Life getting busier?

[Digger_O'Dell]

Hello everyone!

Just thought I would add a post since there has really hasn't been much activity to note recently. So I was wondering what everyone has been up to this summer. Are we getting out detecting and just not finding anything? Or are we not getting out due to weather? Or is life just getting in the way? Drop a reply, would love to hear how everyone has been! I'll start it out....

Personally, it's been due to many factors throughout the summer. Other than a few early outings that didn't produce too much other than my first 1700's coin, I haven't done much hunting. Even the much anticipated street tear out amounted to very little other than the dateless fatty and a few older relics mostly because they never really tore out the road. Only a few patches, and the rest was just ground down to grade and paved over.

The weather was actually pretty nice most of the summer, and even the great heat wave of 2023 didn't effect a lot of my area being in the North and tempered by the great lakes. Still, working 2 jobs 6-7 days/week just to make ends almost meet in this economy, and then spending the past couple months job hunting since being worked over by the brewery's contract renewal process (putting this as mildly as possible) that caused even less take home salary. Good news is I finally got a job offer that pays better and is a promotion into a management role. So it's still going to be a lot of time invested for a while making the move and transitioning to the new role. I really hope I get some time to detect before the snow flies even if it's only for a short while before work. That in itself will be tough as the town I will be working in has the most restrictive anti-detecting ordinances around despite being one of the oldest towns in the region.

[Tony Two-Cent]

I haven't been detecting much through the summer because of two factors. One, we have had a shortage of rain here along with record heat so I'm reluctant to detect in private yards or parks. I don't want to leave dead plugs. Two, I can't detect the farm fields because they have crops in them.

I am looking forward to doing a lot more detecting in the Fall after we get some rain and the crops are harvested.

[Digger_O'Dell]

I haven't been detecting much through the summer because of two factors. One, we have had a shortage of rain here along with record heat so I'm reluctant to detect in private yards or parks. I don't want to leave dead plugs. Two, I can't detect the farm fields because they have crops in them.

I am looking forward to doing a lot more detecting in the Fall after we get some rain and the crops are harvested.

Good luck getting out soon! I've been hoping to hit a river south of the border due to lower water levels, but just never seem to be able to make it happen. So many waterways in my area are either off limits, or have been dredged/lined/filled/moved in recent times making them useless to hunt. Swimming areas that can be hunted are pounded to death almost daily where I've caught detectorists finishing up as I arrived an hour before dawn. Places like that don't even hold a single pull tab any more.

[OxShoeDrew]

Congrats on the new job, Chris!
This summer has been the longest (only) hiatus from detecting I've even taken. One of my retirement goals was to get back to playing my instrument again. I joined a band and have been learning 75 songs. I haven't played in 30 yrs so I've also had to piece together a drumset. OMG, it takes forever driving to places to hear cymbals, match drums etc Then daily practice.

I had planned a detecting trip to the UK in a few weeks, booked, paid for, ready to go, and then we had to cancel due to giving end of life care to a relative. So, we're hoping to go this spring.

[Digger_O'Dell]

Congrats on the new job, Chris!
This summer has been the longest (only) hiatus from detecting I've even taken. One of my retirement goals was to get back to playing my instrument again. I joined a band and have been learning 75 songs. I haven't played in 30 yrs so I've also had to piece together a drumset. OMG, it takes forever driving to places to hear cymbals, match drums etc Then daily practice.

I had planned a detecting trip to the UK in a few weeks, booked, paid for, ready to go, and then we had to cancel due to giving end of life care to a relative. So, we're hoping to go this spring.

Drew, I'm sorry to hear about your relative. I have gone through that myself and it's a rough time for everyone. On the other hand, it's good to hear of your other pursuits. Good luck with the band and I hope it all comes together. I used to play guitar a long time ago and learned to greatly respect anyone who has the talent and patience to master any instrument. I had the talent, but never had the patience to go very far with it-something I somewhat regret today, and know that with arthritis setting into my hands it will never be an option. So post up some video links once your band finally gets out there, I would love to hear them!

Lastly, good luck on your trip, and I'm sure you will find lots of great things to make everyone here jealous!

[Bucknut]

I am surprised to hear that so many people are very dry. Michigan has had one of the wettest summers that I have experienced. I have only been able to get two cuttings of hay from my hay field. The second cutting I had to wait almost an extra month because there was standing water in the field for so long. (hay tends to not dry out so well when it is laying on top of water) And my yard is all rutted up in places from driving my tractor in the wet/soft ground too.

