How many detectors do you need anyway?

I hear it often, ‘do you really need all those detectors?’ From the standpoint of a non-detectorist, it’s valid to ask, especially considering the cost of some of these machines. The old saying ‘specialization is for insects’ comes to mind as the typical response regarding doing many things well vs. one thing extremely well. In the case of metal detecting though, there are very few ‘general purpose’ machines that can handle all aspects of treasure hunting without suffering in one regard or even several. So as you will see, you can make your case based on whatever you intend to pursue.

Technology makes it possible

If you want to hunt gold nuggets in the goldfields of the US or Australia, you will have to contend with extremely mineralized soil that will have most general purpose detectors chattering away and sounding off on ironstone rocks and mineral deposits. If you want to hunt gold jewelry at beaches you may have to contend with the mineralization of saltwater, plus the sands of the beach. Then there’s the waterproof thing. For most ventures inland, be it treasure or coin hunting, the detectors that work in the previously mentioned fields may be too heavy or bulky for park or yard usage, or more importantly lack the ability to discriminate out the tons of metallic trash in the ground. This is why, when the question of ‘best detector’ comes up,  the ones that have been detecting for years will answer the question with another question: ‘what type of detecting do you plan to do most?’.

For most beginning detectorists, it would be safe to recommend a mid to high end ‘general purpose’ machine that covers most of the bases pretty well. Once learned, those machines serve as a good beginning before taking the plunge for specialized machines. In truth, most people only detect in a few scenarios where they just don’t need the power, extra features, or specialization of the high end machines.

So now what?

So here is the real point of the post: don’t run out and buy a detector because you saw it cheap at a big box store, or get the one that so-and-so has because he seems to like it. Do some research, define your dreams. Even within the realm of general purpose there are special features that you may want or need, such as light weight, portability, waterproofness, etc. Some perform better than others and some are harder to learn than others.

Here are a few forums you can visit to help research types of treasure hunting, and machines that work well in those scenarios, good luck!

www.findmall.com

www.metaldetectingforum.com

www.treasurenet.com

Pics of a few 'general purpose' machines (BEST bang for the buck shown first!):

 

The best, most painful prospecting trip yet!

 It’s always a risk planning mid-winter trips to the Bradshaw Mountains, but that’s what gold fever will do to you when combined with being a new owner of one of the few ‘best gold detectors in the world’! Having a wide open work window in January, I decided to push my luck and book my five day adventure to visit friends and soak up a dose of the harsh beauty that the Bradshaws-and this time the Weaver Mountains- had to offer. After all, the weather forecast said clear for those dates when I booked! –Hint, any forecast for Arizona shows clear and sunny when you look a month ahead…

So the plan was formulated-we would go to the famous Rich Hill where one of our friends has a claim AND found a 3oz nugget! Twenty years ago…but hey, it was a THREE OUNCE NUGGET! The rest of our time would be spent in our usual areas of claims closer to Mayer, plus a little exploring in a new area or two. I went ahead and packed most of my gear with 3 weeks to spare-that’s just how good this trip was gonna be! As the time counted down, the weather forecast began to sink as California started taking a watery beat-down of historic proportions. But damn the torpedos, that gold just wouldn’t wait!

Wrench, meet gears…

I knew things were off to a rocky start when my ride to the airport, who was supposed to pick me up at 4:45am, showed up almost 20 minutes late. After checking baggage and finally working through the TSA line I wondered if they were using some new patdown technique that would soon be outlawed due to decency laws. Just where the heck were all these people going so early? After a jog, then run to my gate, I got the bad news that I had missed my flight. After rebooking I wouldn’t be leaving Dallas till 9am, with a layover in Albuquerque for one hour, finally to arrive in Phoenix at 3! Crap. I won’t even talk about our jetway not working once we got to Phoenix, nor them having to push our plane to a completely different gate to deboard. At least my luggage was waiting for me in the pickup area! It got there on time…I should have just climbed in my suitcase I guess.

No country for slow, old men!

Finally arriving in Mayer and accepting the loss of one entire day of prospecting, I was just trying to relax and allow my blood pressure to finally settle a bit. That seemed to be the prudent course, but that gold… I saw the look on Owens face as he walked into Curt’s house to greet me. Maybe it was the sound of the ATV idling outside as well, but I knew that look. So I said my hello’s while changing into my prospecting gear! We weren’t going to let this day be a total waste! My new detector didn’t disappoint and I managed to find my first ever gold nugget that I detected on my own! Things were definitely looking up-as long as you pretended the weather forecast wasn’t worsening. After returning from the claim we loaded the ATV’s and gear for our Rich Hill adventure the next day.

