Frozen dirt and other bad weather, family time, work time, doing the taxes (yuck!, and this marks the latest I’ve ever gotten them done), added up to a whole lot of not detecting.  Last hunt (not counting that 15 minute attempt that got snowed on the other day) was the niner of 2/15, so it was nice to get back in the saddle today, given the 48 degree weather (and you know you are warm-deprived when you celebrate such a hideously low temp).

And it ended well, a dollar day, and we don’t get too many of them.

The last time we were at this site, we thought it might be petering, due to the last two hours of grid extension giving up nothing after 9 silvers at a record run rate.  Moreover, adding a rank to the grid on that snowed out day with not a single coin only added to that sentiment.

So, what did I try today?  Keep extending the grid in that direction.  It was rational, given that it was a) heading into a trashy area; b) heading towards the road; and c) heading into an embankment.  All, experience suggests, its where you want to be, but it ended up in 26 cents in clad, and no wheaties.  Are you kidding me?  Just goes to show that probably everything I’ve written over the last 18 months is garbage, and it is all luck.

So, we all know when to cut our losses, so I tried to expand in the direction where I found that putative vanity silver piece, hoping to find the rest of it.  There was a nice tell at the edge of that side of the grid (a deep 65 Q), but the fish weren’t biting in that direction either. 2 hours in, and not even a wheatie yet.

Fortunately, it is a huge site, and there is one more direction to go (actually 3, one is unknown, and the other leads into the presumed filled area; these for another time, perhaps), so we go in the remaining direction, and keep getting deep clad, and a couple of bottlecaps.  God I love deep bottlecaps. These are the tells, so you go at it and go at it until the shiny comes out, and eventually I got the merc.  Quite an iffy signal, but we’ll take it.  This is the first silver I’ve gotten from this site that is not in the linear flow paradigm as described in previous entries, so there is hope after all.

Not long after the merc, its a strange signal that is quite high tonish, and open it up, and out pops a nickel.  Are you kidding me?  I know there’s high tone in there, (figure its a clad spill), and poke around with the pinpointer, and out pops a silver Q.  Sweet baby!  Poke in again, and again the propointer goes off, and out pops another silver Q.  Got a silver spill goin’, baby!  Poke in again, and another silver comes out, this time a rosie.  But that’s the end of it.  Ties my record largest silver spill at 3, but at 60 cents, is my largest in terms of face value.

So, we continue to work the grid, which is basically skirting around what I think is the filled area, and things are pretty dead.  Also working towards where the old timer says he buried the halfs (not that I believe him, but who wouldn’t give it a try?). Have 2 silver events (feels like a 2 silver day, even tho we have 4, in terms of judging the local density), in this paradigm.  Dead dead dead, until it is almost time to go.  Not enough time to do another rank of the grid, so I just freestyle off the edge of it, and randomly nail a silver Q.  Are you kidding me?  I guess that just opened up continuing the grid that direction.

But it gets even crazier.  Its past time to go, and I just start heading back to the car, which takes me across the previous hot zone (which I believe I’ve gridded out). and I get a slam dunk silver dime silver in the zone I’ve diligently worked.  Are you kidding me?  Silver number 6 on the day.  I feel too embarrassed to write this part up, and it will likely not survive the morning edit.

All I can say was, it was sort of on the edge of the hot zone grid, and sometimes it is tough to remember grid boundaries in featureless fields.  OTOH, as I’m driving home trying to think of the reasons for this miss (as always, thinking of things like channel management), I remember what I wrote re the double digit day: there’s no question in my mind I left a few in the ground.  This one was in that zone.  Geez.  At least I got a lucky do over.  I don’t ever go over my grids again (who has the patience?), so I guess there are more in that zone for the competition.  Ouch.  I guess its true that no site is ever hunted out (at least my grids aren’t apparently).

Well, number 39 from this site, ranking it as my 10th best all time, and just one from officially becoming a honeyhole.  Fascinating site.  If the weather holds, hopefully more updates, and hopefully a post showing all those old timer’s halfs.  We’ll see, as we work the grid in that direction.

And, of course, gotta post it all shinied up —