I have not been out as much as I have in the past but when I go out have had success. I have really enjoyed the beaches this year. And I always see other detectorists every time I go out to Buffalo Beach. I guess I am just fortunate with my finds.

I am taking tomorrow off and heading up to my cottage tonight and plan to detect the next two days up there. I hope to hit the Indian camp site and also just wonder around in the many acres of woods I have permission at… maybe I will stumble onto more great finds or maybe I will find modern 22 bullets? My mom found the other day a pile of crotal bells (4 or 5) in the middle of the woods. Hopefully I will make a post early next week about my finds.

[Lodge Scent]

Very wet up here in the northeast all summer. But the beautiful fall detecting weather is here. I haven't hardly traveled all year but now that I really want to get out and detect, I've had to go to Atlanta, and Chicago the last 2 weeks and will be in Detroit next week. Haven't swung the coil in about a month!!! Yes life is too busy and is interfering with detecting.

[Digger_O'Dell]

I am surprised to hear that so many people are very dry. Michigan has had one of the wettest summers that I have experienced. I have only been able to get two cuttings of hay from my hay field. The second cutting I had to wait almost an extra month because there was standing water in the field for so long. (hay tends to not dry out so well when it is laying on top of water) And my yard is all rutted up in places from driving my tractor in the wet/soft ground too.

I have not been out as much as I have in the past but when I go out have had success. I have really enjoyed the beaches this year. And I always see other detectorists every time I go out to Buffalo Beach. I guess I am just fortunate with my finds.

I am taking tomorrow off and heading up to my cottage tonight and plan to detect the next two days up there. I hope to hit the Indian camp site and also just wonder around in the many acres of woods I have permission at… maybe I will stumble onto more great finds or maybe I will find modern 22 bullets? My mom found the other day a pile of crotal bells (4 or 5) in the middle of the woods. Hopefully I will make a post early next week about my finds.

It's been a crazy summer overall. Some areas experiencing drought and blast furnace level temps, to the cool overly wet swath across your latitude. My area luckily has been quite moderate-pretty dry, but with average temps.

Good luck on your hunt. Hope to have a good read next week, and maybe find out you stumbled onto some buried hoard of loot the natives accumulated from the settlers and buried, or even a couple chests of gold and silver coins some long forgotten military outpost buried for safekeeping. You just never know!

By the way, there is the legend of something like this happening in Wisconsin. During the Blackhawk war, a military commander feared that if the fort was lost all the funds for payroll and expenses could be lost to the Blackhawks. So one night during a new moon he sent out some soldiers into the moonless night to bury the treasury chests on a nearby hilltop that they could see from the top of the fort's walls during the day. Ultimately the soldiers never were seen again. Nobody knows if the men ever made it to the hilltop and buried the treasure and were lost on their return trip, or if they were killed on the way to the hill. Or if they even may have gone AWOL with the treasure.

It's my understanding that a few treasure seekers hunted for the stash many decades ago with early metal detectors but didn't have any luck. But now much of the surrounding area is private property with owners not letting anyone in, and the area where the hilltop fort was and the hilltop where the treasure was supposedly buried are now state lands and off limits to detecting.

[Bucknut]

Those are the legends we all dream about!

[Bucknut]

Well I just found some trade era silver and possibly a copper arrowhead fragment. I am so spoiled!

[Digger_O'Dell]

Those are the legends we all dream about!

Ain't that the truth!

Congrats on the finds! Judging by the look of your trade silver pieces, I may have to go through my "junk" silver finds. I'm thinking a few of the pieces I've found may actually be trade silver and not what I though of as jewelry fragments or wrote off as unidentifiable.

[del]

Its nice to hear what some are up too lately . Chris congrats on the new Job from me as well . As Jeff has mentioned its been a pretty wet summer with some fierce heat and humidity thrown in , I have been taking the summers off from the woods for a few years now for those very reasons , too much foliage to find small cellars and cabin sites and when you do they are pretty choked off to really swing good.

