Perhaps you want to venture out into the water with your Garrett Ace 250 metal detector to try and find more gold rings and chains. With its waterproof coil, the Ace 250 is quite capable of locating lost rings and other valuables in the water.
Before venturing off into the water with your Ace 250, it is very important to remember that even though the coil is waterproof, your control housing is not. If you drop your metal detector into the water or if you lift the coil so that water runs down the shaft, then you can damage or destroy your metal detector.
As a result, it is extremely important to use caution around the water and I highly recommend that you tether the metal detector to your belt or to a backpack in order to catch the control housing should it fall. For the more technically savvy, you may try waterproofing your Ace 250.
When metal detecting freshwater beaches, you will likely encounter a lot of bits of junk iron metal, bb’s, bobby pins, lead sinkers and other objects that have not corroded away. The Ace 250 sniper coil can help you work around the trash, but you should definitely dig any signal from foil on up if you want to find gold jewelry and coins. If you want to increase your odds of finding gold, then you may also want to ignore coins and only dig targets in the foil to penny range. In less trashy areas, the stock coil is ideal for better coverage.
Some freshwater areas may have large concentrations of black sand and iron mineralization that cause your machine to get unstable and false. If this should occur, try turning down he sensitivity until it becomes stable. You will lose some depth by doing this, but at least you will be able to differentiate the good signals from the bad.
In saltwater, you will need to turn down the sensitivity and will be limited on depth more so than in most freshwater locations. While you can find recent drops with the Ace 250 in saltwater, it really is not the best metal detector for this environment. Most saltwater hunters use dedicated waterproof metal detectors such as the Garrett Garrett Infinium that can handle the salt mineralization well. If you want to water hunt regularly, then I suggest you purchase a waterproof metal detector. However, an underwater metal detector may not be economical if you will only water hunt once or twice a year.
In addition to your metal detector, you will also want to use a beach scoop designed specifically for water hunting. These will have longer handles and will have holes punched into the metal instead of the metal mesh found on sand scoops. Quality scoops will cost you around $100, but are worth it because they make target recovery faster and you don’t have to bend over to find the target.
Related Garrett Ace 250 Articles:
Ace 250 Discrimination & Target ID (TID)
Metal Detecting Ballfields with an Ace 250
Beach Metal Detecting with a Garrett Ace 250
Gold Nugget Hunting with the Garrett Ace 250
Relic Hunting with an Ace 250 Metal Detector
Garrett Ace 250 Silver Coins & Jewelry Tips