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Are we having fun yet?

This is a very important question. If your not having fun with your metal detector your not going to keep doing it. I have talked with many people that used to metal detect but don't now. I beleive its because that person wasn't having fun finding treasure. Althouth thats not the specific wording I hear it is almost always the reason. Some of the reasons I've heard are:

Well the problem isn't that theres no good stuff to find, the machine is hard to use, or theres to much junk to pick up. The reason these people may not have maintained their interest could be as simple as not knowing the different types of hunting that are available or they may not have had the right machine for their needs. For example, I you're not finding enough old coins to keep you interested perhaps instead of going to the local park try finding an old resort that went out of business 30 or more years ago. Many of these old places are now private homes and if you ask permission many of these home owners are more than happy to grant permission for you to look around. I have one of these places just down the road from me and it has been producing coins from early 1900's and well into the 1800's for me for many years. Other places for old coins and jewelery are swimming beaches that are long since abandoned and what about something fairly obvious, old houses! The yards of some of old houses can produce many old silver coins and other unusual treasures.

For those that tried is once or couldn't figure out the tuning and use of the machines, I would almost bet you haven't tried one of the new machines. Some of the newer entry level machines go up to 3 times deeper than the top of the line machines from the 70's and 80's. And, best of all many of these new machines are literary turn on and go with the ability to tune out 90% of the junk. Talk about easy! I tested one of these machine in an area I had hunted for several years and I found items that my top of the line unit had missed!!!

Another factor is how much you go out hunting. I feel that some lose interest because they never spend the time to learn the machine. If you hunt on a rarely-Regular basis you may never learn the intricacies of the machine. So again, make sure you have a machine that is easy to use and doesn't require much time to learn. If you're a more advanced hunter then a more advanced machine is for you. These machines take a bit more effort to learn but do provided additional features that help in your hunt. Don't get more machine than you need.

The excuse I hear that confuses me most often is the one were someone will say they stopped going out because they feel silly walking around with a detector by them self. This one is easy to cure. Join a Metel Detector Club. There are others that feel the way you do and would be happy to go out with you or as a group. Plus there are organized hunts you can participate in. At the club I belong to I see what others hunters are finding and learn about how they go about finding new sites. I can even ask questions of how they like or use different machines. I see hunters every month at the club meetings with items from the 1900's, 1800's, 1700's, and sometimes even items from more than 1000BC! Everyone I know that joined a club became a better hunter, improved the quality of their finds, and enjoyed the hobby much more. Joining a club is something I recommend to ANY body that likes metal detecting. Even if you don't have a machine!.

There are many different types of detectors because there are many types of treasure hunters and there many types of treasure to find with many places to look. Finding the machine that fits what you want to find with the right bunch of fellow hunters can cause you to say, YES, I having fun now!

Fanatic: Goes out every chance they can to the point of not having any other activities.
Regular: Hunts almost every week at least one time.
Semi-Regular: Hunts only on nice days but during the spring and summer there are many nice days.
Ocassional-Regular: Won't go out every week but gets out one or sometimes twice a month.
Rarely-Regular: Maybe once or twice a season.
Rarely: Digs out the detector once or twice a year. Mostly just after talking to or seeing someone else out hunting.
One timer: Tried it once long ago with a very cheap machine and couldn't get it to work right.

Water: In shallow water. Looks for Gold Jewelery and coins.
Land: In parks, Schools, backyards. Looks for new and old coins with occasionally exteremly old coins.
Reseacher: In wilderness areas and lakes. Looks for items from 1900 and older. Could be coins, logging items, float copper, or most any other item from that time period.
Prospector: Detects for Gold nuggets

Bottle digging
Panning for Gold
Looking for Indian points