The news is my home is paid off and I've been doing some summer hobbies (shooting and reloading at my rifle club) , My Daughters have all grown up and are doing well (my oldest just moved to Knoxville Tn. for a supervisor's position with the post office and her sister runs a garden center in Westchester ct. about an hour away) the weather has lately turned very nice and I have the itch to get out some more and last weekend was the first time in months I have been out (I'm so out of shape for the hiking

I did recover a handful of buttons and a complete colonial iron stirrup and two tine fork and spoon .

[Digger_O'Dell]

Thanks for the update Dan! Congrats on the house, and great news that your daughters are doing so well. I used to be heavily into shooting sports myself, including hunting, trap, rifle and pistol. I've reloaded for all of them mostly for the volume I would shoot to cut costs, and also when I went would practice my extreme long range shooting skills. It was the only way to get specialized loads for that purpose, such as using my .44 mag pistol up to 250 yards, and my 7mm Rem mag shooting up to ~5000 yards using a match grade 168g FMJ HPBT.
Those finds of yours are certainly a historical find and very unusual. Watching the Hoover Boys lately on YouTube has been my fix lately since they have been doing so much river hunting in your region (East coast) and it's amazing what they have found including a Lord Baltimore coin which I have never heard of before. So it's good to know there's always more stuff to be found, and so many things yet to learn. Just hoping we all can get at least a few good hunts in this year!

[Full Metal Digger]

As you probably know, I had some trouble with the law last year and I spent most of this year as a guest of the state. But I'm out now and sporting my new prison tats. Of course, as luck would have it, my Powerball-retirement plan didn't work out either. All because I didn't match any of the numbers! What kind of BS is that? In February I got knifed in the arm in a bar fight. It was the arm I use for my pinpointer when I'm detecting, so that also had an impact on my ability to go detecting too. Oh, and the hot weather and no rain! I was like Tony and didn't want to leave a trail of brown plugs behind me.

p.s. I leave for Germany in exactly 2 weeks and I will be looking forward to some killer finds. Wish me luck! Happy digging, Dave.

[Tony Two-Cent]

As you probably know, I had some trouble with the law last year and I spent most of this year as a guest of the state. But I'm out now and sporting my new prison tats. Of course, as luck would have it, my Powerball-retirement plan didn't work out either. All because I didn't match any of the numbers! What kind of BS is that? In February I got knifed in the arm in a bar fight. It was the arm I use for my pinpointer when I'm detecting, so that also had an impact on my ability to go detecting too.

[Digger_O'Dell]

That's too funny! I want proof-send photos of tats and gang affiliations!

[Lodge Scent]

Dave your host was very inconsiderate. You need to stay out of trouble when in Germany. Many of us look forward to your posts. I can't but help think of the Ramones song "Commando". Pay attention to their "First Rule" when you are over there.

[badgers325]

We have slowed on the finds on this forum (except for the phenom, Bucknut). I have had a pretty good year this year silver wise, but nothing awe striking other than a few Civil War tokens. Last weekend, I found a place to hunt and my buddies got a Barber Half, Large Cent and a Barber quarter. I didn't even find a wheatie. Rough day.... Been out at least once every weekend and am looking forward to likely next weekend until the ground freezes hitting the woods. We have a lot of areas we found and am looking forward to hopefully virgin ground (like we hit last weekend..well my buddies anyway). Only hitting areas that are shaded this summer due to lack of rain and only going to those areas after a rain. Oh and if any of you know how to stop honey-do lists, let me know. I could use the advice.

[Digger_O'Dell]

Good to hear you're still getting out and finding a few things. I went back out to the site I found the 1700's Chinese coin but had absolutely no luck-not even a wheatie! Si yeah, I can understand your frustration.

As for the honey-do list, the only solution is to get rid of the honey-otherwise you'll just have to run with it!

[fyrffytr1]

Our hunting comes in spurts down here.We start mid January after deer season closes and hunt until crops are planted between March and May. Then we are out of the fields until Harvest which starts late July through the end of September, Once we get back in we can only hunt until the start of deer season which is around the middle of October. When we can't hunt the planted fields we will go to the creek and sift for Native American artifacts if it is below 3.5 feet. any higher and we can't reach the holes in the bottom.I did make three bucket list finds this year.First was a model 1808 militia shoulder belt plate, then a civil war Republican Guard coat button and finally a Native American egg stone. I also recovered an 1838 seated liberty dime in very good condition and a 1789 Spanish half reale in worn condition. I may get in a couple more hunts at fields the hunters don't use but we could use some rain to make the signals pop.