Hi Bijoutier, and Welcome to A.P.
Great questions, and I think most of us have asked ourselves the same and similar too at some point in time. I guess the answers too would vary for each of us depending on what we each want/ get out of detecting. I've some times thought of metal detecting as much the same as motorcycles. If it were a book it would be called a variation of the great book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". Except it would be called "Zen and the Art of Metal Detecting Pleasure" or something like that.
What I mean is, say with motorcycles we all agreed we were all on a Motorcycle forum because we all loved "Motorcycles and Motorcycling". One member would say "yeah, nothing beats flying down the road at break-neck speed on my Superbike (GPZ 7000 detector) and getting the most out of every corner and straight. Another member would say, "They're crap, nothing beats a good 'ol SD 2000 (Vincent HRD) that's stood the test of time and can still hammer it around the bends". Someone else would say "That's just boring. Trials riding is where it's at". Then the Harley dudes would look at all of them and say "That's not Motorcycling!", and someone else could say "Well, I just like general everyday motorcycling on my Honda road bike (GPX 4500/ 5000).
Well, that's how I see detecting. For me, I'd like to find a big mofo nugget to name after my beautiful wife. That means big coils on deep ground, hence the name Deepseeker.
But the SDC guys get their jollies picking up all the little pieces that I have no hope of finding and have probably walked over and missed dozens of times already.
Now some would use the well-worn refrain "But it all adds up!". Yep, so does my time digging up boot tacks, lead shot and other crap. If I wanted to make serious money on a Saturday I'd open my shop on weekends and work instead. Whereas, the guys who do detect full time for a living would most probably use a mid-size coil or all sizes depending on terrain, and think of what is the bread and butter gold in the areas they detect, rather than try to see what the smallest particle is that they can find, or try to earn a living by looking for the next hand of faith and starving to death first.
But then, there are also people who simply pan for gold, and get a lot of pleasure out of of few grains floating around in a little bottle, while others go out to specifically ping coins and artifacts in mining areas. Then, there are the people on the forum who like to be contrarians or enjoy arguing, and they'd say "Oh Yeah? well take a look at this big sucker I found with my SDC in the stream! How much gold have you found so far!?"And some Crevicer who couldn't give a fig about metal detectors or panning would then come on with a pic of a big jar of collected finds and would say "There's far more in the cracks and crevices in that stream than you will ever find with a detector".....
And then, to varying degrees there are those of us who get our jollies seeing wild flowers, wildlife and Geological marvels while out in the field and couldn't really care less if the truth be told, whether we find gold or not.
Finally, to my point (and thanks for bearing with me thus far, if indeed you are still reading this), it depends on whether you only detect locally or are prepared to travel some distance to find a particular type of gold. If, like a lot of detectorists you only want to "find some color" then maybe go back to the reef and stick on a very small coil? If you are looking for biggies, then you need to research the type/s of areas where they are known to lurk (such as the GT here in Vic) and be prepared to travel there. And, importantly, be prepared to have much longer times between digs (for much deeper junk when you do dig), and accept that you are going to see a lot of gold, but it will be other peoples pics of it on here
That's the lot of the Deepseeker by the way, but I'm ok with that. My point is you need to work out what's most important to YOU to get out of this hobby to stick with it and get the most out of your detector investment and/or your detecting pleasure, and then do the research for the particular area/s type of gold you are after. Only then grasshopper, can you grasp the nugget and leave the temple :goldnugget: