I do not know all the details of the incident, which led to the fact that the full-flowing river in my village turned into a thin, seething stream in places. Due to the lack of water, the banks exposed their silt bottom, and the riverbed showed stones and shells.

This incident upset the fishermen and vacationers, who are more than enough on the banks of the river in the summer. Who is sorrow, and who is joy. Indeed, for a treasure hunter, digging in an untouched place is always for happiness. Places that have not seen a person with a detector and a shovel will bring interesting finds even to the seeker who will search with an inexpensive Chinese metal detector.

There were so many diggers that the local population was already used to a person with a metal detector in their hands and therefore did not react to them in any way. Unless in rare cases they ask if they found a lot of gold and, having heard laughter in response, they go home. So it is not at all surprising that after only one month, the muddy shores were already a lunar landscape.
Features of detecting along the bottom of the river.

I myself was wildly curious: what can be found on the shallows with a metal detector.

In the evening he went ashore and, going into the water up to his ankles, conducted his search until nightfall.

To search in the shallows without a scuba, a pinpointer becomes indispensable. My pointer from MarsMD coped with such a cop perfectly well.

I tried to search with different devices and with different coils, but the result was always almost the same - scrap metal and a couple of tips.

Reader, I never thought that a river could be such a frank dump - every centimeter of wiring by a coil, and sometimes only a millimeter, and heard a signal from iron. If the detector speaks with a color response, then either the wire, or the cork, or the bottom of the can. Less common: foil, stainless metal jars and batteries.

I wasn’t the only one who dug such assorted pieces - dug out garbage finds lay all over the banks. But after all, a river, on the banks of which a settlement has existed for many centuries, must hide something more substantial in its depths, and not just rubbish! But, alas, all the ancient artifacts are buried under a thick layer of mismanaged Soviet era.

Then the diggers, including myself, began to search only on the beaches. More than once I observed guys digging sand and after some time leaving the place of search. And all because those beaches, on which they still bathe, I dug up a few years ago with a comrade.

And I dug productively on those shores where there were once beaches. I remember them from my childhood, but now these places are overgrown with sedge, and the bottom is covered with silt.

What is amazing: every other coil in the same place, sniffed out some kind of find. This is not surprising - after all, the little Nel Sharp collected surface targets at 5 inches, the round staff of the AKA saw what she wanted, but the 3-frequency Tornado felt the targets perfectly, but in places of abundance of iron she went blind like a mole.

Also, from the finds along the edge of the places of the former bathing, all sorts of fishing tackle come across: baubles, fights, mormyshkas, lead sinkers.

There are a lot of abandoned small beaches, but I managed to knock out only two. On the second, also not noticed by other diggers, late Soviet and modern coins jumped out one after another.

If not for the abundance of garbage, then spending time with a metal detector along the bottom of the river would be much more interesting.
Another important point of the river cop.

When digging the beaches, one should not forget about the paths used to go to the bathing places. I can only guess about the level of digging experience of the comrades, who rummaged with detectors along the bottom of the river, since the paths remained virgin. Get out of the hollow of the dried-up banks and swarm at least something interesting. After all, it is always nice to dig a coin, even if it was lost relatively recently. Do you agree?

My humble result.

Every time he brought the finds from the cop along the lowered river, he put them in one bag. And so, when the water in the river returned to its usual level, I took out coins and “jewelry” from the bag to show my modest result to my reader.

Looking for coins along the banks of rivers can be quite a profitable and exciting activity. With the right organization of the search process, you can find very valuable copies and real rarities.

Many treasure hunters know that since ancient times people settled near rivers. And it didn't happen by accident. The presence of a source of fresh water in the vicinity was of great importance, since in the old days on the territory of the first settlements there was neither a pipeline nor a tap with cold and hot water. They swam in the rivers, took water for cooking, watering the garden, watered livestock and washed. In addition, the coast of the rivers was the venue for various religious ceremonies and folk festivals. Often, in a drunken state while swimming, people lost coins, chains, crosses, rings and other valuable things, which are now objects of interest for archaeologists and historians.

In winter, a wide variety of goods were transported along the river on sleighs to different parts of the country for their exchange or sale in settlements that were located on the coast or in large cities located in close proximity to the reservoir.

Fair trades were held near the rivers and, of course, in these places, money constantly went from hand to hand in the form of coins that were accidentally dropped from frozen fingers, they could accidentally fall out of the pocket of outerwear and get lost in another way. As a result, the coins fell into snowdrifts or ended up on ice, and after the snow melted, they fell to the bottom of the river. This often happened in shallow water.

