We've all have heard the stories of newbies seen detecting along the beach. Many times they are seen with the search-coil 8" above the sand, racing along as if the Devil himself was on their tail. Some are spotted doing the "golf swing," or the "Smiley Face," or what we sometimes call the "U-boat." These maneuvers pretty much insure they are no threat to experienced detectorists, but even among experienced machine operators, we have noticed a few that have a need for speed! With the coil level, ground balanced and inch or so over nice damp, salty beach sand, there are other errors that may make the good stuff difficult to locate. Speed kills, as the saying goes, and it certainly kills your finds!
Rip-roaring up a beach or thru a park will most definitely put you at a disadvantage with other hunters who practice what has become to be known as "low and slow;" and maybe an improvement to that phrase would be "Low and slow and LISTEN!" All VLF metal detectors have something called a "re-set speed," during which the machine's circuitry re-sets itself after a target acquisition. This can be a few tenth's of a second to almost half a second, depending on the model and the frequency being used. Another aspect of this is the recommended sweep-speed, (a full sweep being an arc from one side to the other in front of the operator) which takes this constant into account. My Minelab E-Trac's manual recommends a 4-sec sweep speed. If you exceed this, or get a bit jiggy in your sweep, you can detect piece of iron, and if you are exceeding the sweep-speed, may miss the silver coin just to the left, while the machine is doing a reset, and not looking into the ground during the process.
The first guy I noticed employing a "low and slow and LISTEN" approach was friend of mine, Gary Dover. Gary is kind of a quiet guy and is usually nose down, eyes locked, and ears up. I thought he'd hurt his foot at an Orlando hunt we were participating in because he was practically tip-toeing along, with his head cocked side-wise. But he said, "Naw, I'm slowin' down and listening for the good stuff!"
A few people have accused Gary in in the past of having a somehow "better" machine than anyone else. Using a stock AT-Pro, he killed it time and again with old coins no one else could even come close to. I saw him dig a silver 1857 Barber Quarter right in front of me one day, where several dozen others had passed over earlier. He moved up to a Minelab E-Trac and the same thing; V-Nickles Barber coins from the middle of the 19th Century. But it was not the machine, it was the technique!
So, slow down a bit and listen close; those coins have been waiting for over a hundred years for you to bring them back into the light...a little more time is not going to matter!
