Is Metal Detecting for You? Answer Four Simple Questions to Find Out

I’ll get to the four questions pretty pronto, but first, here’s just a little background:

Back in the late 70s and early 80s, before I began to metal detect, I sniped for gold in the waters of creeks and rivers. Sniping, simply put, is a method/art used worldwide by gold miners to home in on and recover concentrations of gold from caches (usually small), both in wet and dry environments. For more on sniping for gold, read my post: How to Snipe for Gold—a Primer for Beginners

Over the years, I also dry washed in The Mojave and Great Basin Deserts, and panned, sluiced, and dredged in remote streams of California—a bit in Alaska too. I usually camped and worked alone.

With gold back then valued at a small fraction of what it is today, it wasn’t always easy to make ends meet, especially during the all too frequent dry spells when gold became brutally scarce (as hard to find as an honest politician).

Rarely, but on occasion, I had to swallow my pride and take a temporary job to fill in the gaps and get up a new grubstake. But that came with the territory; I always got by, and, no matter how difficult the times, there was nothing I would rather have been doing than living my life as a roving prospector—except maybe becoming a Playboy centerfold photographer!

Ron Crone, a friend and metal-detecting hobbyist specializing in coins, introduced a skeptical me to metal detecting back in ’85.

Ron was an accomplished detectorist who had found and amassed a huge assortment of coins and jewelry pieces but hadn’t had much success hunting gold nuggets. He offered to teach me to detect if I would team up with him to target gold.

Knowing diddly about detecting, but willing to give it a go, I bought the same model of detector Ron was using—a White’s Coinmaster 6000/Di Series 3. It proved to be a great detector, but, as I soon learned, it was not engineered to target the bitsy kernels of gold, often weighing under a gram, that predominate in most gold-producing areas—including throughout my usual hunting grounds.

It was primarily a coin-hunting machine; however, lucky for me, it screamed on big gold too, and that’s just what I found on one of our first outings.

The gold/quartz (mostly gold) specimen I found weighed over 13 ounces and soon appeared on the cover of Treasure Found magazine—winter of ’85 edition. I went on to hunt gold with detectors for years after that.

Nowadays though, I don’t get out as often as I used to, but I still love nugget shooting. It’s lots of fun, and it can be profitable too for the highly skilled and persistent. However, every once in a while it pays big for lucky greenhorn newbies, too.

You can read about how I found that 13 ounce specimen piece and also how an utter greenhorn with a brand new detector scored big on his first day of detecting, in my post: Does Metal Detecting Pay?

So, Could Metal Detecting Be for You?

The short answer is maybe. But don’t jump the gun. Before spending money on equipment and leaping into the metal-detecting hobby, ask yourself the following four questions:

1. Do I Have the Time for a Hobby?

That’s an easy one. If too much of your free time is spent wondering what the heck to do with your free time—then yes, you do have the time for a hobby. Of course, if you don’t have don’t have free time, you don’t need a hobby.

2. Do I Crave Challenge, Adventure, and Accomplishment?

If you are looking for an activity that will not break the bank, will get you out of doors, welcome you into a supportive community of kindred spirits, and afford you the chance to discover and amass booty at every outing, then metal detecting might be the fix for you.

3. Am I Driven to Persist Until I Succeed—No Matter the Challenge or Time Required?

Dogged persistence has proven again and again to spawn success. Sometimes while detecting the detectorist will dig one junk target after another, ad nauseam. Are you a steadfast optimist that can maintain purpose, interest, and commitment if there’s a prolonged lag between expectancy and gratification?

4. Do I Have the Money Needed to Kick Start a Metal Detecting Hobby?

That’s another easy one. If you have a few hundred dollars to jump-start a hobby, you can set yourself up with the entry-level metal detecting gear needed to get going.

Soon, after having gained experience in the field and a level of proficiency with your detector, you will know if metal detecting is the hobby meant for you. And if it’s not, your investment can be substantially minified by selling your detector and recouping most of your money.

If you answered no to any of the questions, metal detecting is probably not a good fit for you, at least for now.

However, if you answered yes to all four, chances are good that you will find metal detecting to be rewarding.