Metal detecting can go from being a fun, relaxing hobby, to a sweat-laced competition and obsession played out on social media, thoroughly peppered with drama. Most people who "always wanted a metal detector" here in the 1st quarter of the 21st Century are about 50-years too late. More and more regulations, usually brought on by the blatant misbehavior of those that came before you, are limiting areas to detect, as well as the blatant mistake Florida made inviting the great throngs of the unwashed to invade our state after they broke their own. This has created sort of a land-rush in Florida, with historic and non-historic buildings, land, communities and nature areas being overrun by developers, bulldozing those same areas into submission and removing them from the sphere of our casual pastime and enjoyment, as concrete is poured into every nook and cranny.
In kind of a round-about way, this gets me to my point. As areas to hunt decrease, the quality of hunt areas decrease, i.e. more and more trashy areas are becoming the only places left to hunt. When you start metal detecting, a great hush will fall everywhere as the gods of metal detecting tell you, in no uncertain terms, that it's a technical sin to use any more than a smidgen (if even that!) of discrimination on your machine. Others in the hobby will tell you in a loud voice, you may (you may) MISS a small, teensy, shrimpy little gold band if you use too much discrimination!!!! (OMG!!!) But, as usual, time is not on your side and digging railway-carloads of junk and trash so you don't miss ANYTHING is a losing proposition. Metal detecting is not called "cleaning parks" for a reason, and that's not what you signed up for. Practicing this sort of thing is sure to frustrate you and bore you to tears, and usually results in you taking up golf again, using your metal detector as a putter.
Cherry-picking is the term used in the hobby when you crank the discrimination control up a bit more than usual, maybe even more than that. And you may not find that skinny gold ring, but that's not to say there are no other rewards for this kind of behavior. You will start finding relics and antiques that were masked at lower discrimination by the layers of bottlecaps, pull-tabs, foil and other junk like a metal overcast. Sure you are going to miss some stuff, but you are going to find some GOOD stuff for a while, the stuff that makes metal detecting the fun thing it was supposed to be. Now there are those that will disagree with me, but they also cherry-pick when the junk get's thick! Hey, that rhymes! As always, do what YOU think is best, and most important have FUN doing it!
