Skunked (again)

[Relichunter]

I thought I had it figured out, a new place to hunt. I mentioned in an
earlier post about an Indian camp site located on the opposite side of
the river from where a main village (now destroyed by a highway) once
stood.

I finally got a chance to hunt it. Conditions seemed perfect and the
topography matched exactly what I might have expected.

After a long day with the CTX3030, the only things I found were modern
rusty nails, barbed wire, pull tabs, and the ever present shot shell
bases.

I really thought I had a new location nailed down. I guess I am
positive of the location but now believe the top layers of earth were
scraped off the hill tops for use in building up the elevation of the
earth supporting the 4 lane highway that had been built over the
original village on the opposite side of the small river.

Oh well, back to the research.

I downloaded a lot of out of print books onto my tablet so while
relaxing while anchored on my boat, I have the uninterrupted time to
read. Usually we spend 3 or 4 days at a time on the boat, mostly
anchored in a quiet cove, away from TV and easy access to the
Internet. So the old books are stirring up new ideas for places to
hunt. I have found some very general areas I want to hunt but need to
do a bit more research to narrow down the final locations.

My 4 year old grandson was visiting the other day and believe me, he
is a ball of energy:) Unfortunately I had left my trusty old Garmin
60C GPS on the floor next to my chair in the family room and he jumped
on me at the same time breaking the GPS:) I have gotten so used to
navigation by GPS especially while driving and hiking in the woods, I
wasted no time in ordering a new Garmin handheld for use in the field.
Garmin is discontinuing their once top of the line Oregon 550t so they
can be had brand new at less than 50% of the old pricing (you do have
to look around a bit). I ordered one to try it out. Besides, it has a
NMEA 0183 output which will work with the autopilot on my boat. If
nothing else, I can always put it to use on the upper helm of my boat
and link it to the autopilot. I usually operate the boat from the
upper helm anyway instead of the helm in the cabin where the other GPS
is mounted. My car as a built in GPS so don't need the street
functions.

Gosh, was drooling over a Minelab 5000 on ebay.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/MINELAB-Metal-Detector-GPX5000-Extra-Coils-Case-Minimal-Usage-HUGH-Package-/200960875393?pt=US_Metal_Detectors&hash=item2eca339b81

I am so tempted but just shelled out $8,000 for cataract surgery for
the wife. She wanted the super lenses that allow focusing at near and
far distances along with some laser correction to repair some small
amount of astigmatism in her eyes. But on the bright side, this is the
first time she hasn't had to wear glasses or contacts since she first
started wearing glasses in second grade. Gotta take care of the wife
first I guess:)

Good hunting everyone!

Warmest Regards,
Relichunter

[Joe Roberts]

Hi RH,

In your post:

> I really thought I had a new location nailed down.
> I guess I am positive of the location but now believe
> the top layers of earth were scraped off the hill tops
> for use in building up the elevation of the earth
> supporting the 4 lane highway that had been built
> over the original village on the opposite side of the
> small river.

That's probably what happened. Too bad -- all the good detecting and
history is lost under the highway. Why didn't they announce it and let
MDers do some work first?

I've seen that kind of thing happen with old city lots. They're city
property, and on the old maps they're open fields where they held patriotic
meetings. When you get there today, it's a paved parking lot. I saw one
lot where the field had been scraped clean and leveled, down about three
inches from what it used to be. They hadn't paved it yet, so I worked on
it. Up came an Indian Head cent, about an inch and a half deep. I wonder
what other things had been scraped away.

It's always a pleasure and good reading when you post your reports here.
Please keep 'em coming.

Joe

[Relichunter]

On Thu, 12 Sep 2013 20:13:49 -0400, "Joe Roberts" <josep...@att.net>
wrote:

>
>That's probably what happened. Too bad -- all the good detecting and
>history is lost under the highway. Why didn't they announce it and let
>MDers do some work first?
>
>I've seen that kind of thing happen with old city lots. They're city
>property, and on the old maps they're open fields where they held patriotic
>meetings. When you get there today, it's a paved parking lot. I saw one
>lot where the field had been scraped clean and leveled, down about three
>inches from what it used to be. They hadn't paved it yet, so I worked on
>it. Up came an Indian Head cent, about an inch and a half deep. I wonder
>what other things had been scraped away.
>
>It's always a pleasure and good reading when you post your reports here.
>Please keep 'em coming.
>
>Joe
>

Hi Joe,
You're right about things being built over too fast. Sometime back,
they were building a new Walmart or something somewhere on an old
civil war site. From what I heard, they didn't let anyone hunt the
site before digging it away because of supposed liability issues.

My Garmin Oregon came in a couple days ago. I have played with it a
bit and so far, so good. It can easily pick up satellites in my family
room even with the second story of the house above it. That gives e a
lot of confidence in navigating in heavy tree cover. There are some
other features I really like too. In a way, I am kind of happy with
the grandson for helping me out:)

I do like that CTX3030 but I sure wish it could be broken down for
backpacking. Since I don't spend a lot of time each year behind a
detector, the CTX3030 is about as easy as it gets. I love the
compactness of the XP Deus but don't spend enough time in the field to
learn what it's telling me.


Warmest Regards,
Relichunter