Can a metal detecting site really get hunted out? For me, I think that it depends on the site. There’s a big difference between a ¼ acre lot in a residential neighborhood when compared to a trash filled park, iron infested cellar hole, or a wooded recreational area that is hundreds of acres in size.
Let’s start with the ¼ acre lot. I own an old house, so when I purchased my very first metal detector, a Garrett Ace 250, my first instinct was to hunt for coins in my own yard. I ended up finding about a half dozen or so wheat pennies which is what really got me hooked on the hobby. I later upgraded to a Garrett AT Pro and decided to metal detect my yard again. I ended up finding another one or two wheat pennies, and my very first silver coin, a 1952 Roosevelt dime. The Garrett Ace 250 missed these coins! Eventually, I purchased an XP Deus and later, a Minelab Equinox. I went back to my yard with the XP Deus, and lo and behold, I found two more wheat pennies that the Garrett AT Pro had missed! Naturally, I also metal detected my yard with the Minelab Equinox, but this time I did not find any more coins.
At this point, I believe that my yard is hunted out. However, it took much more advanced metal detectors than the Garrett Ace 250 to find every coin that was buried in my relatively small yard. And that is a very important point! Just because you have been told that a metal detecting site has been hunted out, doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t go and check it out for yourself. This is especially true if you have a newer metal detector such as the Minelab Equinox or XP Deus / ORX. These machines in particular can detect at greater depths than older metal detectors could, can separate targets much better, and are more likely to identify a wider variety of targets because these metal detectors are multi frequency.
When it comes to trash filled parks and iron infested cellar hole sites, it is my belief that you can never really consider places such as these to be hunted out. First and foremost, newer metal detectors, the Minelab Equinox in particular, are breathing new life into old, hunted out sites. Again, this is because these machines run deeper, separate better, and are multi frequency. If you’ve recently purchased a Minelab Equinox, then you should definitely head over to that old park that you swore that you cleaned out back when you owned an older or less capable metal detector. Also, lets not forget about the human element that is at play here. Metal detecting at trash filled parks can be mentally exhausting because of the constant audio feedback from the machine due to the abundance of trash. This causes a lot of detectorists to set discrimination so high that they will most likely miss a target. In many cases detectorists will quite simply skip trashy areas all together. This is your golden (or silver) opportunity to head out with your Minelab Equinox or XP Deus / ORX and find all of the goodies that were left behind.
There are other factors however, that may cause a hunted out metal detecting site to produce more coins, jewelry, or relics. For example, it is a widely held belief that coins “move around” in the soil throughout the years. This could be caused by any number of reasons including frost heaves, a burrowing animal, water, farming, and construction to name a few. Just last year, I found a Carson City seated Liberty dime in the middle of a trail that I had metal detected a thousand times over. I found the coin the day after a heavy rainstorm on the trail surface. I honestly believe that this coin was washed down from a high point during the storm and that I was lucky enough to find it with my metal detector before someone else did. Also, damp soil seems to increase conductivity which increases the likelihood that you’ll find a deep coin with your metal detector. It’s therefore never a bad idea to go back and check an old site in the early spring or after a heavy rain storm.
The sheer size of a metal detecting site can make it highly unlikely that the site is truly hunted out. My friends and I have been metal detecting a conservation area that consists of over 600 acres. We’ll metal detect a small section of the property until we stop finding coins. We will then search for another section of the property where there was activity and hunt that area until it stops producing. Wash, rinse, repeat… Given the size of this particular area, the location, and the amount of people who have gathered here throughout the years; it is safe to say that it will be impossible to truly hunt out this site.
As you can see there are several reasons why a metal detecting site may never truly be hunted out. Weather and other environmental factors, along with newer, more capable metal detectors can make it possible to find coins, jewelry, and relics at even the most heavily hunted sites. Let’s not forget about luck however; sometimes that’s all that it takes in order to find something valuable with a metal detector that someone else missed.