Nexus On Really Trashy Sites - American Parks?

These are the two lingering questions that seem to come up on a regular basis.

Can I use Nexus Machines On Really Trashy Sites?

Can I use Nexus Machines In American Parks?

I mainly hunt on old pasture fields and land that has been ploughed, the main element that I contend with is iron contamination. I can say wholeheartedly that with the correct coils both the MP V2 & MP V3 are fantastic in the iron, I personally think they excel on pasture. I have a few different permissions, one of them being farmland that's littered with modern trash. In fact the trash is so bad that I find myself digging between 40 & 50 trash items before I find a treasure. Ten Roman coins have been unearthed on this specific site, some being found in the same hole as a ring pull. When I used my Equinox 800 I did exactly the same thing, if it was nonferrous then I dug it out.

A Master On Pasture

Does digging this amount of trash bother me?

In all honesty - no it really doesn't, I work on the basis that I need to get it out the ground, my permissions are longterm so it's within my interest to continue to remove as many trash targets as I possibly can. Not only does this reduce the effects of target masking, it also clears the shallow targets out the way that could potentially lead to me hitting on deeper items. Once an area has been cleared out with a high frequency coil then I'll bring my larger low frequency coils in to punch down deeper.

The thing that people need to understand with Nexus is, you don't have digital software so creating notching programs isn't possible - yes .. you can discriminate out certain items but obviously if you're going to do that then there will be a trade off,  you may miss some small jewellery items. Even on my digital machines I never messed about with notching out specific targets, I basically dug it all. The main point for me is - is it ferrous? or is it non-ferrous? If it's non-ferrous then I'm digging it and depending on the site, sometimes I'll dig the ferrous, but most of the time I'll leave it. However when an area has become void of targets then I will look to start removing the iron in the hope that a few more treasure targets can be recovered.

Does All The Above Sound Like Too Much Hard Work?

To some people I think it might but to me it's how I approach my metal detecting, going at it like this can be exhausting and a little tedious at times but the treasure has a tendency to reveal itself a lot more by approaching the land in this way. On the flip side,  as an example, if I'm short of time on a particular day I might decide to discriminate out pull tabs, I do this to mainly give me a chance at potentially digging something good without having to dig loads of holes in the time I have available. However, the pull tabs I discriminate out on that particular day will only end up being dug out further down the line when I'm on a longer hunt.

Now there's a lot of people out there saying you can't dig it all, from experience I've found way more treasure targets by doing this than I have by being selective in what I choose to dig. On the trashy farmland mentioned above I've had days where I've basically dug trash for 12 hours straight with very little reward, but I'm conscious of the fact that what I'm achieving by doing this is quite simply part of a bigger picture. Yes - I found the tonal options very useful on my Equinox when I wanted to spend a few hours cherry picking and I can understand why some would like to notch certain numbers of the VDI out but that's just not my style.

So to answer the first question above, can you use Nexus machines on really trashy sites, the answer is YES, but you have to be realistic in your coil choice. Personally I would be using either of the silver scouts , both these coils handle trash fantastically. I wouldn't use a coil larger than the 11.5' inch SS, remember that this specific coil is high frequency and has a super fast recovery, it doesn't react in the same way as a coil of the same size in a low frequency. I would see no point in using any of the lower frequency coils because in super trashy areas we're going for separation and unmasking. Like I mentioned before, overtime, if you've started to clear the shallow stuff then it makes sense to bring in a slightly larger low frequency coil to punch down deeper. 

Regarding parks in America, personally I've never hunted one so it's impossible for me to say how the machine is going to perform. I can't see it behaving any different to the super trashy sites here in the UK. It depends what type of hunter you are, do you dig it all? or do you like to be selective?. Personally, as mentioned above I dig it all and I've seen a number of park hunters over in the states that do the same and seem to do pretty well. If you do want to phase out bottle caps or ring pulls both the silver scouts will do a fantastic job at unmasking non-ferrous targets both close to and under both these items. Only you can be the judge of how you want to approach the environments you choose to detect. But if it was me, I'd discriminate out the iron and dig the rest, this might seem like a huge undertaking. But like I've mentioned before, if it's a site you visit on a regular basis then clearing all the non-ferrous trash out the ground is going to benefit you in the long term. Personally I can see why some might prefer a digital platform to undertake super trashy parks, especially with the ability to create programs that will save both your time and your back. However for me personally I'm an "all metal" kind of guy and that means if it's nonferrous then I'm digging it.