The most optimal places to search for coins along the banks of rivers are:

- the bottom of a reservoir or shallow water;

- trails that go from the bank to the river;

- the confluence of the rivers, special attention should be paid to the study of the hill or ditch in this place;

- gentle slope on the shore;

- sand, which from time to time is washed from the bottom of the river;

- the high bank of the reservoir.

In these places you can often find old coins and other historical values.

To search for coins in shallow areas of the river, it is best to buy a metal detector equipped with a sealed coil. It is made in order to make it convenient to look for metal in the water, to explore the shallows. This device is absolutely safe to use.

If during the search you come across fishermen sitting on the shore, then we do not recommend telling them about the search for the treasure. Better say that you lost an expensive ring last year, a family heirloom. Among the lovers of fishing there are different people who do not need to be devoted to all the details of your "operation".

As a rule, the soil near the river consists of sand or clay, and it is in such soil that coins are best preserved.

To search for treasure at the bottom of a reservoir, you will need not only a sealed coil, it is best in this case to use a special magnet for searching. It can be bought in the distribution network, but it is quite inexpensive, in addition, its payback is extremely high. Even if you do not find coins, you will surely find scrap metal, which you can later turn in. Particularly successful treasure hunters with the help of such a magnet find silver and gold royal coins at the bottom of the reservoir, so “the game is worth the candle”, and even more so a useful magnet. By the way, it should be noted that the search for precious items on the banks of Russian water bodies is still officially permitted by law, unlike detecting in fields, forests, etc.

Sometimes valuable coins can be found near old watermills. But, in this case, the search will be somewhat difficult, since these structures were built in the narrow places of the river with a fast current. Treasure hunters are advised to explore not the bottom of the river in these places, but the place where the owner of the mill allegedly made his calculations with clients.

It's no secret that the best places to search for antique items have long been explored. Whether it's a plowed tract, an abandoned village, a manor's estate or a landowner's house, treasure hunters have been everywhere, not to mention such chic places as inns and fairs.
Of course, it is far from a fact that all the finds have been found there, nevertheless, many would like to wander around with a metal detector in untouched places.

Here one of such interesting directions can be called a search on the reservoirs - next to them and right in the water.

Where to look

From time immemorial, rivers and lakes have been a source of water; without them, life was not conceivable before and now. From time immemorial, settlers built their houses next to water. If instead of a river there was a stream or a swamp, a pond was built nearby.

Life has always been in full swing around them: in summer and winter they swam, fished, washed clothes, carried water. And where there were people, there should be lost coins.

First of all, you need to check the bathing places, they usually did not change from year to year. Finding them in abandoned villages can be difficult. On ponds, they can be found by such features as a gentle, but not swampy shore without trees, a gradual lowering of the bottom topography and sand instead of silt. On rivers, this is much more difficult to do, for the simple reason that its channel gradually changes its path. Therefore, only old-timers can accurately point to the former beach. Some places may suggest ancient names - Stone bottom, Sergeevskaya bakalda, etc., as well as the expansion of rivers with a good bottom and shallow water.

Initially, we examine precisely these places, combing the entire coastline in detail for 5-6 m from the water's edge, paying special attention to areas where the water has come down.

After that, if the vegetation allows, you can also run along the reservoir, paying attention to various hillocks, growing thick trees and places once regularly visited by people - bridges for crossing and just bridges, paths from the bathhouse or house to the water.

Of particular interest in this regard are the drained ponds, the mass of water for many years reliably guarded everything that was hidden on the banks or simply lost.

What can be found here?

People at one time not only swam here, but also rested, respectively, there will be corks, foil, wrappers, etc. Of the valuable finds come across coins, crosses, chains, rings, icons, buttons, and other personal items.

Once, while examining a similar place right on the border with water, a medal for the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) was raised in excellent condition.

Most of the villages, as mentioned above, used to be located in the immediate vicinity of water bodies, their banks were a good place to hide a small egg-pod or even a whole treasure. So from time to time they come across there. This happens especially often near rivers, it is not uncommon when they are found there right with their eyes - the water washes away the shore and the coins spill out right into the river.

By the way, about the safety of objects, water itself is a solution of various salts, that's on their quantity and degree of concentration, as well as the nature of the soil, i.e. silt and depends on how the coin will be preserved. Treasure hunters say that sometimes you get a find as if from under a machine, but sometimes it’s just its remains.

In addition to the old beaches, other places that are no less interesting from the point of view of finding coins there require attention. These are crossings, bridges, entrances and approaches to places where ships and boats stopped, as well as just paths along the coast.

Input search is also real and feasible, but this is already quite a different level and knowledge. The fact is that in any reservoir a considerable layer of silt settles over the years, and if in the river it both washed and washed away, then in ponds or lakes its thickness can reach a meter. It is not easy to search in such conditions, to put it mildly, and they need completely different devices, such as Fisher CZ 21-10 or Minelab Excalibur or, in general, a search magnet.

