Yesterday was the first day I was able to test my replacement big unit.  It was warm (58 degrees), but the ground was still frozen solid (that happens after 10 days of sub 20 weather).

I went to a park with a large hunted out field, just to make sure I heard the blissful sound of threshold hum and the occasional clad, then into the woods at the same park to some ruins that have produced 3 of my best 30 finds; an extremely difficult, iron infested site. (and come to think of it, I’m not sure any other site can claim 3 of my top 30 finds).

Anyway, the coil purred like a kitten in the hunted out section, and seemed to work acceptably in the difficult section, tho I found nothing of note in either place.  At least I was able to get the test out of the way on a throw away day with the ground frozen.  Why do coils go bad?  Who knows? I hope this one doesn’t go bad like the last one.

Anyway, today was the big test, to see if the new big unit could score silver at a site marked as a prospective honeyhole, where the pro coil scored 4 silvers on 1/17.  Its a difficult site to work: the mineralization is brutal, and there is lots of iron, so you are constantly wondering about iron falses vs mucked up deep silvers.  But it was 66 degrees today, so you have to give it a go, don’t you?

And it did not go well initially.  The first hour produced little, just three clads, and lots of chatter from the coil.  But, the coil sounded like it usually does at hard sites with the man cranked, tho I was wondering if the pro coil might have been a better choice for the site, given the smaller footprint in the high mineralization, and given that it found 4 silvers last time.

But I have faith in the big unit (when it is working), and my faith was eventually rewarded with a merc and a worn barber right next to each other (no doubt the same event).  Not only that, scored a couple of rosies in the next half hour to complete the trifecta in just 2 hours, all before lunch.  Are you kidding me?  I rarely get trifectas.  At this point, I’m looking at a 2 per hour site, and thinking double digit day.

But it was not to be.  After lunch it went slowly, I pulled another merc and then a Q just near the end of the day.  Total of 6 silvers in 4.5 hours.  Any time you can get 1 per hour plus is fantastic, but that special experience of the rarefied air of a 2 per hour honeyhole was not to be, at least not today.

I’m not sure what to think of the site going forward.  Its produced 10 silvers in 2 hunts, but it is hard to read.  I already wrote about the possibly filled section on 1/17.  All of the silvers were sort of in a line, which my rectangular (and perpendicular) grid transected.  The obvious thing is to grid along that line, rather than perpendicular to it, but why are all the silvers in a line like that?  Who knows?  Who knows what the site has going forward.  Still sounding like a 5-35 silver site.  Its huge, but the area producing the silvers is quite small.  We’ll see, if the weather holds up.

One more note on the big unit.  Dug just 5 wheaties today.  Gotta love it.  The previously blogged entries here before the ground froze using the pro coil noted a large uptick in wheaties relative to silvers.  While any economist will tell you that this is not a large enough sample size, just anecdotally we see an uptick in wheaties with the pro coil, and a downdick with the big unit.  Its simple.  While I’m not ready to claim the big unit gives better depth, I am willing to claim that it give better TID at depth, allowing us to leave those wheaties for the competition (and I did that today, choosing not to dig several of them, that I doubt I would have had the confidence to ignore with the pro coil).  My stats since using this coil bear this out.  I just hope that its does not go bad.

Ok, enough intellectual BS.  Gotta see that shiny cleaned up; may be quite a while before I drop another sixspot.