Explore practical metal detecting tips for beginners and experienced detectorists. Learn how to research productive locations, improve detector settings and search techniques, recover more finds, and metal detect safely and responsibly.
A Little Lead Never Hurts Anyone — or Does It? Exposure Harms You As detectorists, we regularly recover lead objects without giving them much thought. Fishing sinkers, bullets, musket balls, bale seals, weights, fragments, and other lead items are common finds at beaches, lakes, old homesites, military sites, parks, and historic locations. Most detectorists have probably…
Most detectorists approach large rural properties the wrong way. They attempt to detect land rather than detect human behavior. A 500-acre ranch is not 500 equal acres, and neither is an abandoned farm, an old military campsite, a stage route property, or a forgotten homestead tract. Human activity historically clustered in predictable places tied to…
Most metal detectorists follow patterns. That is not a criticism. It is human nature. We listen to other detectorists. We watch what works. We hear where the finds are coming from, and we want to be part of it. If someone says the beaches are producing, a wave of detectorists heads to the beach. If…
A Practical Guide to Canadian Metal Detecting Laws, Permissions, Provincial Differences, and the Safest Places to Detect Responsibly. Metal detecting in Canada can be rewarding, but it is not a hobby where you should assume the rules are simple. Across Canada, the biggest mistake detectorists make is treating the country as if it has one…
My first career from age 19 until I retired at 50 I was a professional firefighter in Texas. In addition, I was paramedic trained and dealt with animals in the wild. Here in Texas, like some other places in America, we have our fair share of venomous snakes. Rattlesnakes, Copperheads, Coral Snakes, and Cottonmouth Water…
During the great age of railroad expansion in the United States—from roughly the 1850s through the early twentieth century—railroad companies pushed thousands of miles of track across the country. Today, many people associate railroad history with towns, depots, and locomotives, but long before those permanent structures existed, the people who built the railroads lived in…
Not every cache is found outdoors; many are hidden inside the home. Over the years, I have been called in numerous times to help locate caches after someone passes away, and through those successful recoveries—as well as insights shared by friends who also search for caches professionally—I have learned a great deal about the places…
When you’re door knocking in your town, or especially in a strange town, you don’t have time to research deeds, study Sanborn maps, or pull tax records to determine where the older homes are. So you have to drive around and use your eyes and your mind to see which lot you think you have…
If you’ve spent any time hunting old homesites, you already know the truth: the best finds are rarely in the front yard. They’re behind the house, out where people actually lived their daily lives. There is likely more treasure back there than your metal detector is capable of finding……One of the richest, most overlooked locations…