It's summer, and that probably means you'll be vacationing or playing near water this month. Whether you're heading to a local lake or to an ocean across the country, take your metal detector. Beach hunting is fun and easy, and usually the finds are, well, pretty fine! Recovering an object from sand is pretty easy, too, especially compared to digging in hard ground. A sand scoop makes target recovery fast and easy.

Water and sunscreen have a sneaky way of slipping rings from fingers of swimmers and sunbathers, making beaches a lucrative location for metal detecting. Necklaces, watches, and bracelets are also great finds on beaches, along with coins— lots of coins. Although some beaches can yield historic artifacts, most finds will likely be of the modern variety.

Some detectorists will argue that the best time to find goodies on a beach is after winter storms. While that’s certainly true, summer crowds can mean a fresh crop of coinage and jewelry just waiting to be found by you.

Beach hunting can be done in dry sand or out in the water where many more rings are lost. Salt water beaches present special problems (mineralization) and you must determine if you will hunt only in dry sand, dip the coil under water in the shallows, or desire a totally submersible metal detector suitable for deep water wading or diving. All quality metal detectors have submersible search coils but not all control boxes are waterproof or suitable for the pressures of deep water diving, so match your detector to the type of detecting you’ll do.

In all types of beach hunting, the discrimination must be kept very low, eliminating only small iron (bobby pins and nails). Aluminum pull tabs and tin foil should not be discriminated or gold and/or platinum rings may not be detected.  Some beach hunters operate with zero discrimination and dig everything. Article continued here...