Fall Hunt 2007

 

21st Annual Treasures in the Sand

September 8th 2007, HRRS held its annual Fall Hunt. This year the event was held again at the Yorktown Beach in beautiful Yorktown, VA. We had over 50 participants registered this year and 11 Children registered for our Kids Only Hunt. Needless to say the event was a big success.


Unlike our Spring Hunt where we dodged raindrops the event was virtually cloud free. Temperatures were in the low 90's with a light breeze. We were also fortunate enough to share our event with the Yorktown Market Days at the River event. Riverwalk Landing's newest event. The market featured local produce, fresh meat and seafood, baked goods, herbs, specialty cut flowers, handmade soaps, quality art and live musical entertainment.

HRRS members started gathering around 6:30am Saturday morning to a gorgeous sunrise to set up the hunt field and the registration tents.

After a bit of muscle and moving we had our Registration and Prize Tents set up to start welcoming people to the Fall Hunt. Registration started at 8:00am and there were plenty of people eager to get started well before that.

Prior to our first hunt we started the days events with a quick briefing of the hunt rules, what to look for in the way of tokens and and a review of the marked hunt area boundaries on the beach.

With the historical area literally surrounding the hunt area we make it a point to let visitors to our area know about our local restrictions on metal detecting so no one gets in trouble with local national park/police authorities.


Let the Hunt Begin!

At 9:00 we started our first hunt of the day. With a hearty "Detectors Ready!" a group of over 50 people swarmed the beach in hopes of finding anything their detectors would locate. With coins, tokens, and the occasional buried prize already seeded on the beach, I'm pretty sure that everyone was able to leave with something for their effort.

After about 30 minutes the Warmup Hunt was over and the beach was cleared and reseeded.


Second Adult Hunt - Silver

Our second hunt of the day featured all silver and plenty of prize tokens for everyone to find..

At 10:30 the second hunt of the day was just beginning and the heat was bearing down on the participants.

Also by now the beach started getting plenty of spectators stopping to see what was going on and people setting up for a day at the beach.

While we never had any problems with beach goers understanding why we were doing what we were doing, if your club decides to hold such an event get the necessary permits to alleviate any problems.

At 11:00 the Silver Hunt ended and it was time for lunch and to get set up for the Kid's Hunt.


Our Kid's Are the Future of Our Hobby

This year we had 11 children registered for our Kids Hunt.

Each child gets to select an area of their own to hunt in. This works great as each child doesn't have to worry about another child interfering with their hunting and gives each child a equal chance at finding all the treasures seeded in their particular areas.

Each area was seeded with a variety of coins and tokens good for prizes during the award ceremony at the end of the day.

Adults were allowed to help after about 10 minutes of hunting but were encouraged to let their children operate the equipment and become familiar with how it works to find their own treasures.

A Kids Hunt is a great way to encourage Metal Detecting in our youth and helps the kids feel more like participants in the overall Club Hunt. It also a great way to get the spectators involved in cheering for the kids as they metal detect.

After about 20 minutes the kids have found everything buried and its time to move on to the next hunt.


Third Adult Hunt - Optional Gold

Our third hunt of the day was our optional Gold Hunt. This hunt cost a bit more to run so requires an additional fee to participate.

By now the sun was really blazing and I'm sure some thought we could have smelted our own gold bricks in the sand as hot as it was getting.

While this is our quickest hunt lasting only 15 minutes everyone was eager to get started. Filled from lunch from some of the local restaurants at 1:00 the beach was once again alive with people searching for buried treasure.

 


Final Adult Hunt

After what seemed like a long day it was time to bring to a close our hunts with a final hunt of the day. Seeded with coin, tokens, and special prizes the final hunt began at 1:30pm much to the pleasure of everyone present.

It was hot with a light breeze blowing and plenty of beach goers and spectators to cheer them on our participants raced over the beach in hopes of finding the prize tokens and coinage seeded by our HRRS members and hopefully anything that may have been missed by others during the previous hunts. Our little part of the beach certainly got a good cleaning that day.

 


   

 

 
Page last updated 09-14-2007