Greetings From Baton Rouge Louisiana

New to metal detecting here! Very green.
Very excited to get into this hobby and learn as much wisdom from you experienced guys as I can. And I appreciate any and all advice.

Current setup is a bounty hunter pioneer ex and a Garrett at pro pointer.

I also have a bounty fast tracker from when I was younger but have only recently used the pioneer ex that I got for free.

I’m am interested in detecting beaches (Florida and louisiana) Louisiana marsh lands, parks, woods, creeks and streams, and also taking a metal detector underwater and diving a couple feet down at the beach completely submerged.

I’m wondering what metal detector would be best to do all of this and these different soil types and be able to go underwater. I have recently researched and came up with either the mine lab equinox 600 or the garret at pro. If there are others you’d recommend in the range of 400 - 800$ please let me know.

Any other info that could help me in learning this new hobby would be greatly appreciated

Welcome! Lots of history down where you are! I’m am biased with Minelab detectors but there are lots of good ones out there. Nokta makes a few that are waterproof and in your price range.

Look forward to seeing your finds.

WELCOME, BlackCloud!:waving:
You came to right place for informed advice. The members are a great wealth of information. I learn stuff everyday. Either of your machines will do the job. Listen to the tones on videos and see which you prefer. They are SUPER different sounding.
Glad you joined our group!

Welcome from the frozen tundra of Wisconsin! Good to know you are also looking to upgrade your machine. So many people buy a cheap detector and go out expecting to find a hoard of gold, then give up the hobby really quickly after finding nothing but a bucket full of pull tabs.
Hunting in water has a lot of potential especially in old swim holes, or places that were once fording sites, or maybe even CW camp sites or battle sites especially since not many people can hunt them. Salt water has it's own special challenges because of the conductivity of the minerals really messes with most machines. If you're looking to do a lot of salt water or salty beach detecting then a PI machine may be the best bet. Otherwise a multi frequency machine would be the next best choice. I personally use a CTX-3030 most everywhere, but especially in the water. My mineralized beach hunting gets done often with one of my PI machines like the GPX-4800. Unfortunately both of those are well outside your price range, and anything waterproof get expensive fast. Just remember to use waterproof headphones in case you get wet.
Lastly as a word of caution: Research your local, state, and federal laws about metal detecting. Many historical or public areas are off limits to detecting and getting caught in one of those area can get costly-as in fines, losing your equipment, or in some cases jail time.

Welcome from Mobile, Alabama!

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