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I enjoy Detectorists on the telly and have a mate who does it. I'm interested in history so have vaguely toyed with the idea of having a go.
However, sans detector I've found (seperately) these two things. Bracelet next to a footpath, but the camel spoon was in the middle of nowhere, not near a path, on a Cumbrian fell. It was just lying there; I sat down and put my hand on it.
I may be about to retire on the proceeds... or maybe not 😀
Camel spoon? Is that for cleaning out a camel toe?
There's a technique to reading the display and listening to the right sound for precious metal. I wasn't much good at it!
Well if anyone is local to me there might be some booty in the local tip...........
i found an actual needle in a hay stack a week ago, could have used it then :(. Our vet dropped it in a huge pile of hay during some chaos so I had to sift through it all by hand to find it again. Was sort of pleased but wished there had been a device available to help.
You wouldn't believe the booty i came across at the end of the night in the cider tent at our summer fete!
device available to help.<br />Magnet?
Ah, went down that route. Hacked an old dead motor in two to pull out the magnets that were the strongest I knew I had. I'm guessing the needle was stainless as it wasn't even slightly attracted to the magnet 🙁
Finding a needle with a metal detector is far from guaranteed.
You'd likely need to have the coil right on top of it, pretty much touching the needle. A smaller coil would help mind you.
My lad and I were heavily into detecting when he was a lad. He's now 26 and taken it up on his own. His landlord is a farmer which helps! He also lives just off Watling Street so huge amounts of Celtic, Roman and medieval history right on his door step.
It's a great hobby. I've not done it for 10 years but it's the only hobby that has ever grabbed me like MTBing. I'll return to it one day. You get to see some lovely scenery, that was a really important part of it for me. I was also privileged enough to see an Anglo Saxon hoard of jewelry come up on a club dig.
I never did find my absolute bucket list coin though, a Celtic gold stater. One day.
My archery club has access to a couple of metal detectors - you’ll be surprised just how easy it is to lose an arrow in even short, mowed grass, and which has bright coloured fletchings. Most arrows are alloy tubing, but some are wood, used with longbows, and others are carbon-fibre, with alloy points, or piles, so a good metal detector is key!
The only time you really need a metal detector, is about 0.2 seconds before you put a drill bit through a plasterboard 'wall'.
We put the rotary washing line away one winter. Needed to borrow a metal detector to find the socket in the grass that it fits into in the spring.
Know the feeling. Putting up a tie ring and dropped a screw in the bedding/hay, took ages to find (although not as long as the uncaptive thru-axle nut that fell off the frame on a campsite with long grass!)
I only ever take the correct number of screws into a stable now so I can reassure the missus that I've not laid a trap for the horse...
PS I use a metal detector sometimes at work, thankfully I'm looking for large manhole lids so I can quickly discount the huge amount of buried rubbish. Although I have been tricked by a buried roadworks sign.