One thing I love about being in Arizona is, aside from the incredible beauty, the fact that it’s all new to me and a nice contrast to the completely boring surroundings back home. As we drove through Prescott the sun was breaking and revealing a snow-dusted beauty of a city nestled in rolling hills. We dodged a few deer crossing the road and put the hammer down once the curves smoothed out! The gold of Rich Hill is known to be large. It has its own ‘Potato patch’, so named because of huge nuggets being found, but the entire area is incredibly…well, RICH with gold. We knew we’d need patience and bigger gold pokes for those nuggets that were waiting for us, frost covered and waiting to be warmed up in our pockets. We didn’t drive two hours to let 25 degrees and frozen mud puddles stop us!

The day warmed up and the layers came off. Luckily the terrain was just harsh enough to keep a mild sweat going against the chill as we scoured the hillsides. We all looked forward to our buddy Tim showing up because he said he was going to bring a bucket of KFC! We laughed. ‘What! KFC when we’re prospecting?’ Well, we were all happy when he showed up with that AND chocolate chip cookies! Roughing it can be fun!

As the day progressed, I worked my way to an area I had been previously shown on the map to be an old nugget patch. After a little random swinging of the coil I began to notice schist protrusions coming up through the soil. These protrusions were so faint, the schist so decomposed, that I started to recognize that the ‘soil’ I had been walking on was largely composed of nothing but previously decomposed schist. Anyway I decided to try a method I had read about to follow the schist protrusions and within minutes, MINUTES, I had my first nugget of the day! Lots of slow walking, avoiding cactus and ocotillo, balancing on cliff edges, I worked the schist methodically, ending up with 4 small nuggets! Little did I know at the time, but I had been the most successful of our bunch of prospectors that day! Our truck ride back was relatively quiet, interrupted with bursts of conversation after the caffeine kicked in from our leftover, cold morning coffee. Good, no, GREAT times!

Showers bring flowers, well, mud anyway!

To my surprise, I woke up the next morning still very much alive! Time to get moving and…yes, that’s rain. Well that’s ok, we’ll just watch the inauguration (‘Merica!) and wait for it to clear. Yeah, about that-Accuweather says it’s gonna get worse! We opted for ‘plan B’, which was to visit Tim’s underground mine that he recently filed on. Adventure without getting soaked? Let’s do it!

Last day, last ditch effort.

I woke up on the last morning of my adventure, thankful for everything I had seen and done thus far, appreciative that the pizza and beer from the night before didn’t keep me awake all night, and hopeful for one more (painful) trip into the backcountry. But I was also very ready to go home... Curt had already announced his intention to stay home that morning since he had a radio swap meet to attend later that day, and the weather still required a level of crazy that he didn’t aspire to, if prospecting was still part of the agenda. Ok…more for us! We knew it was going to be a rough day when we pulled the frozen and ice covered tarps off the ATV’s and prepared ourselves for a 30 minute ride through rain, sleet and snow!

We finally hit the BLM road, good and frozen from our 30mph plus ride through town and down the backroads. I had a new layering technique that was working well against the sleet and rain, but I was still cold and ready for the warmup that pushing an ATV through rough terrain brings. One interesting note, snow and ice accumulated in your lap will melt quickly when things start warming up! Plan accordingly.

What followed will remain forever etched in my memory. Not because we found huge gold or washed away crossing the flooded creeks, but because the sun started poking out and revealed the surrounding mountains, covered in snow, displaying yet another extremely harsh and intensely beautiful aspect of the high desert. If we weren’t in survival mode I might have thought to take more pictures! My Gopro battery had long since frozen and the camera wouldn’t remain on. My digital camera was so buried in my pack that I couldn’t get to it for the layers of waterproofing I had added for the ride. The pictures and video I did get were with my phone, and once I reviewed them, realized I might earn gold just by entering a few of those pictures in a photo contest!

I managed to squeak out one gold nugget that cold morning. Almost expecting it to be there, I swung my coil and heard the faint whisper-had my hunch been correct? The detector seemed to say so! I pried the small, flat nugget out of the bedrock and took stock of my surroundings. I just pulled that nugget out of an area that has been beat to DEATH by other detectors! How was it missed? Or maybe the water flowing through the wash had brought it there? There was so much water moving things around…and that has not happened in years there. My mind raced ahead to what new discoveries could be made once the water did its work of revealing what was once hidden.

