Back in the day when I resided much closer to the Big Salt Pond my "go to" beach detector of choice was (and still is) a Tesoro Sand Shark. I like it because it is simple, rugged, relatively lightweight and gets the job done. Also, the batteries seem to last forever. I've also used it in fresh water where I have recovered gold and silver jewelry, coins (yup, some silvers) and TONS of bottle caps (Pyramid Lake and Big Bear Lake). Finally, it works great at PCSC coin hunts. Just my dos centavos.