Sent from my PANTECH Burst™ on AT&T

Sent from my PANTECH Burst™ on AT&T

Sent from my PANTECH Burst™ on AT&T

Search Around a Basketball Court in the Park

This afternoon I searched the area in a neighborhood park around a small basketball court.   I dug many items in the grass behind the bench (Trash and coins).  I even found a nickle on top of the mulch along the path leading to the court (right side of picture).

All items that were dug here.  Trash included a couple bottle tops, pull tabs, zipper, nails and foil.

Coins found: 1 nickle, 2 quarters and 3 pennies.

Return to the Sports Park

Today I returned back to the sports park where I had previous success.  The field that I had searched before was being used, so I searched the grassy areas around the next one over.  This seems to be the main field for the park and also has a lot of concrete, picnic tables and bleachers around it.  The last time I was here, there were lots of people in these areas watching a game.

The main areas were all covered in concrete.  I got strong hits from the concrete (probably from the rebar inside), the bleachers, picnic tables and fence around the field were all metal that made it difficult to search close to those items.  I focused my attention on a grassy area between the two fields.

I was surprised at how much trash I dug in this area compared to treasure.  Lots of pull tabs, a bent tent stake, a washer, a zipper pull and a few items of construction debris.

The treasure I did find included:  1 quarter, 3 pennies and a token from a local laser tag arcade.

Search for Gold

Since we live in Gold Country (Northern California), I could not pass up the opportunity to do a little gold searching myself.  We did some internet searches and found a nearby river that was successful for many prospectors during the gold rush.  It took us a while to find a place to access the river that did not involve going onto private property.  We found a nature trail that ran along side a section of the river.  There was a trail that went down to a rocky beach area along the water.  I only took my pin-pointer with me and used that to search in the areas between the rocks.  Because it is waterproof, I was able to use it in the water too.  I found that when it got too wet, it would give false hits.  Therefore I tried to stay along the shore. 

The area looked like it was frequently flooded.  I used my pin pointer along roots, rocks and other holes where gold could become trapped during these times.  I was hoping the fast moving water would lodge flakes and nuggets waiting to be found.

Unfortunately,  I did not find gold (on this trip).  I did get a few hits that I dug.  I discovered a small metal screen, piece of rusted metal and a long wire.  I'm not sure how much gold it takes to be registered by the pin-pointer.  I will need to do some more research to find out.   

A short way down from the beach area was a large meadow.  This area contained lots of wild flowers, grasses and a few trees.  I will be returning to this area with my full size metal detector in the future.  This general area was home to Chinese prospectors who worked the river.  Hopefully I will be able to find remnants from one of these camps.

As we were leaving the area, we saw several wild geese along the road.  We watched them until the flew away.

Second Time Out

I started out the day by returning to the previous area that I had been to before.  I searched around the gravel parking areas.  It had been raining the previous week and the ground was still damp and had puddles in some areas.  The area had also been recently inhabited by a flock of sheep that were used to control weeds.  Their droppings were everywhere and had a very strong smell!




After a while, after getting many strong signals, all I had dug was trash.  It was all pieces of metal and one battery.  A few of them were symmetrical metal bars.  I was hoping I had found some type of valuable metals that were cast into bars.  If it wasn't for all the rust, I would have been more excited!.   I believe the area was made from dirt fill of all the construction for the houses in the area and included all the debris from being built.  I decided that additional searching in this area would not be beneficial, and I left to go to another location.

I moved to a nearby sports park and searched around one of the baseball fields that was not being used.  I started by searching along the sidewalk, and then around a maintenance shed that was in the outfield area.  I mostly dug construction debris (nails, wires) and a few pull tabs.   I searched a small hill that was beyond the outfield without any hits.  As I moved around to the other side of the field, I got multiple hits around a small tree that resulted in several coins.

All the digging left me with a large blister on my thumb.  I will have to add a pair of gloves to my supplies to prevent this from happening again!