The next trip can’t come soon enough…

 

The Second Wild Hog I Ever Killed

 

I'm skipping the story of my first wild hog kill because, in more or less one sentence it would be: I suddenly saw a pig running straight at me out of the brush, I snapped my rifle up, shot him in the head and viola, I was a successful hog hunter!

 

However, that second hog… It was early spring 1993 and not many people knew much about hunting hogs. My buddy Robert and I had determined that we would find the destructive ghosts that had begun to appear at our west Texas lease. Most of the guys refused to even believe pigs were that far west, even though they saw the signs and had heard of the sightings. We knew our mission! 

We set out hunting the edge of the mesa. Robert and I liked hunting this way because we had a commanding view of the brush and boulder strewn sides of the ragged canyons of the mesa, as well as the valleys below. Our basic hunting method was just to walk, watch and listen for pigs in the brush below us. We had confidence in this method due to the fact that we were the only successful hog hunters on our lease!

 

It was a warm February afternoon and we were fighting the cactus, loose rocks and large crevasses at the edge of the cliffs when we heard a sound. We both froze and Robert spotted the pig first. We shouldered our rifles and I waited for him to shoot the black pig, which was only about 80yd away but easily 100ft below us, and partially obscured by brush! 

 

As I waited, I hoped to spot another pig in time to shoot as close to the same time as Robert did. We had already learned that you rarely saw pigs by themselves, but when we had seen them, it was only for brief moments. If I could just see one before he shot and they all started running... We had tried the 'shoot on three' method before, and hopefully this time would work a little better! The boom of Robert’s 7mm magnum at about 6' away both made me jump and reminded me that my time was up to spot any unwary pigs! As I became aware of the ringing in my ears I also saw the side of the mesa below us erupt in pigs of all sizes and colors running all directions! I spotted a large calico that paused briefly on a knoll, which was all the time I needed to bring my 7mag to bear, and at the shot it reared up on its hind legs, did a little hop, and then ran downhill into the thick brush!

 

The sounds of echoing gunfire and pigs running through brush faded, and we high-fived each other and recounted how many times we shot, how many pigs we saw, and how many we hit. When I told Robert I only shot one hog he looked at me funny and told me I really needed to improve my speed and ability to hit multiple targets. Fair enough, but my pig was huge! 'Yeah right, you've only ever shot one-it's probably a runt!' was his response. 

 

It was right at dusk and about a 45 minute walk back to the truck, so he volunteered to stay, find the pigs and start cleaning them. I figured he had it easy since we could see his pig lying right where we first saw it, and surely mine wasn't far away. We only had one knife, so I gave it to him, with the sheath, and my flashlight since he had none. He handed me his rifle and grinned as he drew his .45, and we parted ways.

 

Making it back to the truck was a little harder and took a little longer than I thought, and I thought I heard faint gunshots occasionally but didn't think much of it. I could already hear the griping about 'what took so long' etc. so I fired up the truck and lit out for the edge of the mesa. 

 

As I rolled up to the edge I was expecting to see a flashing light, Robert standing there, or hear some hollering-'over here', anything other than the absolute nothing that my headlights shone out into ahead of me. I killed the truck and got out with a little worry starting to creep in. 

 

Finally I could hear a faint whistle! Suddenly I got even more worried than before-Robert could let out an ear-splitting whistle, how far down must he BE? I honked the horn and faintly heard something about 'get the <universal adjective> down here...ammo...rope...light!'. Remembering the thick brush cloaking the hillside, I opted to leave my jacket, even though it was cooling down rapidly, put on an extra shirt, strapped on my .44, slung the rope over my shoulder, grabbed two extra flashlights and started picking my way down the cliff face in the dark. After 10 minutes or so I lost track of how many cacti I ran into, how many briars I got hung up in, and how many times I fell in the dark. My only focus was get down to my buddy who had begun yelling every few minutes that I needed to hurry because the pigs were all around him!

