Dirt Fishing

We bought the boys a kid-sized National Geographic metal detector from Target for about $16.00. We only got one for them to share at first to see if it works at all. We threw a couple of test coins out and it seems to detect at least surface metal, so we will see what kind of depths it will find.

We also tested the NatGeo on one of Emily’s gold rings, which it detected. I pretended to throw it in the yard and told the boys we had to find it so Mama wouldn’t be mad. They used it for little while, but they still need more practice keeping the coil close enough to the ground. They were pretty concerned about the ring, so they were pretty intent on finding it.

Robbie pulled our best find to date while digging up a target with the Tracker IV. A few inches deep we found a 1989 US Quarter. Robbie was less thrilled with the quarter as he probably would have been if he wasn’t upset that it wasn’t Mama’s “missing” ring.

A few minutes later I found a surface penny in the grass. It looked pretty beat up, at least hit by the lawn mower with a big nick on the edge. We also found a small metal plate, not sure what it was.

The boys started to get bored so Sarah took over, but it was getting hot out in the sun. We chased a few beeps but didn’t find anything else. When the boys went inside, Emily told them she had her ring and it wasn’ really lost. They were relieved.

Our second dig went better. Robbie and I went out first and we ended up finding the missing penny from the other day. Riley and Sarah came over next and Riley helped dig up a long iron nail. It kept him interested for a few minutes before he got bored again. We dug a few more holes, found a short iron nail and a small piece of what looked like barbed wire. Riley and Sarah both went inside.

I was playing with the controls and kept switching the settings to try to get used to them. Eventually we found another target and Robbie dug up out first coin! It was a penny, the face was pretty beat up so we could not make out the date, but the back had the Lincoln Memorial so it wasn’t too old.

Robbie and I continued down the side yard and found another small piece of junk metal then decided to wander down to the pond. Some of the spots in the grass were too hard for Robbie to dig, so we figured the sandy patch next to the pond might be easier.

We got halfway down the road and Riley and Sarah noticed we weren’t in our yard anymore. They came running outside and chased us down the road so they could join us at the pond. When we got to the pond, the main attraction for the boys was throwing rocks into the water, so Sarah took over the main digging duty.

We didn’t find much of interest and the pond. The first thing that beeped was a fishing hook on the surface. Then we found a couple of fishing sinkers (3 total). Sarah pulled out a long iron spike of metal, then the top of an old pull tab metal can. In between Sarah taking turns digging and throwing rocks, I found a lipstick with a metallic top, a soda can and beer bottle top. They were all visible on the surface but they beeped when I ran the coil over them.

Towards the end, Emily and Sam came down to the pond. We checked Sam to see if he was made of metal or “dog”. Although he did beep, we decided Sam is non-metallic and it was just his metal collar setting of the detector.

At least we started to find some metal, and of course many non-metallic worms were sighted.

Running List of Potential Dig Sites (last updated 7/3/08)

New Hampshire

-Litchfield

• Side Yard
• Back Yard
• Shared Lot
• Chasebrook Pond
• Jeff Lane Playground
• Jeff Lane Field
• Corning Field
• Tennis Courts

-Hudson

• Robinson Pond

-Nashua

• Greely Park

Well we just got our brand new metal detector, a Bounty Hunter Tracker IV. It looked like a decent starter detector to go out with the kids. And it came on the UPS truck, which the kids love. As we were putting it together it started to pour outside so we had to wait a few hours, but it cleared up really nice and the sun came back out around 6:45. Robbie, Riley and Sarah were excited to go “Dirt Fishing” or coin shooting.

As soon as we took it outside I saw a piece of wire from the fence laying in the grass. I waived the coil over it and it beeped, so it looked like the detector was functioning fine.  Robbie was armed with a little gardening shovel and Riley had one of those long dandelion diggers. I set the knobs on the detector to “All Metal” with a high sensitivity. All we were looking for was anything metal. A nail, bottle cap, coin or a pull tab would be fine on the first dig attempt, we weren’t too picky this time.

Next we found a possible target in the grass, so Robbie started to dig and Riley started to poke. After getting the hole started we waved the coil over the hole and pile of dirt and it still beeped, but we didn’t find any metal. We kept digging and poking but only found some non-metallic rocks. We dug about a 12 inch wide, 9 inch deep hole. We decided to fill in this spot and try another.

A few feet away we found another beep. I helped Robbie carve out a plug of grass since the last hole was rather messy. We flipped the plug and immediately saw another rock and two worms, which prompted the conversation of “Are worms made of metal?” and “No, worms are made of worm!” from Robbie and Riley.

We dug and poked around for a few minutes again, and found more rocks, no metal. Riley started to get bored, but Robbie has no problem digging holes forever. We decided to fill in this hole and I sent Sarah inside to grab a penny, nickle and a dime from the counter. I had her set them in the grass about two feet apart and ran the detector over them to test the positioning of targets to make sure we were digging where the beeps were.

It seemed like we were judging the dig sites properly so we wandered over and found another potential target to dig. Riley was done and handed off his poker to Sarah. Robbie wasn’t about to give up his shovel so he started to dig the next hole. Again we found some rocks, another non-metallic worm, but no metal. We even lost the beep as we dug around so I’m not sure what happened here.

It was getting late and the mosquitoes were starting to become annoying so we tried one more spot. But again wound up empty. We decided to call it a night and were slightly disappointed that we didn’t find anything. I sent Sarah over to retrieve the test coins we placed in the grass, but she only found the nickle and dime. We brought the detector over and tried to find the penny but couldn’t. Maybe we will find it tonight but we ended last night minus $0.01 for our trouble.

We will try our yard a few more times to get our targeting down and our digging cleaner. We have a couple prime spots we can try out from the pond down the road to the ball fields from baseball. The the beach house in a few weeks should provide at least some good digs too. We might even eventually find something .