Detecting at Night, whats the Pros & Cons?

Hi All, During my research I have noticed a few referance's to People Detecting After the Sun goes Down. Does anybody on here ever Detect at Night? And if so what are the benefits you have experienced by doing this, apart from the decreased Ambient Noise (ie Cars, Birds etc)?? And also, have you had any Negative experiences when detecting after Dark? I would love to hear what your thoughts are on this, Cheers.

G'day Evan.

Benefits you say!,maybe for moonlighters sneaking onto private property or leases without permission.But as for the rest of us,apart from the dead night silence(unless you're camping close to a dam),I personally find that there are no real benefits.Reptile and insect life becomes more active at night.You have to be three times more careful and alert regarding your surroundings,so that you don't stumble over or fall down a hole or shaft etc. etc. Apart from all that,prospecting on a desert flat or gully,on a quiet,crystal clear moonlit night is one amazing experience i can never forget.


Cheers kon61.

I detect at night quite often. Yep there are benefits...for me anyway.
Less noise, wind and EMI generally drop and I find instead of unconciously wandering off to a spot that looks easier or better I generally concentrate more on the small area I am on no matter the tussocks and shrubbery and massage it to death and often pick up bits I wouldn't have found otherwise

Detecting at night can be a great advantage for the following reasons. As stated before the EMI factor is down to a minimum. It is easier to detect during the summer months at night than in daylight for heat reasons, which translate into longer search times, less water to drink etc. When I was in USAF Combat survival training and Escape and Evasion tactics I was briefed that the human ear can hear as much as three times better at night than in daylight. That is because your body is compensating for the loss of vision. You will be more focused on hearing than seeing and will have a higher target recovery rate. If you are thinking about doing it see how it works out for you, I would do it during a full moon or just before or after a full moon; be sure you have an early moon rise, not late in the night. Make sure you are in the field about two hours before sunset and when the night falls you want to be hunting, not getting you gear together. As it gets darker your vision will slowly adjust. If you use a flashlight during the night it can take as long as 30 minutes to get your night vision back! If you have to have a white light keep it small. I have gone to checker auto or a car part place to get some red plastic film that they use on temp repair of brake lights and cut to fit in front of a flashlight lens or headlight. Its easy to be suspicious of people detecting at night, but there can be good benefits with this idea. I think theirs a good chance that this will be a more frequent undertaking during the warmer/summer days as time goes on. I must admit the critter fact is up, but as we know in this game there are trade-offs in everything...Guido P.S. you may want to tie a Cyalume light stick to the top of your antenna on your truck!

Hi guys, thanks for the feedback Much Appreciated! I can definately see the benefits of Summertime night detecting as it quite reguarly gets up over 40.C during the day here in Wa. The critters dont really bother me much either as ive found that snakes etc Will usually get out of your way as soon as they detect (pardon the pun) your prescence. I'll be giving it a go at some point, thanks again Evan

Gday


There are definately benefits to detecting at night from the perspective of less emi and the cool ground being a lot quieter, and if you are detecting a salt lake you dont have to put up with the heat and the glare as well which makes it a lot more comfortable.

Areas that I would not detect at night are heavily wooded area and where there are lots of diggings and old shafts for the obvious reasons, one slip and a fall and its all over, and unless you take precautions then you can get easily lost as well.

As previously mentioned you need also mark the position of your vehicle by either leaving a light on or using a glow stick, and carry your gps, garden solar lights are good for this too, sometimes if we leave camp and think that we may return in the dark we put solar lights in the trees at turnoffs in the road so you can more easily find your way back to camp.

I prefer to detect in the day time and especially in the very early mornings, when it is quiet and cool, usually at the the end of the day I have had enough and just want to rest and hang about the camp so unless I was working a patch I wouldnt bother I would just enjoy the night sitting about the fire and having a drink or three.


cheers

stayyerAU

I like to detect at night in the summer because the heat is too hot to detect for most of the day. I'm a night owl anyways so I get more detecting time in. I have a head lamp that I leave on whilst detecting it's interestingn to see the spiders and scorpions which seem to be everywhere but you need a net over your head if the moths are out in numbers. They are like little kamikaze pilots.

I don't believe I detect properly at night as far as I can't grid an area in my mind and make sure I cover it all. That's what I do in the day using sticks, rocks, trees as markers. Detecting at night more than doubles my detecting time so I make the most of my escape from home.

Dicko..

Ah escaping from home, thats a definate plus for me too whether its day or night lol

Night detecting with friends is good fun. Play particularly ineteresting signal responses over your radio to remind everyone your there and to add a bit of excitment to the hunt. Your friends may care to guess what the target is based on the signal reponse.

There are nights when the detector is so quite and stable it can make a big difference to finding gold. Some noisey ground patches have produced good nuggets at night when very faint signals can be heard. Gain can normally be screwed up a bit at night compared to daytime.

In the dead of night between 11pm and 3am the detector can become amazingly quite and you can dial in threshold/gain/signal level and stabilizer to reach an almost Zen like stability and signal response...and be one with your machine.

A very good 120-180 lumen LED light with high and low beams is a good idea and if the moths are bad you can use a fly net.

I have detected to 4am a few times with friends and without a watch we all swore it was on like 1am when it was 4am.

Tributer

G'day Guys.

I think i've truly forgotten what it felt like to swing a coil at night,for i haven't swung a detector at night for donks years,until last Thursday night whilst camped just outside Maryborough. I was camped right on top of a quartz/ironstone reefline flat,on top of a hill,which had produced some nice little nuggets and species in the past. I decided to give the same ground a good workover,at night around 11pm, for the patch was only about 5 feet wide x 25 feet long.Now ide just like to state that this section of ground in the day,was noisy on the 4500 in enhance mode whilst using a nuggetfinder 14x9 Advantage. The night was asolutely calm as,and you could count the stars in the sky(cystal clear).Well what can i say! The same ground with the same machine coil combination and settings,ran as quiet as a mouse.You could hear a pin drop through the head phones. Unfortunately no more nuggets came to light apart from two 5mm round lead shot balls,at around the 5 inch mark,which was surprising considering i had hamered this section of ground not only with the GPX4500,but with my 2200d as well as my Gold bug 2.
Alright so we have to be a litle more swiched on as to where we step or which direction we are heading for,but I take my words back and appoligize in saying "that there are no real benefits in night detecting"because there are,and if conditionts suit,just get out there and give it a go.I found it absolutely fascinating.


Cheers kon61.

Gday evan ive been doing a bit of night time detecting for about 3 months now,due to the fact its dark when i knock off,i bought a headlamp ,160 lumes for about $90.00 they are verygood it has adjustable brightness as well as focus so u can have a pinpoint light or a wide light i run mine with about half to 3/4 light,iut a big reflector on a tree ,but im going to get handheld gps ,as i do my detecting around bendigo,and the forest can get very thick ,i must say that at first it can be abit nervy,but once u get used to running into spider webs ,being aware of your surroundigs,its very plesant at night .3 or 4 hours just seem to fly buy.the detector does run quieter at night most of the time ,and u concerntrate more on sound than sight.GOOD luck to u if u give it ago