NC Beaching

[Diggins]

Hi everyone. I am really new to MD and got myself a ACE250. Wish I had more time to learn it, but I'm still stuck on baby steps. Anyway, I have had the luck to hunt with GySgt USMC, who I met through here. We did Atlantic Beach my first time out. It was awesome! Found a Timex and some change. Then did a bit of CW stuff, followed by hunting another spot. Thanks Gary for letting a newbie tag along!!!!!! Hope we can hunt again before ya move! Trying to find some time right now.

I have questions regarding beaches. I am in New Bern, NC. I LOVE hunting what I am now and curious about beaches/storms.
I took a look at noaa.gov for conditions and basically not sure what I should be looking for. I know that you want some pretty good storms to turn up the sand,etc.
What do you look for or how do you know when it's a good time to hit the beach for stuff that might have been turned up?
I have done a small part of Atlantic Beach and even smaller part of Fort Macon Beach, other than that, nothing as far as beaches.

What modes do you set your detectors on?

If you wanted to say find valuables or even ummm washed up treasure from a pirate ship or some other out of this world fantasy, where would you go for a day trip?

Thanks and Best Of Luck Hunting!!!!!!

[Steve in PR]

Check out surfing websites for wave activity for your area and don't forget to look at the tidal phase and take advantage of low tides (especially Lunar low tides). Good luck!

[Diggins]

Thanks a lot for the info. I have been looking at noaa.org for stuff.

[Mephysto]

Do you detect with ACE250 on the beach?
I started with it too but on wet sand and in the water I had to set the sens lower to avoid false signals.

[drver]

Hay all, I’m new to the site and fairly new to metal detecting. I use an Ace 250 to beach hunt and yea I have to turn the sens down in wet sand but it’ll still find targets fairly deep there. It seems the reduced sens does not reduce the depth much.

I’ve found the best way to tell what the weather is doing to the beach is to go there and look at it, next best is to pick a beach cam and check it out every once in a while. First you have to know what it looks like in order to know when it has changed, for the good or bad. I haven’t seen a good site that’ll show wave action though.
FYI, storms on land or out in the ocean can move the sand, sometimes it’ll remove sand, sometimes it’ll turn sand and sometimes it’ll bring in sand.

[drver]

boobieinPa thanks for the welcome and the good luck. Yea been doing OK until the last few weeks, allot of new sand blew in and buried everything.

Hay good luck in Avon,,,Haha you don’t need to worry about me man that’s two hundred miles from away me.

[PAPPY]

WELCOME to the TQ FAMILY DRVER !

[drver]

Wow not sure what happened to that post, let’s try that again.

Thanks PAPPY

[bdahunter]

I started out with an ACE250 and had a lot of fun with it as well as recovering some nice loot. As you know, it is light weight, has good depth and decent discrimination especially with coins. It packs a lot of bang for the buck, a real deal.
Don't drop it in the water or let it get splashed or it's good by detector.( I used to put a plastic baggy over mine when near the water) It doesn't like salt water and falses pretty badly even in wet sand unless you turn the sensitivity way down but you get great performance hunting the dry sand right after a good rain. Try working the cuts in the beach caused by run off after a good rain, I think you will be pleasantly surprised.
Eventually you will want to trade up to something more versatile like a PI machine or an Excal but you are going to have a ton of fun with the ACE250 in the meantime. You are going to find your best loot out in the water in my opinion but if you can even work the wet sand and shallows for a while you are bound to find something good.

Cheers,

BDA
Excalibur 1000