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View Full Version : Low expectations hold true.



Digger_O'Dell
06-02-2016, 12:47 AM
It's business as usual in my neck of the woods. Went out Tuesday morning after a couple hours at work and had about 9 hours to hunt. The first site was an old church and another building shown on the 1878 map. Being in a nature preserve I had hopes that there would be something left, but after a rough hour hike through swamps, thick brush and ravines all I found were lots more trees-no sign of ever having anything on the site. I did find that the area had been Terra formed though with streams being diverted into underground culverts and run to the main stream in a large ravine. The ravine also had a series of old dams added which I assume were to slow erosion. After several hours of hunting, all I found was a zincoln, a cheap modern earring, a single square nail and old fired 3 ring 32 cal bullet.
Next stop was a nearby park that was supposed to have some age, but after about 2 hours I gave up here too.only a few deep clad and zincolns.
Lastly I went to a nearby county park. I looked up the web site on the park, and it was mentioned the land was donated around 1944 to be park use. It didn't mention when it was eventually developed, but just went on about how great the county's parks are. At first I only found the usual carpet of pull tabs, but in one spot I got a deep squeak of a high tone which read a 12-43 (zincoln). Since I could get it to repeat, and that I hab not dug anything yet, I decided to go for it. About 9 inches down shiny round-a nice 42 Merc!
Well, not long after this I was stopped by some guy in a truck who asked me what I was doing. Told me that they had an ordinance against disturbing the ground in county parks. He went on a rant about when was digging allowed in not only this county, but also named all nearby counties So I had to pack up and call it a day, and remind myself that it was things like this that I had moved out of that county over 30 years ago and had not returned since. (Which ARE legal to detect). Apparently there is a sign you cant see at the park entrance listing the rules. I stopped on the way out to find it, and sure enough. It appears there is a rule against almost everything one would normally do in a park, for example having fires, despite the provided fire pits, and so forth. Oh well, on to the next.

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Caught a local politician out for a stroll ;)
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One of the old dams in the ravine
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And another that has fallen apart with age
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MangoAve
06-02-2016, 09:31 AM
Grats sniffing out that merc. That explains to never ignore the semi-decent signals even if they read like a zincoln. Since I mostly do woods and cellars, a reading of 59 VDI is something I'd be salivating at... but then doing a school or a park and after digging 10 of those readings and it all being zincolns I just get frustrated and start to ignore them. The earing is kinda cool too even if it's a cheapy.

Out for a stroll? Lol. I think I see them all the time on the shelves in the feminine hygiene aisle. If you wanna see some old dams, I can take a few pics.

wisconsin digger
06-02-2016, 12:26 PM
Reminds me of the time I was detecting a small town park and when I left I saw a big sign right above where I was parked that said "No detecting". Nobody said anything but I definitely missed that. I've only found 3 parks in my travels that did not allow detecting so we are still in pretty good shape. Nice merc. WD

Digger_O'Dell
06-02-2016, 04:41 PM
WD, only 3 parks? So far I have come across at least a dozen! Seems everywhere I turn nowadays detecting is banned. More and more towns I have been finding the don't disturb the soil/grass etc. Type ordinsnces. And then even in places detecting is allowed I get confronted by the ignorant park nazis saying it isn't. It's getting rough out there!
Well, this weekend at least I'm planning a 2 day trip up to FonDuLac