7/28/08: Sweet Success! - I suppose I'm easily intimidated so even though I had permission to hunt this house, I was worried someone was going to see me and not like what I was doing. I fought through the worrying and the temptation to just hit the park that I scoped out yesterday on my lunch break and went through with it. I pulled up to the front of the house, strapped my gear on and started working the small front yard with the SE and 8" Minelab coil.

My first coin was a 40's wheat at about four inches next to a huge tree that I could probably only get my arms halfway around. I found a couple more wheats around the tree and then out pops a Rosie within the first ten minutes of my hunt!

7/27/08: Permission Granted - I've been wanting to hunt a house that our church owns in the West University neighborhood. Many of the houses in that area date back to the 30's, maybe even the 20's but it's hard to tell as many of them have been dozed and rebuilt, or remodeled. The property there is very valuable. Anyway, today I asked a guy at church about it and he said it'd be ok for me to hunt it. Yes!! I'm off tomorrow so I should be there. There is a HUGE tree in the front yard that gets me drooling every time I walk by.

I also found a park I want to try out. It was developed in the 50's and the aerial photos suggest that much of the ground is original although sometimes it's difficult to tell. I may swing by there after I get done with the house or I may save it for another day depending on how well I do.

7/19/08: Yet Another - It's no secret I've had a heart for detecting, but now I have three! Anthony met me down at East beach to try our luck. I'd never been there with my water unit, and only once with the DFX. The first time was a bust for me. This time started out good pretty much when I hit the water as I was finding some clad, but soon I was finding lots of nails. That got old real quick. About three hours into the hunt I figured out where the concentration of nails was and started working in the other direction. I started having some better luck with clad and then I saw a small golden heart fall to the bottom of my scoop. I put my hand underneath as the sand drained out to make sure it didn't get away. A few seconds later, I had my third heart in as many trips to the beach.

Anythony swept it with his Beach Hunter and said it registered as silver. Sure enough, I looked close and saw the "925". I guess it's gold plated. Shortly after, we departed.

7/18/08: A New Variety - I had to get out today to do some detecting. I spent about an hour just driving around to some places I located looking at old maps to attempt to gain permission to hunt. Out of six or seven locations, I was unable to do anything but drive by them. A couple were churches that were still in use, a few I've been to before but still haven't run into anyone on the property. A few were unhuntable for one reason or another. I never have been very good at gaining access to private property which really bums me out because I know that's where the most stuff is to be found, at least in the part of this country.

To shake the blues, I stopped by Memorial for a few hours. I'm becoming much more comfortable with the SE and am enjoying it much more. When Kobi was here three weeks ago, I took TXTim's advice and started using the stock coin discrimination and conductive tones again. Surprise, it's a much easier and funner machine to use than in all-metal! I also still feel that it can find some coins that the DFX may have trouble with. For coin shooting, it is slowly becoming my favored detector.

About twenty minutes into the hunt, I got a target that was really tricky. The tone varied depending on which way I hit it and at some angles it was difficult to get it to sound off through the discrimination at all. But it was consistent enough and at the expected depth that it was a no-brainer dig. Out pops what I thought was a "medium" eagle but the pattern of crud stuck to it was different than the eagles I'd seen so I waited to get home before cleaning it further. The rest of the hunt was unproductive but that was okay, I was happy to bring something home. It turns out to be a new variety of button for me and I have no idea what it is. There is a small bird (eagle?) in the center on top of a shield and there is a banner above the birds head that is unreadable if there is anything to read to begin with. Around the symbol are feathery plumes. It is a Scoville manufactured button. I'm hoping someone might know what it is.

7/1/08: 15 Hours Later - Kobi came and went. We racked up a total of fifteen hours each both on land and water. He used my DFX and I the SE for land hunting, and we both had Sea Hunters, one of which we borrowed from Anthony (Thanks!!!). We had lots of fun and hunted for three of the five days he was here. In fact, we were in the woods with Anthony, Mark, Tim, and Steve at Memorial within two hours of his flight landing. The woods weren't too kind to us though. I only found a '52 D wheat on the way out and Kobi dug up a condom tin lid and a heroine spoon....and I don't mean a female hero. Mark did find a small eagle button but I think that was about it for all of us.

Kobi pinpointing his next target.

Tim, Mark, and Steve had to get going, but Anthony followed us over to the picnic loop to do some easy swingin'. I'm glad we decided to move because I scored a couple keepers just in time to submit into the month's contest. The first dig came in with a strange Ferrous/Conductive number so I decided to dig although it was shallow. I couldn't believe it when I saw this beautiful medium eagle button come up from less than two inches deep. I've never had any expectations of finding Camp Logan stuff in the old picnic loop, but it goes to show that you never know what you'll dig up next.

My next good hit wasn't far from the first. I got a small hit that was registering almost halfway down the depth meter and was reading like a quarter bounching around in the 0/28 - 1/29 range. I was sure it was going to be a clad quarter but was thrilled to see my eighth silver for the year fall into the bottom of the hole! We continued for another hour or so before we packed it in for the day.

Sunday after church, Kobi and I went southward to Galveston to try our hand at the water. It's a great way to get away from the heat of land detecting although finds are often scarce. One target I thought was going to be a pulltab because it kept falling through my scoop holes and I was just about to give up on it. I dropped the scoop and felt around in the murky water for my prize. A prize indeed! I pinched this small pendant from it's watery grave and tucked it into my pouch without looking too closely. I figured it was silver so I put it in my "special finds" pouch that is somewhat hidden. We finished up the day and back at the car I took a closer look. I could just make out a 14K stamp on the link. Score!! I was excited at the possibility of the stone being real. If it was it would be one of the largest diamonds I've ever seen. The weak setting gave me doubts which my diamond tester later verified. CZ! Darn.

We took a break on Monday and resumed hunting on Tuesday. We quickly went over two of the four volleyball courts at Memorial but only found a few clads and pulltabs. We mosied on over to the loop and found some clad. There was a really low tide at sunset and I didn't work the next day so we went back down to the beach to finish up the day. We found quite a few pieces of junk jewelry, mostly earrings. Toward the end of the hunt though, I found yet another heart pendant. I identified this one on the spot though as there were far fewer people around us. I was pleasantly surprised to see this one was actually silver, a stark contrast to the other junk we'd been digging up all day.

Unfortunately Jeff didn't get any goodies under his coil this trip. That's just how it is when hunting Memorial and the beach sometimes. We all have dry spells that are hard to shake. Still, I was surprised with the amount of time that we put in that he didn't find any keepers. It was still a good time though and hopefully his misfortune won't cause him to rethink coming down next time.