 

I finally reached Robert, sliding downhill about 20 yards for the final approach. As I shined the light on him I got quite a shock! He was covered in blood, had his .45 in one hand with the slide locked back (empty mag), knife in the other, cigarette dangling from his mouth and a steady torrent of expletives coming almost faster than I could process! ‘These pigs are all around us and won’t leave! I got down here and they were running all around me and I had to use my pistol to stop ‘em!’. He finally stopped talking, held his hand up, and we both stood there listening. Sure enough, you could hear pigs not far away! We finally determined that they probably weren’t going to bother us and I asked if he had found my pig. ‘Yeah I found that huge b**** over there! Could you have picked something bigger to kill, maybe a hippo?’ I shined the light and there was my calico pig, looking nothing short of gigantic. I said ‘let’s drag her up’, and he said ‘oh sure, go ahead, first I want to see you try to even move her!’ Well ok. What ensued was a lesson in dead weight and just how dense and hard to manage a dead pig can be! He had already gutted the huge sow and still it seemed like we were trying to move the proverbial ‘immoveable object’.

 

Finally we decided to cut the pig in half. We had determined that this pig MUST be seen by the other hunters in camp because none of them would believe it if we told them how big it was. I tied the rope to the front half, headed back uphill, and quickly discovered we needed about twice as much rope! We drug, pushed, and pulled half a pig uphill as far as we could, would take a break, then start over again. Twice we had to start completely over after we lost control and everything, including us, tumbled back down the hill to the small flat spot that seemed like it might just end up becoming our final resting place.

Finally, after many setbacks, we ended up with both halves of the sow at the top and in the truck! We sat for probably 30 minutes in total darkness, without saying a word, just recovering. We both were full of cactus, bruises, totally soaked with sweat, streaked with red west Texas dirt, and generally looked ready for the grave. We certainly felt that way!

 

We rattled back into camp around 2am and didn’t even clean up-just went straight to bed. Around sunup we were woken up by thunderous pounding on the camper door! We both jumped up, assuming something was wrong, went outside, and were greeted by almost a dozen guys, some friends on the lease and several paid hunters that had arrived the night before to hunt pigs over the weekend.

 

As we recounted the story of what happened, the painful realization started to sink in… All those paid hunters had decided they didn’t want to hunt with anybody else but us-and they were ready to go-right then!

Maybe I'll write a book..or go fishing instead!

As you can tell by the frequency with which I update my blog, I write when the notion hits me. Lately I've been thinking about the blog, a few cool things to talk about, a ton of boring crap to NOT talk about, and why I have the blog anyway.

What it's all about.

A few years ago I had a burst of creative expression that I felt was leading to writing articles and possibly a book or two on subjects that interested me. Those subjects were somewhat eclectic, in that the consumers of that type of information are not in the majority of the population. Hog hunting, kayak fishing, metal detecting-those are still somewhat on the periphery of the 'hot topic' list! Yet, there is a strong demand for things kayak fishing related, treasure hunting (thanks to 'reality' TV) and hog hunting-my most common outdoor pursuits.

Lately I've done almost none of those things, with the exception of fishing. I've horse-traded around and ended up with a pretty nice fishing kayak, and 'been there, done that' with almost every DIY accessory I could imagine to make my experiences with the kayak easier. The truth is, after taking a hiatus from fishing for almost 10 years, the kayak has been what got me back to fishing. And I go a lot. The oxymoronic side of kayaking is that it's 'easy' to get to places you couldn't otherwise reach. Why oxymoronic? Well, some people can't manage the exertion to paddle to the good spots, load and unload a boat weighing anywhere from 50-80 pounds, or don't like the confinement of a kayak. Yet, once on the water, it can be very relaxing to settle into your 'pace' of paddling and listening to the water slap the hull as you see just how silently you can insert, pull, extract your paddle from the water. It's a cool thing to be so low to the water and look down to see fish swimming around, or the occasional underwater hazard that means you won't be seeing a powerboat in HERE..

In my few years of kayak fishing I've learned a lot! Things such as how quickly a person could meet their 'end' by tempting fate in the wrong conditions. Or how important it can be to plan your routes and put in/take out points to maximize your fishing time and productivity. Other important things like first aid kits, environmental protection, and just how vulnerable you are to jackasses on the water who think it's fun to watch kayakers bounce around on a big wake. Yet another challenge that has really taken my interest is just how to slow down and concentrate, and think about how to catch every possible fish in the area I happen to be sitting. That pursuit means understanding what your prey is doing and WHY. I've begun to have a lot of fun seeing just how many fish I can catch in one spot before moving. Knowing what is going on under the surface means I can literally swing my legs over the side, settle back, and cast my lures out for a catch on almost every cast! Of course farm ponds are easy for that, but with work, any larger body of water should produce good results.