So it remains for non-fans of underwater search to be content with the shallow water of sandy beaches and shoals. There you can walk around with the most common, as long as the coil is designed for immersion in the input.

Many now do not pass by modern beaches, they are rich not only in products made of precious metals, modern walkers, but also in the mass of all kinds of metal garbage.
Therefore, the search there is not easy, it requires a lot of patience and perseverance, but that's another story.

Treasure hunt along rivers and on public beaches

Almost all large settlements in Russia are located along the banks of rivers, lakes and seas. What if we consider that part of the land that is washed by water on the one hand, and adjoins the embankment on the other, like a placer of gold? I do not call for testing coastal deposits on the city beach (although this is exactly what the inhabitants of Yekaterinburg did in the last century, right there in the city, handing over the washed gold to the mountain police chief), but, armed with a search device, walk along the water itself - this can turn out to be a very profitable occupation. The embankment is a favorite place for walks of the townspeople, and therefore a place of minor losses. Values ​​are often thrown into the water to get rid of evidence, or in retaliation for someone. For example, such a case is described in the Bulletin of the Gold Industry for 1899:

“Recently, in one of the villages close to Irkutsk, some swindler, fearing prosecution for the gold he had stolen from the mines, threw it, in the amount of three pounds, from the bank into the Angara River.”

Many valuables were dropped into the water at piers, steamship gangways, when unloading ships, and were lost when unloading into warehouses. And the water itself, doing its daily work and carrying away light particles, “washes” the cultural layer of the coastal soil, thereby concentrating heavy objects in the places of erosion. In order for the search to be successful, two factors must be taken into account - firstly, to study the old plan of the city or village in order to draw up an estimated scheme of work, and secondly, to take into account the physical changes in the channel under the influence of natural forces or human engineering activities. Of course, the part of the coast where the erosion of the soil and the demolition of its light components is more promising than the places where siltation occurs. The main thing is to choose the site so that natural forces work in the right direction.

City beaches are a special area of ​​attention for a mini-treasure hunter, or rather, a place to search for lost valuables. The more people visit the beaches, the more jewelry is lost here - sand and small pebbles serve as excellent shelter from the eyes of absent-minded owners. In many countries of the world, where there are comfortable beaches and the gentle sun shines, the business of searching for lost jewelry with the help of metal detectors is flourishing. According to unverified data, a similar fishery exists on the Black Sea coast. It can be assumed that it brings considerable income. Such work does not require particularly sensitive instruments - 10-15 cm of detection depth is quite enough. Of course, there will be a lot of low-value items, especially, I think, the seeker will become annoyed by the abundance of coins and traffic jams. What to do, you have to endure - good, to drip shallowly.

It may turn out that not only a lost ring or watch will become the prey of a specialist in extracting beach treasures. Sea waves, as you know, near the coast have tremendous power. During a storm, boulders spin in waves like soccer balls. Approximately the same thing happens at shallow depths near the surf, but the greater the depth of the sea column, the less the effect of wave energy on the bottom.

Ships that died at different times on coastal underwater rocks and shallows sank to the bottom, where they were subjected to inexorable destruction under the pressure of waves and salt water. The contents of the holds and cabins sank to the seabed. What is the further path of items from ship holds? Much depends on the bottom topography and depth at the crash site: sometimes the wreckage is buried under a layer of sand, and sometimes moving towards the shore with a mass of boulders and pebbles. So, for example, during the transverse (with respect to the coastline) movement of sediments by sea waves on a flat bottom, sand is carried to great depths, and pebbles and boulders are thrown to the coast.

As an illustration, I will cite a case described by Professor V.P. Zenkovich.

In 1946, the professor was in Kamchatka, on the Pacific coast. The border guards showed him heavy marine binoculars, corroded by sea water and overgrown with shells. They found this binocular once, after a storm, on the shore, it was thrown by waves from a ship that sank at a depth of 40 meters. From this depth, various iron fragments were thrown ashore by the waves more than once, and a year later, binoculars ended up on the beach.

The following fact also speaks of bottom unrest of unusual strength. In the Sea of ​​Japan, south of

Vladivostok, an anchor weighing almost 300 kg was missed from one vessel. The following year, the anchor was thrown ashore.

Sea waves can serve one more service to the treasure hunter, namely: to act as a hydromonitor, eroding the cultural layer of the earth on the coast, where the coast is being actively destroyed.

After a storm, during which the erosion process intensifies many times, you can go with a metal detector along the erosion strip and search in the cultural layer enriched by the removal of light soils for antiquities, if any are implied in the search area due to the historical setting.

