Monday I pulled a couple more rosies at the private property permission honeyhole, my 42nd silver from that site, and while it is thinning, I don’t think it is done.  Problem is, the grass is getting high there, and it may need to be tabled til elsetime.

And today I pulled a rosie at a sort of standby site; its the sort of site you can often get a stray silver dime or two, or a couple of wheaties, but I’ve never pulled a silver bigger than a dime there, and there is little prospect of older silver, so it is sort of a site for when I have little time and when I am in the area.

The problem is, what happened between those days.  I received a tip as to where an old fairgrounds and baseball field were.  I did the research (the tip checked out), drove by the site, took one look, and said this is a 50 to 150 silver site.

It was private property, but I located the owner and secured permission.  Not only that, the owner, who had been the owner for a very long time, claimed it had never been detected, nor had the evil fill and grade twins been there.

What could be better?  What could be better is finding a 64 rosie with a hole in it, as a colleague of mine once  put it.  Not a single silver from this site in two days of hard hunting.  I did pull a couple of wheaties, but this snapped a 22 hunt silver streak, and I had visions of a monster site.

What went wrong?  I have no idea.  I’m rarely wrong about judging a site (my weakness is getting access to sites, but once I’m there, I’m pretty effective). All I can say is that the grass was high overall, but I found plenty of sections where the grass was low enough to at least prove the site.  Most likely, the site has been hunted without the owner’s knowledge, but even so, hard-hunted sites give up silvers to the mighty E-Trac.

I don’t know what went wrong.  Once you think you have this game figured out, something like this happens.  Well, I have carte blanche to hunt the site; I will try again when and if the grass is ever really low (by nature of the site, they don’t mow it, but there should have been evidence of old coins in the low grass sections).

Back to the double digit site from last weekend, it it only gave up a couple of dimes.  The grass was high, and both were very deep,  May have missed some today; this may have to be a project for the fall or winter or next year, the grass is really coming in now; although outside last weekend’s small hot zone, the site is pretty dead.

Today was the group hunt at Brandywine Springs Park, in New Castle County, Delaware.  The site used to be an old amusement park and a couple of old hotels were there, but I didn’t hold out much hope for the site, as word on the street is that it is pretty much hunted out.  Moreover, it was supposed to rain, and my E-Trac gets wonky in the rain — I simply can’t hunt if it rains above a drizzle, or I risk the machine.

Sean did an excellent job of organizing it, and its always fun to meet up and hunt with others, even if you don’t expect to find anything.

First thing I did was head right for the most difficult terrain, a steep, wooded, hillside.  I figured that if there was any chance of finding anything, it would be there.  I did find an old butterknife, which is constructive (any big, old, metal target is at such a site), but no coins.

After a bit of that misery, I went for some of the more obvious areas, and found nothing, not a single coin, even a clad, except for one wheatie, and only found that cause the dirt had recently been disturbed.  Unbelieveable how clean this place was.  Couldn’t even find trash.

Rain started, and was gonna call it a day, one coin the entire morning just isn’t enough to keep me motivated, but when the rain stopped, I went out for a bit more to a different section, as I have a very long silver streak running that I wanted to continue, and I pulled a deep barber dime on its side.  I figured that was the only way I would get one in this place. Rain started again, and I had to go in.

After that, Dogpound pulled a seated not 10 feet from where my barber was, which would have been mine, had it not been for the rain cutting my gridding short, so after that we both really attacked that area, but no more coins were given up.

Total on the day, 4 or 5 hours of hunting was exactly 4 coins, the barber, the wheatie, a  clad dime, and a zincoln.  That’s it.  Amazing. Also amazing was that Sean pulled both a barber quarter and dime from the site, and his friend pulled a barber half.  I believe that that is all the silver the 20-30 detectorists pulled on the day, tho.

This marks the 6th state I have pulled silver in (CT, DE, MD, MI, NJ, PA; see, I track everything).

Despite pulling only one silver, it was quite a fun day.  Thanks Sean, if you are reading.

