Salt water hunting Detectors

beachcomberdan,

Sounds like you have a lot of experience with beaches... not so much for me. I recently bought a universal MD, the Whites' DFX 300.. I'm pleased with the dryland use but am overwhelmed with the various noises I got yesterday on the mediterranean beach. I used the factory pre-set program for jewelry and beaches. I suspect the big 12" coil is one of the problems (too many conflicting targets/trash). Another is that I may have to turn the discriminate higher. I was wondering if you have any suggested literature to read that would assist me with tweeking my unit so that I can properly: 1) understand it;and 2) use my unit successfully at the beach?

I do not want to buy a unit specifically for the beach at this time. I would rather try to be better at understanding the unit since the knowledge of any unit can be applied to many units. Anything that you can suggest?   (I finally switched it to the factory pre-set program, coins & Jewelry and had some better success).  I don't think there is anything wrong with the md but rather my ability (which I am trying to improve on).
Thanks, Coloma Gold

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I hunt here in the Southwestern US, so my detectors have to contend with a lot of trash, hot rocks, and heavy mineralization. My Whites Dual Field has the stock 12" coil and I run a 10 1/2" spider coil on the Fisher CZs. This covers me pretty good on the beaches and not much gets away from me.  As far as literature goes, I have read a number of books by Clive James Clynick and they have been very helpful. He has two books for the DFX specifically that may be worth looking at. Another beach guy I know uses a DFX and has had very good luck with the large coil. A lot of it comes down to programming from what he told me. He said it took him at least three hours to program it for the beaches since there are low, medium, and high mineralization conditions here. Also, once you have a good program, write it down in a safe place in case you have to reprogram it.

Good Luck!


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I use a Minelab Sovereign in the water most the time. I waterproofed it. It is actually the same works that are in a Excaliber, but I don't like the uncormfortable setup an Excaliber has. I hip mount my Sovereign, added a battery readout meter to it, waterproof connectors so I can change coils, and it is easy to use. I also have a Pulse Auqastar 11 detector but I hardly get to use it due to too much trash in the water that I detect. Pulse detectors have no discrimination so aren't good in trashy areas.

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I have tried many different detectors in the water. The older Fisher CZ20 was good but it didn't have any tone differences which I like about the Sovereigns and Excalibers. I had a waterproof Tesoro Piranha PI with no discriminate, it really wasn't going any deeper than the CZ20 or Sovereigns, plus the printed circut coil was sort of bouyant and a pain to use. I had a old Garrett Master Huinter which had the orange donut coil and it worked pretty well back in the 80's but the box wasn't waterproof and was heavy, so it was only good for knee deep water. I tried the talking Garrett Master Hunter and it was just average for depth so I got rid of it. I tried a Whites 5900 but found it had problems working in the wet sand near the salt water. Had a Minelab Quattro but it was too heavy for long hunts and was very sensitive to too many tiny items on the beach such as hair pins and bits of foil and would drive you crazy with all the tones and numbers on the meter. With some trial and error playing with the settings, I might have made it work ok, but it was just too heavy anyway. It never did go any deeper than my Sovereign. Had a Goldquest SS, and it went nice and deep on gold and was hip mounted so it worked well, but no discriminate and box was not waterproof so I sold it too. Bought a used Pulsepower Aquastar11 PI which is in a waterproof Ikelite box and it goes deep, but no discriminate. Kept it, as it is the best underwater detector I ever used in non trash areas. No longer made, but there is a newer model made by PulsePower ( Goldscan, I think) which I believe does even better, costs about $2300, that's why I don't have one,  I'm retired now and my cash flow isn't what it used to be.     

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You are welcome. I also forgot a couple others I have used on beaches and in the water. I had a Detector Pro Headhunter PI which was a dream to use as it is so light. It of course has no discrimination. I was a nice beach/shallow water unit for non trashy beaches with better depth than many other machines. I had a couple Headhunter Waders also The latest one with the 11" coil went about an inch or 2 deeper than the 8" coil older model, but they just didn't have anywhere the depth of my Sovereigns with the same size coils.  I have never tried the newer Tesoro Sand Sharks, they are still PI's and using that printed circuit coil, then I wouldn't want to. It is too flat and was like a pancake in the water with too much resistance to moving it. When they get smart and make a spider coil for this machine, it might be worth another look. Good huntin, John

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