Needle in a Haystack - Bracelet Found!

I received a call from Luis, a local guy who had lost a gold bracelet while at work. Luis was working at a construction site and on this particular day, had been spreading hay straw on top of tall dirt piles to minimize the erosion from the rain that was expected to roll in. When I arrived at the job site and Luis showed me where he had been working and it was looking like a tough recovery. The dirt piles he had mentioned were steep, 18-20 feet tall, and because of the recent heavy rains, wet and muddy. Add to this the complication that the piles were full of construction debris:  wire, nuts and bolts, aluminum cans, etc., and covered with hay straw. Luis had bought an inexpensive metal detector and tried to find the bracelet himself, but had not had any luck. Unfortunately, because Luis and his co-workers had already tried to find the bracelet, they had walked all over the dirt piles, which had probably pushed the bracelet down into the mud.

Luis did have a matching gold necklace which I was able to scan, so at least I had a good idea what signal to look for. Luis showed me the paths that he had taken up and down the dirt piles while spreading the straw, so I started in and began making my way across in a rough grid pattern. It took probably 30  minutes to find the bracelet, which had washed down the dirt pile and was about 3 inches from being washed into a nearby water drainage ditch. The bracelet had been pushed about 1/2 inch down into the mud and wasn’t visible from the surface. Definitely a tough recovery and I felt relieved that I was able to locate and return the bracelet.