These spots will generally give you a large area to cover that provides you the chance of looking for lost and buried items. Practicing With Familiar Areas If you are only starting with your activity, you can try out metal detecting at your backyard. It is a perfect place to practice your skills and also to be comfortable with the metal detector that you are using. This allows your detector to have more time to probe deeper under the sand, and will make it difficult for you to miss out on any important finds. Now during your search, it is important to "grid the beach", meaning, you need to keep track of the spots that were checked and those that weren't. Hunting for gold is a tricky business, so learning the fundamentals and the specialized functions of your device are paramount in all things while starting out. 2. Toggle your metal detector's amount of frequency according to the concentration of iron minerals in the ground. Remember that higher frequency means higher sensitivity to smaller gold, but with the penalty of picking up iron minerals. Your goal should be: to buy a detector that can get the job done well. Hence, it must not be too costly and too complicated. If you think you will stick with that hobby, you can always upgrade by trading your metal detector. A lot of dealers accommodate and entertain their clients well when they want to upgrade to a more pricey and modern detector. These clubs hold regular meetings that enable enthusiasts to showcase their finds and share their own experience as metal hunters. It's also an event where newbies can learn the tricks of the trade from hunters who have more experience. There's an overwhelming amount of metal detectors out in the market, with all of them varying a lot in specs. And to further increase your chances of finding items in these places, you should go there during busy days and holidays since there will be more people going around the places. Surely, you will sooner or later find something in the area that somebody has lost. Be careful though to avoid finding not so valuable items such as cans and junk along the way.