Since I posted about The Aging Detectorist, and The Dishonest Detectorist, I thought why not follow it up with The Lazy Detectorist?
“The Lazy Detectorist” is the one we all love. Why? Because they do most of the work for us. Who hasn’t been on a hunt, or out hunting with friends, and come upon someone else’s freshly dug hole? Just for kicks, you swing your coil over it (‘cause you never know), and you get a nice repeatable tone you just can’t ignore.
You look around to see who might have left it there. Because depending on your mood, or who you’re hunting with, it could be a great find, and you may, or may not want to embarrass them.
You re-dig the hole, poke around with your probe, and ta-da, it’s a piece of junk. Had you going, didn’t I? You forgive them of course, ‘cause we’ve all been guilty of pouches that are too heavy, or angrily covering up a sweet sounding five pound piece of crap we spent 20 minutes and half a days arm strength trying to recover. Or if your like me and have a particular hunting buddy who you know re-checks all your holes, you might leave it there, on purpose, just to tweak them a bit. But sometimes, it’s not junk. Sometimes re-checking someone else’s hole produces a great find.
I’ve seen this happen hundreds of times, and have stumbled on some nice finds this way myself. Organized hunts are the perfect scenario for these types of lucky strikes. Everyone is in a hurry. There are usually time constraints. The chances to ever hunt this site again are slim, so folks get lazy, or lose patience. They don’t find the target right away, or maybe there were two targets, and they didn’t do a re-check before moving on, and left something good behind.
The smart hunters check those holes. And I guess you could say laziness goes both ways here, because checking
someone else’s holes for targets could be considered a form of laziness too. Just sayin’.
This phenomenon happened to me twice recently, once on a private permission, and once at an organized hunt. At the
private permission, I was gridding a lawn my friend had just hunted without finding anything, and got this great signal over a plug they had walked away from. Naturally I did my own investigation, and I came up with a nice Indian Head penny.
I was happy for the find, but then the other side of it kicked in. Should I tell my friend? To me it was technically their find, but then there was the embarrassment factor to consider. In the end, I decided to keep it, and how I found it to myself, popped it in my pouch, and moved on. No need to upset them.
My recent organized hunt finds, compliments of a lazy digger, were a sweet Mercury dime, and a nice flat button. Both were within five feet of each other, and of course in pre-dug holes. I don’t know who left them behind, but I didn’t hide the fact that I found them or how. It was just my lucky day I guess.
This got me wondering about those targets I’ve left behind over the years. Whether I’ve given up on them out of frustration, my arm hurt too much, or I was just plain exhausted from a day long dig. Wondering if it’s common knowledge that I start to get lazy at the end of the day? Do folks wait patiently, knowing that when I’ve reached my limit, I’ll half dig a target, say bad words out loud to myself, then move on to the next?
Do they follow me around at a safe distance, giving each other knowing looks, ready to pounce, then celebrate all the coppers I left behind?
Okay, well maybe I’m exaggerating (a little), but I’ve no doubt that at times I’ve left some goodies behind. I’m not immune to The Lazy Detectorist syndrome, and on those days, I guess it’s just their lucky day, not mine.
Happy Hunting!
Thought at first this post was going to be about me. I’m that lazy detectorist who can’t get off his butt to even give it a go. The lack of old sites, the aches, the pains and thoughts of getting down and up tend to win out. Crossing my fingers however that I can get out this week..
Great post Diva and love the new layout….
Ha ha, I wouldn’t call that lazy, more like aging. The knees are the worst. I hope you can get out this week too, got to keep those joints moving. Glad you like the new layout, it was way overdue. Hopefully it will solve all the problems I’ve been having with the site. Fingers crossed.
Hi Diva:
Another terrific post, BUT, I now feel guilty for some unfathomable reason! Yep, more please.
Cheers!
Thanks John-no need to feel guilty, it’s all part of the hobby. I’ve updated the site, so hoping I will have more posts to entertain, now that I can actually post again. Happy Hunting, and don’t follow them too closely or they’ll notice.
Yes — Always seen at the seeded hunts.. people in a hurry i guess.. Allyson do you remember the Connecticut orchard hunt. we were walking back to the car and i scanned over a half ripped up dug hole – was just going to flattened out the plug I ended up pulling out a beautiful 2 cent piece. glad others were there with me.. to witness it. !
Omg yes!! I was thinking of that when I wrote this. So classic. And it was a nice one too. Lucky day
Oh what fun it is to thank the poor sod for fluffing the target for you. Happens to everyone if you dig long enough.
Ha ha-“Fluffing the Target”, a new detecting vocabulary I haven’t heard before. Love it!
Bump.
I don’t get it John ?
Jeez I love your blogs. So funny, so relatable, so true.
So Mark S (you know, the good looking CT Greek guy – just sayin;) anyway, he invited me on a permission. I gave up on a great signal, near a busy street, under the most gnarly, healthy pain-in-the… tree. After wrestling with the roots for what seemed like forever, I convinced myself it must have been trash…so close to the road…you know.
Doesn’t he find the sweetest fancy colonial shoe buckle! frame
Signed,
Lazy Laura
Thanks Laura, I love that you enjoy the stories and can relate.
You mentioned there’s a good looking guy in CT who detects? Where? I’ve never seen one. They all just seem to blend into one big swath of Camo, beards, and shovels… just kidding.
Anyway, I feel your pain over the shoe buckle frame. I’m sure I would of given up on it too. Like how many times on the side of the road do we spend way too much time digging up soda cans, or other sweet sounding litter? Just his lucky day that day. In our defense though, men have a lot more arm strength to put into those types of targets.
At Pound the Ground I had a similar target. This guy was watching me, sort of hovering. I knew he was waiting for me to walk away, so I played with him. I kept swinging within a five foot area around that target for a good 10 minutes or more until he lost interest and wandered off. I thought if someone was going to redig my hole and find something good, I didn’t want it to be that guy. It was okay if it was someone random, but just not the guy who was hovering, waiting to pounce. I hope whoever did re-dig my hole later found something good, and was glad I didn’t witness it if they had.
Happy Hunting!