New Zealand Gold Prospecting & Metal Detecting Forums Archive

I know this might sound a bit cruel , but if you want to do well at beach metal detecting , you need to understand how people lose stuff just like learning how gold acts in the rivers.
There are 2 main areas of the beach to look. The low water mark where the sand meets the mud. This is where people swim and either rings fall off cold fingers that shrink with the cold or people have play fights and lose necklaces.
The second and more profitable area is the high water mark. Sun baths are simply the best at lossing stuff. Sun tan cream makes fingers very slippery. Laying on your back. Bend kness and lift legs up and every thing drains out of your pockets nicely.
The funniest one to watch is when someone takes off jewellery and puts it on their towel and when they come back out of the water they grab the towel real fast. Of coarse a real gentleman would help them out.
At a lot of beaches there's a small step or bank between the grass and the sand. People like jumping down into that nice soft sand and when they land stuff jumps out of their pockets. I've found so many car keys and door keys in this area.
Around sand castles is good too or where a drain comes out on to a beach.
Playgrounds next to the beach is mainly good for $1 or $2 coins. Swings are good. People lift up their legs as the swing goes up and the pockets drain nicely ! The firemans pole and slide jar the pockets nicely too.
As there is a lot of steel , I use a small coil and a garett pin-pointer.

Well I guess you have thought all this out after due consideration - good thinking!
I do notice however that your contribution which is really good is politically correct - you have failed to mention the areas in the sandhills, generally nice little clearings in discrete places amongst the lupins where couples tend to go for nefarious purposes. a bit of rolly polly - woman takes off her ring to hide the fact shes married, guys pockets disgorge his dollars and so on.
Also spots where someone has done a dt in order to relieve him/herself - they are also good spots but better if they are old spots and not 'fresh'
Beach detecting can be fun and your observations as to where to get the goodies are well considered. Not cruel at all - a bit mercenary maybe but not cruel.

Edited by user Tuesday, 14 June 2011 6:51:57 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Hi guys, Ha ha....yes....the number of condom packets I have found buried up in the sand dunes at Whangamata beach. Not to mention coins, lighters & keys & smoking pipes, of the bong variety wink wink nudge nudge, that has fallen out of the pockets of hastely pulled down jeans & trousers in the course of doing what couples do in the late hours of darkness in the hidden protection of the sand dunes. LOL :)

Beach detecting & general coin/jewellery detecting, just like prospecting for gold, your chief assets are observation & imagination. Observation is watching where the majority of people congregate. It is the old numbers game thing, the more people the more the chance they will lose something. What better than a large group or mass of people. Be it at a beach or the local favourite water hole on a hot summers day.
Or in a park, fair ground, race course, concert etc etc. Observe their behaviour, where they sit or picnic. On a beach it is going to be where they sunbath. Usually on a surf beach the most crowds are by the surf club or near the beach patrol flags. As has been mentiond the cold water makes fingers shrink slightly so when people walk out of the water to go back to their towel they tend to shake their hands to get the water off, & hay presto, off flicks their ring.
Imagination comes into it more when you are looking in old areas where people used to be but are no longer. You need to try & visualize where the crowds would have gathered. If it is an old ghost town area or old house site you need to work out the lay out of the house or houses or pubs, race course, the roads. Work out where the doorways were, front steps & back steps, verandahs. Areas where people would have fumbled in their pockets for keys to unlock a door & have coins fall out of pockets. Drive ways & where cars, carriages or wagons would have been parked. Where drivers or passengers steped out of the cars or wagons & stuff falls from pockets.....crawl spaces under houses or buildings. Horse hitching rails, mail boxs. Under trees in a nice shadey spot on a hot summer day. Under cloths lines. Park benches......etc etc the list with imagination is just endless, & the goodies to be found just as endless.
Where ever people have been they have always lost stuff, have done since time began & will continue to do so. Their loss is someone elses gain.

Happy hunting

JW :)

hi , just commenting on how much i have laughed reading up on this topic, loving the whole ( area 3) brings me back to a time on tahuna beach nelson countless wrapers and two nice old rings and few gold coins to go with it was a good day out