After taking Andy Sabisch's CTX Bootcamp on the weekend of 10/04/2015 (Portage, IN), I was eager to put what I learned to work in my "own backyard" Ontario, Canada this week! Well the opportunity finally came right after work today! I could only get an hour in, so I headed to the closest park, which has been "hunted out" as some have said (almost every other weekend, except for the really dry days we had, there is always someone MD'ing in there). I have been to the park as well prior to the bootcamp, and only found modern clad, arrow shafts, nails, and can slaw. Well I pulled in, got geared up, and got the CTX "dialed in" as per Andy's instruction. Off I went, and worked in the direction of the old baseball diamond. Off the bat (no pun intended) the CTX started to "sing" and by the sound, the target trace build, and the Fe/Co numbers, I knew I had a rusty nail under the coil. I wanted to confirm my suspicion, and began to dig. At 8" I began to notice a rust colour bleed through the dark dirt. Soon, I found the nail, and was very excited (finally could interpret what was under the CTX coil). Off I went in search of the next find! Soon I got a low sound, mixed with a high pitch tone, but it was faint. I probably would have missed it, if it were not for the response set to "Pitch Hold" as Andy had taught us. The Pitch Hold works when the coil passes beyond the target, the threshold hum changes, and will be at a pitch that corresponds to the target, even if the target did not produce a noticeable audio response. The pitch of the sound is based on the tone associated with the target's CO (conductivity) value. Anyhow, I began swinging the "stick" until just the high pitch stayed constant. The target trace on the CTX screen began to build a nice cherry red in the upper right hand corner and Fe/Co numbers were reading 12-38, and the depth reading was 12". I began to dig. I dug a nice plug, and began to remove the rest of the dirt from the hole, until my Garret Pro Pointer began to sing. I moved the dirt carefully by hand until I seen "round in the hole" and it was silver!! I removed the coin, and found it to be a 1901 Canadian 5 cent piece....I was elated!! Well, maybe it was luck, to come across this silver beauty amongst all the trash, especially for it being a "hunted out site" too! Well, within the hour I had dug 3 more silvers, at various locations in the park...1920 Canadian 5 cent silver (11"), 1913 American silver dime (9"), and a 1918 American silver dime (11")!! A lesson here, there is NO park, or property, that has been really "hunted out"! Even though I have been to this location many of times, I know I must have missed these target before, as I have a routine I do while searching. I am confident that the CTX bootcamp helped me greatly understand, and operate my CTX to its fullest potential now! Where in the past, I was doing so many things wrong (patterns, modes, etc) which Andy pointed out, and it was just pure luck in the past, to dig something good!! Thanks Andy!!!
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Well done on those great finds, those dimes are difficult enough to find in the US, so I can imagine they would be quite rare to find in Canada.
