I usually hunt wide open and ignore Iron and crap just looking for a solid repeatable hit in a good range, but sometimes it gets to me and I cherry pick a while. I am doing some silver only in some places where I really expect to find some hiding in the crowd.
As a general rule (excluding the beach) I only dig signals above 50 on the AT PRO. If I get a good feeling I will go back over the land and maybe drop to 35. I like to establish whats beeping before I committ to craters.. Many a good signal many a horse shoe.. Saying that though once cleaned up horse shoes sell for about £10.. sprayed gold I get £15.
I've read this thread a few times and realized I do cherry pick 60% of the time. Every time I go out, the first part of the day I dig everything. Towards the end, 70 and above signals on the AT Pro are dug.
However, when relic hunting, I dig every shotgun shell, 22 shell and every piece of wire. There are many iron relics out there. Hand forged horse/mule shoes, bayonet pieces, etc.
If a new spot opens up for me I will cherry pick . If I am able to hunt it for a few trips or indefinitely I will eventually dig all signals . There hasn't been any new opportunities opening up lately so I have been digging everything at my old sites .
On shopping trips or errands I will scout my nearby old haunts to see if any dirt is being moved around . As far as Silver coins go I've only found one so far this year a nice 1935 Merc from a School built in 1936 . Everything around here has been pounded for years .Only a couple of wood chips tot lots left here locally . They have almost all been replaced by ones with those stupid rubber mats .Nowadays
I don't get much of an opportunity to cherry pick and even zincs and junk are getting scarce .This sometimes causes me to not to even go out as much . I've got a spot I've been keeping my eye out on that may be huntable in the near future , I sure hope it pans out . It's small and there wont be much there so I will be digging every signal .
I almost always cherry pick due to my limited time. I usually detect the beach every weekday morning for about 45 minutes before work with the a SovGT and dig all good tones in disc mode. On the rare occasion that I get a few minutes after work to hit one of the parks on the way home, I usually will dig any nickel/gold and upper scale numbers/tones with whatever inland detector I happen to have in my truck at that particular time. Once in a great while, I can allot a block of a few hours to detect and then I will dig outside of my little cherry pickin zones or experiment with alternate settings or learn a new detector etc..
Great opinions & strategies, so far! Amazing how we all approach things so differently, yet are each successful in terms of our finds. Keep'm coming
Joe