The other thing that has come with my kayak obsession, is the desire to target fish that I've never caught before. I honestly don't get real excited about bass fishing like I did 'back in the day'. I like to go with my friends though, and as long as a I have a new method to experiment with, it's a little bit new. Still, if you want to get any true excitement out of me, a trip to the coast, an excursion for smallmouth, striper, walleye or pike (yes you can catch those in Texas) or the real holy grail quest-peacock bass in Florida! Now we're talkin!

Right turn Clyde..

So given all that, I recently bought a small boat that I could take my 9 year old daughter in. Our first trip was a blast and she caught a ton of fish! Having a secret pond to fish certainly helps... Maybe one day she'll have her own kayak, but for now it's a lot of fun taking her fishing and watching her learn a completely new hobby. She's pretty good at it too for one who has just started! I also remembered something-the one thing kayak fishing cannot provide, the fun of sharing an experience with some one at your side. Most importantly though, how much fun it can be to teach a kid to fish.

So I have my little plastic navy at the ready, hidden away in the dry dock that my garage has now become. One craft excelling at solitude, and strategy for the most and biggest fish; the other, the most and 'funnest'. Good times.

Maybe this year..Arizona Gold!

Since it's almost been a year since I wrote, and I what I've been up to isn't interesting enough to write about, I'll talk about what's been on my mind for several years now!

Gold! It makes the world go round, those that have it 'make the rules', it's caused wars, brought joy on Valentines day, anniversaries and other occasions, makes our computers and cell phones work, and some even have it on their teeth! Simply put, everybody wants some, but in my case it's the particular FORM and the adventure in order to obtain it, that has had me scheming, preparing and being let down when trips fall through. Oh I've found a decent amount of gold, all jewelry from metal detecting, but I want a gold nugget-no, a pocketful! Just buy some you say? NO, this isn't about trading money for something easily obtainable, this is about ADVENTURE and searching for that which is elusive! So while others can go buy all the gold they can afford and be comfortable and cozy in their surroundings while looking at it shine, to me that's BORING and not what drives me.

Go west young, er, middle aged man!

The gold fields of Arizona have lured many a prospector and yielded tons of gold. There are still mines in operation, both large and small scale. There are also plenty of placer deposits for those that like to pan-IF YOU CAN FIND WATER. You can drywash, a form of sluicing using air and vibration to 'liquefy' the matrix so that gold will fall out, but all those just seem too 'one spot' oriented for me. I want to metal detect! Roaming around the desert, probably the high desert around Prescott, just appeals to me. Yes I've researched and talked with people who have done it, and even some 'professionals' who do it all the time, and I know it's hard. But that's why I want to do it! Another less easily definable reason is that I've loved the desert since first my first trip through it as a kid. I don't know why but I just know that every time I've driven through, I just want to jump out of the car and take off exploring!

Tick, Tock, tick, tock...

I have the detectors. I have the gear. Every so often I even have the money, but it always seems to be needed somewhere else.. Heck, I have books and maps and all the Jeep rental places written down, and have even researched the best air fare. I'm ready! Maybe this year things will line up.

A year in brief.

I haven't posted in a year! I've had plenty to say about the ups and downs of being self employed, the state of the world, the state of the fun, and random stuff that amuses me...but I've been distracted!

So business is up and down, down is bad, up is good, and I sometimes wonder how I can fit the family into a cardboard box, and if I might manage to build a fireplace once we move in! The up is much more fun, not to mention incredibly busy. Stone borders, outdoor kitchens, flagstone, stamped concrete, and decorative concrete restoration are pretty much what I live and breathe now.

In the meantime, I had a daughter get married-yes I feel old-and a son that turned 21 and announced a possible re-enlistment in the Marines. Did I mention I feel kinda old nowadays? Maybe I forgot to add that the youngest one turns 8 tomorrow, and I'll be turning 50 this year as well! No matter, I have too much to do and see to watch numbers.

So in early June, we all loaded up and flew to Cancun for what turned out to be an awesome wedding in a pretty incredible place. I tried not to think about numbers while we ate great food, swam, visited Chichen Itza, and then celebrated the big day. I think the most memorable moment for me was when my daughter and I started our walk down to the beach as I prepared to give her away. She looked at me, smiled, and said, 'Daddy, if you cry I will kill you!', it was funny, and it did help! She probably should have told everybody else that too because there were several that needed that dose of fear from what I could see. I just blamed it on blowing sand. Sand, yeah that was it.