If you take a little interest in the geological history of the coast, then perhaps you will be able to find areas that are promising for the search for values. As you know, the soil sometimes rises, and sometimes, on the contrary, sinks and is absorbed by the waters of the seas. Sometimes the processes are very slow, sometimes faster, but there are also rapid changes in land level: catastrophic rises or subsidence of soil during an earthquake. Let's say that some coast, rich in historical monuments, is immersed in sea waters. There are many such plots of land - in particular, in the near abroad. Then, as a result of a sharp rise in land, a site - for example, an ancient settlement - lying above the water for centuries, again finds itself under the sun, providing those who wish the opportunity to search for ancient treasures in the soil eroded by the sea.

On the beach, if the water is warm, you can search for valuables without a device - visual observation in the surf. Try looking at land from the water. The justifications are simple: golden objects are static, and sand and pebbles, constantly moved back and forth by a breaking wave, now expose, then again fall asleep these objects. The same process occurs from the side of the coast. But the surf line is looked at mainly from land, and not from under the water. I had to talk with people who struggled with the Black Sea summer boredom in this way. Here's what they advised.

For this practice, you need a mask with a tube. Fins are not needed, the seeker swims very slowly along the surf and, as a specialist in such a fishery figuratively put it, “rubs the sand with his stomach”. The observation is carried out directly in front of you, because the golden barrel of the jewel flashes only for a moment in an endless crowd of grains of sand or small pebbles. It is most convenient to conduct a search when there is a weak wave at sea, because with large waves there is a problem with swimming, and during calm there is no necessary movement of bottom sands.

Rivers and lakes are fraught with a huge number of hidden treasures. One can only imagine how many people, during the entire existence of money circulation in the region, betrayed their treasures to water, some on purpose, and some inadvertently. For a treasure hunter, this is a special branch of the search, which requires its own skill and knowledge. I will not talk about those who scuba dive in search of sunken ships, but I will only touch on that side of the search that does not require special underwater equipment, but only diligence and desire.

The most promising places are old bridges and the ruins of a mill. On any old map of the early 20th century, these objects should be marked. You just need to navigate the area and start searching. Landmarks can be old piles sticking out of the water (for bridges), overgrown foundations (for mills). It is bridges and mills that have seen many people in their lifetime. How many coins were accidentally lost in these places or buried near such a wonderful landmark. The task of the treasure hunter is to find these coins, both in the water and on the shore.

The technology of searching on the sites of old bridges is rather uncomplicated and not everyone will find it attractive. The main tool is a specially made bucket. It is a large bucket in the shape of a scoop with a hole in the bottom. Your task is to distill the semi-liquid soil at the bottom, as if sifting it. All large and heavy items should remain in the bucket.

When I first read this method, somehow I did not take it seriously, but I decided to try it, since there was no metal detector yet. He built a scoop from a metal mesh and went to search. The search site was an old bridge, which no longer existed, only half-rotted piles sticking out, on the Barneva River. Having spent about five hours in the silt (fortunately the water was warm and shallow), a break in a ton of mud, nevertheless, I found something. My finds were: a lock (from the 50s), a bell and two Soviet nickels from the 30s. I do not take into account household waste. Two years later, I came to this place with a detector. For a long time I wandered along the shore under the former bridge, found only five coins: four Soviet coins and one penny of Nicholas II. It can be seen not the most popular and ancient bridge was.

I had to dig at the mill once, it happened on the Techa River almost on the very border with the Chelyabinsk region. The mill was rumored to be quite popular. Somehow I did not dare to climb into the water, I just wandered around with a metal detector all day. The result, in principle, was a couple of dozen coins, kings with advice. Maybe a professional device would have found something else, with ACE 150 it was enough for me.

In such searches at old mills, the most important thing is to determine how much the riverbed has changed, then find the alleged horse stations. In general, according to the stories of friends, you can wander through such places endlessly and constantly find something. I also heard stories that allegedly many millers during the period of dispossession kept their metal savings in leather bags with a tied anvil at the bottom under the mill. Naturally, some of them did not have time to take the money. Particularly stubborn can look for such stash, as you can imagine what kind of metal is in such bags.

Springs are also not hopeless about hidden treasures. They are perfect for hiding a small treasure. In more than half of the cases, springs are only a guide, while the treasure itself can be located at a considerable distance from it, so it is pointless to stupidly examine the entire surrounding area. It is better to examine the spring itself. Here a metal detector will not help, but a metal rod with a length of at least one and a half meters will help. With this rod, it is enough to simply pierce the entire area of ​​​​the spring, hoping to rest against something solid, maybe this will be a treasure.

Once I read on one forum that there is one digger in Kurgan who specializes only in springs. According to his calculations, he "poked" more than two hundred different types of springs. Found something. The largest find was a silver tray, small silverware is often found, but there was no coin hoard yet.