Author: Vince A Miglore, Email

Vince Miglore is a researcher and technical writer with a keen interest in metal detecting. He's written for numerous magazines, including W&E treasures, and is former editor of a hobbyist newsletter.

"I bought a detector back in 1982, and in the first 5 minutes I found an Indian Head penny dated 1881 -right in my own front yard! Since then I've been hooked."

You'll be hooked too, when you see how great this sport is for your physical fitness, your appreciation of natural science, and most of all for the wealth of treasures you can find.

Vince is the author of Metal Detecting for the Beginner 2^nd Edition, 2010 which can be found at Amazon.com

Hunting Local “Micro-sites”
by Vince Migliore

I love going out on our club hunts on Sunday mornings, but we are often faced with that familiar problem of too many people working the same over-hunted parks. To remedy that situation, some of us are linking up in small groups (2 or 3 members) and setting out to smaller sites. These mini-excursions usually pay off big-time, because the smaller search areas generally have not been scoured by detectors before. We often come across that detectorist’s dream – the “virgin” site. These are locations that have never been hunted before, and you can find coins and jewelry at all depths, even on the surface of the ground.

Last week I was fortunate to find a small park, about 2 acres, that was untouched. I found 22 coins in just over one hour, and three of them were earlier than 1965. I plan to go back there soon with a bigger coil and look for the silver that is most certainly hidden there.

So, how do you find such sites? Simple: keep your eyes open! Every time you drive to work, or take a trip in the car, start looking for those small patches of land where lots of people have walked. It might be a tiny park or a strip of public land on a busy street. After a while, like a photographer, you develop a habit of searching for and finding those special locations brimming with opportunity. You store those locations in your memory banks, or even chart them on a map. Then, when you have the opportunity of a spare hour or two, you can run out and hit the jackpot.
Not too long ago, I had jury duty in downtown Sacramento. I decided to take the light-rail train from Folsom to the courthouse – every day for a week. The tracks run along Folsom Boulevard, which is one of the oldest streets in the metropolitan area. From the train I could see dozens of tiny search sites that are ripe for hunting.

This has worked well for me, because sometimes I have only half an hour to hunt with the detector, but that small strip of grass I noticed last week will only take 20 minutes to search anyway. For the areas that are a little larger, I call up a friend or two from the club, and we go out together to these micro-sites. The Sacramento Valley Detector Buffs Club provides us with a great opportunity to meet other hobbyists in our area. Many of them are open to a spur of the moment hunt, or a planned trip to a local site.

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