Speaking of numbers, our Chichen Itza tour guide told us about the thousands of people that descended on the ruins from all around the world for the week of 12-21-12. Something between a funeral and the biggest party in the world ensued, and on 12-22-12, apparently a good number of people were left needing to figure out what to do after quitting their jobs and giving away everything. Those Mayans are such comedians, who knew? Oh, and no, you can't climb the pyramid, gringo. That's why there are ropes around it now.

To finish out June, the month that will henceforth be known as the biggest vacation of my life, my son and I drove his vehicle back to Camp Pendleton in California. This time we got some desert dust on our shoes from hiking the Grand Canyon and Zion National Park in Utah. It was epic, scary at times, and a very short week. We drove fast, we hiked fast, we spent a MINT on gas, and even managed to make it through some remote mountains in the wee hours of the morning, sucking gas fumes, without being stranded and eaten by cannibals. We had some serious conversations, some completely hilarious ones-none which can or will be disclosed-and a couple 'sho nuff' hair raising moments (at least for me).  

I did manage a fairly miserable job of documenting everything on the GoPro camera I got last Christmas. It's a Hero 3+ that is N I C E! Incredible HD video. Amazingly, I can watch the hiking videos and go right back to sweating hands and a near vertigo attack, just as if I were there at that moment! Apparently I need to develop my video skills. A lot.

Well, it's turning into a book again after I said 'in brief'! I guess the last thing to add that, yes, I also worked a bit too during the last year!

What I Love About Treasure Hunting

I've mostly talked about pig hunting on this blog, but if you go back and read my first post, I did say I would discuss treasure hunting and whatever other things cross my mind. So here we go.

Treasure Hunting-What is the treasure you seek vs. the treasure you find?

I started treasure hunting when I was a kid. It wasn't 'treasure hunting' per se back then, just the idea that if you're not always keeping your eyes open and looking for cool things, you'll never find any. I found money and jewelry, tools, and TONS of fossils. Sometimes I was out for a specific find, sometimes not. My collection of 'things' I've gathered over the years includes cool rocks, fossils, old coins, arrowheads, old license plates, minie balls, musket balls, old bottles, lots of meteorWRONGS (not meteorites lol), a goodly number of scars, a goodly number of scares-like being shot at once even though I was on the right side of the fence...some people!. Encounters of just about every kind except for mermaids and aliens, you can almost name it and that's what treasure hunting holds for even 'Joe average' who just decides to spend time outdoors instead of sitting on a couch.

It became about treasure when I was exploring an old decrepit farmhouse with my sister, and I decided to pull back an old area rug that had been nailed down. That was around 1978 or 79, and I still have the US Silver Certificates that were hidden under that rug!! Of course we were in big trouble with our parents for going into places we had no permission, but who could resist an old farmhouse full of silverware, furniture and just about everything, sitting there abandoned as if the owners vanished? It was that way long ago, when relatives died, the houses would remain as they were, including contents, to mostly rot away. Those houses are EXTREMELY rare nowadays, as ones that old have succumbed to age and bulldozers.

But I digress. As usual.

I've put in many a mile in the backcountry of a couple states. Most times I'm looking for something specific, sometimes not. You see, most real treasure is actually found by accident! I'm not saying that research and focused searching isn't worth it-absolutely it IS worth it! What I mean though, is that the same 'keeping your eyes open' state of awareness needs to become a 24/7/365 way of being. This is how you can find old homesites where no evidence of structures even exist anymore. It's how you can suddenly spot that boulder that just looks like a cool resemblance of a face or animal to everbody else, but you know it was carved, and how to verify that. It's how you spot that arrowhead laying there in a cut bank, or even the silver coin you were just handed in change (it still happens).

So what about the freakin' treasure!?

Treasure is a funny thing. The first idea everybody has is the riches and resulting life of leisure and fun one might have if you can navigate the horribly complicated recovery and conversion to actual monetary value. What-you thought you'd just start passing out gold coins and it would all be good? Well, the real deal about treasure hunting is the experiences you have while 'on the job'. I can think of almost no happier time than when I'm outdoors, totally on MY time, just me, my hiking boots, and God, walking around His creation and discovering every little thing that nature 'is'. Walking in the footsteps of men who came before me by hundreds of years-try it, you'll never know what I mean till you do. So aside from any recovery you make, the INCREDIBLE treasure is the experiences you will have, the FANTASTIC things you will see, and even a little of what you learn about yourself while out there on your own walkabout.

OK-the treasure.

The rules:

1. Never find a cache
2. If you find a cache keep your mouth shut
3. If you violate #1, observe #2

Get out there. That television is no substitute for the real thing!