After last year of pulling 516 silvers, I didn’t expect to pull even 10% of that total this year, figuring most of my sites were washed up, and the warm end of the year was simply pulling this year’s total into last year.

But, I’ve had a good winter so far (and I guess its spring now), and I managed to pull just one dime today, a 43D merc, but it is my 100th silver coin of the year.  Certainly not on last year’s pace, having gone thru almost a quarter of the year already, but we will certainly take it.  Each and every one is fun to dig, and that’s what it is all about.

Yesterday I also pulled a rosie, and this treasure, a liberty cap large cent. Some people go gaga over these.  I know, they are really old, and sort of rare, but this is the third one I’ve dug, and they always come out of the ground totally abused.  Maybe I should be more grateful, ’cause I know someday I’ll be begging to pull a wheatie.  Its just the abuse that annoys me, I think.  Were it to come out of the ground clean, even if worn, I’d celebrate for a week.

Back to the site I was working last week, and today I pulled an 1811 largie and a few modern silvers.  The 1811 largie is a pretty low mintage coin, about 200K or so — less than a 1916D merc.  Too bad it isn’t worth anywhere near that.  This is also my 50th career large copper coin.

Yesterday pulled a trio of modern silvers, 2 dimes and a quarter (not pictured).

What do you do when you are on a roll at a honeyhole?  Go to a different site, of course.  That’s what I did earlier in the year, and that’s what I did today, ’cause I thought the reasons were compelling.

In this case, the honeyhole is a permission site, and this new site, by its nature, can only be detected on weekends (gee, I wonder what sort of site it is?).

Well, this time it was a good call.  Day started out very slow, and even clad was hard to find.  Clearly I wasn’t the first one here, but eventually I pulled a very deep barber dime, and a couple of wheaties.  That keeps you going.

Still pretty dead after that, until I got a deep, iffy signal that turned out to be a dateless SLQ. But then, right near the SLQ, I could hardly swing the coil without getting a deep silver hit.  Unbelievable! I pulled 11 silvers from that one area.

How can a site be so dead then have these hot pockets?  I’ve seen it before, and hopefully i will see it again.

This is my 11th double digit silver day, and first of the year.  Hopefully many more to come, tho I am certainly not expecting it. Oh, and I guess it is a trifecta as well.

Well, this is turning into a monster roll now.  Pulled 7 silver dimes today.  These rolls are rare, but they are fun while they last.

After the mild slump I went thru in Feb, it definitely feels sweet to be on a major roll now.  Pulled five more modern silvers today.

Thought my recent site was thinning a bit, then I go out and pull six silvers.  Once you get to five or above in a given hunt, that really gets your heart pumping.  They are all modern, but fun to dig nonetheless.

Back to my recent honeyhole; last two hunts netted 3 silver coins (a dime and a quarter yesterday, not pictured), and a dime today. Also pulled a buff, abused 1853 largie, and a silver ring.

A nice mix of older coins, but definitely thinning in the silver dept.  Keep a streak alive, tho.

Won the find of the month in the non-coin category for Feb on minelabforums.com.  That’s a fun forum, small enough to know everyone, and lots of cool, smart people there, and you are not overwhelmed by post volume and drivel.

Well, here’s the find (not previously posted), found way back in Feb at my 500th silver of last year site (and first silver of this year site), on a day I was skunked for silver.

Continue hitting the same site I have permission for.  It is certainly working itself into a major honeyhole.  Its weird, ’cause when I first hit the site, I almost gave up on in after a few hours of dead, but hit a merc and kept going, and worked into a bit of a hot zone.

That hot zone seems to have played out, but I worked another section and got a couple more silvers, as well as a largie.  The largie is abused, as all get in our acidic soil, but I can make out a date: 1837.  This section of the site is very near where an old farmhouse stood, so I’m hopeful for more older silvers in this section.

Definitely on a mini-roll.  Not much time to write, too much time detecting and working.

Four silvers today, all dimes, but we’ll take ’em.

Received permission for a piece of private property that has promise.  Had a good day, dropping a 5 spot.