel line, move back a few yards and try again. When you do find coins, work around the area in widening circles, it is surprising how many coins you will find.

The wet sand, high tide mark to the sea. Some good finds to made here, look for cuts in the sand made by the sea, also larger shells and gravel. If all you are finding is ring pulls and foil. move nearer the water. If you threw a handful of different sized coins and a ring pull towards the sea, the ring pull would drop first nearest you the heaviest coins would travel furthest away from you.

The water. This is where most of the gold and jewelry is to be found, look where people would be splashing about waist to chest high. Heavy rings etc will drop straight down not really moving much from there unless disturbed by heavy storms.



This is just my experience, others may have a different view.

Hope this is useful

Happy hunting

[Machinist]

Hi Mark, I am have been a beach hunter for many years and like you do not live on the coast.

The first thing to grasp is that you will not be the only one who searches that beach you visit. The places I go have local detectorists who are straight on to the beach as the holiday makers are coming off so turning up on the dry sand out of season will not produce many finds.

You will find me down the beach from the popular areas on the wet sand looking for the finds that have been dropped there by ball players, swimmers and those playing in the surf. You have to look for the areas that sand has been taken off the beach, depressions or gulleys in the beach as in my avatar.

Ray

[lord lovell]

dont bother with dry sand mordern losses go for wet or clay areas or sripped out sections thats were the bulk of gold collects weight of items group together ie ring pulls near surface or togherb in dry sand

[GiXeR Mark]

Thank you all for the replies, so basically you are all saying stick to where the beach is busiest.
But, for example, Blackpool pleasure beach know as the golden mile, has 2 piers which from my last visits seems to be the major area for visitors between the two piers.
However if you walk further to south then because of less holiday visitors your finds would be less.

Having said that I was recently told that Blackpool had lots of (GOLDEN) sand deposited to try and get the visitors back up again. So if this is the case then any old coins etc will be very deep and take some digging that's if your machine even detects them. so is Blackpool beach not as good as it has been in the past, and maybe the parts that didn't have tons and tons of sand deposited would they now be better areas to select?
Its ok, I'm just trying to build up a strategy thanks for your input guys

[Tomo]

I would say it all depends on what detector your using. Getting advice on wet beach detecting and tackling it with say, a land machine will see you jumping straight back onto the dry.

[oldartefact]

I have found that a good hotspot is in the few meters above the high tide mark - logic being
Given that the tide is in half the time this is where people, sunbathers and walkers congregate en mass...

The coins tend to lie where they are dropped and are not swept into gullies..
Most tectors are good on dry sand.

Down sides are ... very noisy ... and you'll need both sand scoop and poop scoop!!!!

Ohh and you are right that not all beaches behave the same, hence the adice for a beach on the east coast, subject to significant coastal erosion, would'nt be the same for the west coast, where erosion can be less of an confounding issue.

[THE MOLE]

good post trojan , ive never done any beach detecting so found that very infomative

thanks neil.

[Owain 1405]

Try googling old photos of the beach your interested in, where people congregate today isn't necessarily where they congregated in the past

[GiXeR Mark]

Thanks for the info guys, loads for me to remember, and thank you Trojan for the images of the beaches, that has certainly helped me understand about the gullies and sandbanks, as in my mind I was thinking of sand dunes! I now know the difference.
Also understood about the wind blowing off and out to sea that also makes a lot of sense.
Ok, so one final question, Where do I find that tide information that you posted?
As that would certainly help me to plan my visits.


Thank you all once again, awesome forum!

[Machinist]

In a gulley in front of sand bank and sea in distance

[Pav]

That's one of the most informative posts I have read on beaches. Thank you.

black line which is clearly. ... Embarrassed to ask!, what am I looking at. I see the gully, and the high tide line which I would miss as the ring pulls would drive me nuts, but what is this black line?

[silverwood]

Can anyone find the mystery detectorist caught on google streetview at scarborough?
Theres a virtual cigar for a possitive id lol.
could start a new trend here.
Googles been updated so lets get tector spotting

Thats a cracking post there trojan.

[Machinist]

Here he is