hello Jsour... i find your question interesting. dive stores, with dive boats, have numbers of established dive sites, usually revolving around a feature on the bottom of the ocean, such as, a reef, a shipwreck, a ledge, a wall, disposed military hardware, etc... The other considerations are always depth and distance from shore. In other words, fuel consumption and time.
Being free to dive wherever you like, changes things considerably. Any device that can be used to give insight as to what is on the bottom is very helpful. Having a survey diver prepared to do a quick look at the bottom is also helpful.
I have been an exploratory type diver and it has led me to seek out virgin sites, or almost virgin sites. The first step for me was to find others with the same interest. We use similar techniques in the rivers. We generally look for gravel beds containing fossilized pieces of the past. Sometimes we run across, wooden sailing ships, French and Spanish coins, pottery, civil war pieces, etc.
We use techniques similar to what is used in the ocean. We usually drag something for starters. We have an extremely long aluminum pole that we drag. You can feel the vibrations through the pole. We also use an underwater TV. When we suspect a good spot, we throw on a scuba unit and drop on it. If it is a good spot, we anchor and dive on it.
In Arkansas, I've been diving at Beaver lake. Some great diving there.
