My Long Term Approach To Working On Pasture "Deep Scan"

In this blog I'd like to explain how I approach my longterm pasture fields, this isn't some covert advert for Nexus metal detectors. It's simply explaining the role of a deep seeking machine in the approach I've chosen to take. 

Before buying my Nexus Standard MP V2 detector I was hatching a grand plan in my head about how I wanted to approach my pasture fields on a longterm basis. As much as love my Equinox 800, I knew I needed a 'two-pronged' approach to really squeeze as much as I could out of the fields that I'm lucky enough to have permission to hunt. Deep in my gut there was a feeling that one detector was not going to cut it. For me, my Equinox has always been a 'dig everything' machine, I have no problem doing this, especially if it's part of a process. The longterm approach consisted of focusing on small areas of land, clearing all the targets out with the Equinox until the signals started to dry up. I wanted as much ferrous and non-ferrous materials out the way so potential deeper targets weren't obscured or masked by the shallower stuff. This approach made no sense to me if I couldn't find an appropriate tool that would "deep scan" the ground once a vast majority of the targets had been removed. Mainstream companies offered no solution to the depth issue so I had to search further afield. That's when Nexus came into my focus, it's a deep seeking machine and it has the ability to go "super deep" depending on what coil you choose.

'Deep Scan" metal detecting is an art-form of its own and it was something that I wanted to start to master, I've managed to squeeze some pretty deep targets out of the ground with my Equinox 800, as explained in previous blogs, digging on tones alone enables you to do this, 'living and dying' by the VDI numbers is going to see you walking over deep non ferrous rewards. I'm interested in the weird/iffy signals, anyone can purchase a machine and dig up the obvious stuff. It's the deeper level of the soil that interests me the most, having settings confined within a digital framework is not the way to go when you want to try to pull the really deep stuff. I needed something that allowed me to fine tune in the tiniest of increments, especially when it came to ground balance. In the current metal detecting world ground balance has almost been confined to the "do it if you want to" category. It doesn't help the cause when Minelab, in their instructions of the Equinox have said you can leave it at ZERO. 

Personally I think ground balance is one of the most important elements in getting your machine to run at its optimum level. I don't know the exact science behind it but the way I see it, you're getting your machine to resonate in harmony with the ground. In my mind it's like tuning two drum skins, the ground is the bottom skin and the coil is the top skin. On a drum, when both skins are tuned in harmony it resonates in a wide open manor helping it to produce its best tone. When you have your machine resonating in harmony with the ground it's going to allow your detector to resonate and communicate with you at its best possible level so any metal interference within this resonance will register. The problem I have with digital ground balance is the increments, on my Equinox it can only ever settle on a whole number, for example 80, how do I know that the detector wouldn't run better at 80.1 or 80.2 etc. For me this is one of the draw backs of digital machines, it can only ever be adjusted within the frame work the manufacturer has produced. 

10 Turn Rotary Potentiometer For Ground Balace

For the perfect communication between the ground and the human to take place a series of elements need to be refined, for me, these elements are swing speed and swing consistency combined with the correct coil height. My Nexus, when used with low frequency coils, is a slow recovery machine so you have to swing accordingly. When I use the high frequency silver scout coils, they're super fast recovery so I modify my swing speed, however, I still don't swing particularly fast. I like to meditate on both the sound and the motion concentrating on the slightest deviation in the threshold resonance. It can take me hours just to do a small section of a field because I want to be as thorough as possible, I'm in no rush - anyone remember the old tale of  The Turtle & The Hare?, think about that for a second. All of the above demonstrates the importance of being at one with your machine and the ground you walk. For deep scan detecting, the slower the better, you want to give the machine the best chance at doing its job correctly.

In regards to target masking, there's been a few occasions when I've dug large iron only to scan in and around the hole to find it was masking a coin or a button. But I started to wonder how many deep targets under 'said iron' are being missed because they're beyond the detection abilities of the Equinox. It made no sense in clearing as much metal out the ground as possible only to go over it again with the same machine. There has to be a variation in tools used, on this specific site I'm pretty much maxed out with the Equinox 800 at 10 inches, chances are there might not be anything deeper than that. In my experience on and off for over 30 years I've found most targets to be between 4 to 8 inches down. However my curiosity is at such a level that I really ..... really want to know if there are deeper targets nestled in the deeper soil that's out the reach of most mainstream brands. 

I know there's a lot of detectorists out there that don't want to be digging deep holes and the consensus on a lot of the forums, especially when it comes to deep scanning machines, is "depth isn't everything". I do agree with this statement, especially if you're a park hunter, but in many situations, especially when you're hunting the fields of England, depth is important. I'll give you an example, decades ago one of my pasture sites use to be ploughed fields, at some stage in the past, top soil was trucked in and the fields were seeded and turned into pasture. All the areas that the trucks with the "filler soil" couldn't get to contained some fantastic coins and relics but as soon as I moved out of the edges of the fields and away from the hedgerows and tree lines I started digging trash on every target. As mentioned before, I have no problem with digging trash but I believe that the good targets are down underneath the sub soil in the original ploughed soil. So, as mentioned before, the first stage to be able to reach the potential deep targets, I need to remove everything from the ground that may mask and block what could be buried deep within the original ploughed ground.

All my Nexus coils are deep seeking, even my 10 inch DD low frequency coil can hit a coin in the right conditions at 14' inches plus - "trust me when I say I'm not exaggerating". The video above shows air testing on the 20' inch DD low frequency coil, all Nexus machines detect deeper in the ground than they do in air. So when the switch is made from the Equinox to the Nexus I want to use a selection of coils in a systematic way before I try to punch really deep. Once I've put time in with both my 10' and 13' inch coils I'll upgrade to my 20' inch, the final move will be to my 20' dual coil, this specific coil is surprisingly sensitive to slightly larger deep coins and relics.  

As mentioned before, lets not be under any illusion here, you can only find what's in the ground and there may well be nothing on a lot of my sites at extreme depth, but I want to have the right tools for the job if there are in fact deeper targets to be found. Some of you reading this might be thinking "what's the point in deep scan tools" when millions of artefacts and a large number of hoards have been recovered with hobby detectors? I understand this way of thinking but I want to take a different path to the majority, I think we've reached the limit of performance with digital hobby based machines. I can't help but think the likes of Minelab, XP, Garret etc have got the majority of detectorists running around in circles chasing their tails, arguing over which machine is best when really they just change the outer shell of their machines, sticking with similar electronics under the hood. Yes ...... the Deus 2 looks impressive but is it really going to find you more targets than other machines out there? in some environments it might but I still don't really see anything particularly new, it's all just a variation of the same theme.