Rallies, Club Digs & Green Waste Are Ruining The Hobby

This is a subject I've been wanting to write about for quite a while now and due to some recent happenings I decided now is the time. I've been hunting one of my 'pasture' farms for 4 years, patiently digging out all the trash so I can punch deeper with my Nexus machines. I've been really systematic about it concentrating on small sections at a time, a lot of good finds have come up but there's a crazy amount of trash. Beggars can't be choosers .. right? so I make do with what I've got in the hope something interesting comes a long. Not only that, due to the sheer amount of targets dug, I really get the chance to learn my machines properly.

Money Talks & Bullshit Walks In This Hobby

Last September the farmer informed me that they were ploughing and reseeding the fields so I'd have to pull off until the following Spring, I was told no one else would be allowed to detect the land. Fast forward a year and I dropped in on the farmer to see when I could start hunting again, I was told that he's had a group of 30 guys pay him a considerable sum of money to detect the land. They camped down there for two weeks and hunted every day, this is only part of the problem, they actually found nothing but rubbish. 

Why Was This? 

Whilst they were reseeding the fields they'd ordered tons of slurry to be spread at the same time, the slurry was loaded with green waste, let's just focus on this for a second, 30 detectorists found nothing but trash for two weeks, what the hell chance do I have at finding anything of value. The 4 years I'd spent clearing the trash out and hunting meticulously was a complete waste of time because the land now has a monumental amount of fresh shit littering the surface and I'm going to have to start digging every bit out, I see no point going back to spend the next 10 years digging all the shit that was in the slurry.

What Would've Happened If The Slurry Wasn't Spread?  

Those 30 guys offering the farmer a large sum of money would've come a long and ransacked the permission of all the good targets leaving me with the dregs. This is a growing problem within metal detecting nowadays and it's only going to get worse. You've got clubs, rallies and endless nobodies on Facebook starting group dig pages for no other reason than to make money. Gone are the days of door knocking, I will continue to do so but I'm usually met with a number of different replies, ranging from "I have an arrangement with a local club", "NO", "I already have someone" and the best of all, "last time I let someone on they killed my grass and made a mess".  

What Happens If I'm Lucky Enough To Get A New Permission?

The answer to the above question is pretty simple, I run the risk of a club, rally or group dig coming a long and offering the farmer a shitload of money to hunt the land ...... and so the cycle continues. The hobby is a skeleton of what it once was when I first started back in the 80's. Like everything nowadays it's been ruined by ego, greed and narcism, I understand that there are landowners out there that wouldn't allow club digs on their land because I've met a few of them but I believe they're few and far between especially when the exchange of money is involved, nearly everyone has their price, loyalty means nothing to most people. Why would a farmer keep his land for an individual detectorist to hunt when he can make a quick couple of grand letting a group on. 

Here's £2,000 So A bunch of Strangers Can Ransack Your Property

Let's be honest here, a percentage of people that run group digs couldn't give a toss about the hobby, the history or the land they're charging people to hunt. They want a quick hit so they can earn as much money as possible with minimal effort involved. Unfortunately with the rise of social media metal detecting, along with everything else isn't sacred anymore, it's an oversaturated circus with an abundance of twats scurrying around desperately wanting to be the first to dig the gold and silver so they can film themselves doing it and then plaster it all over social media. How Many People Would Be In The Hobby If Social Media Didn't Exist? I'm thinking far less than what there is now, let's remember we're living in a world where people are desperate for validation and now everyone and their dog has a digital platform to do this.

Green Waste

Taking everything I've mentioned above, throw green waste into the mix and I'm really starting to wonder where the hobby will be in the next 10 - 15 years. We have group digs and rallies ransacking the land and we have all kinds of shit being spewed all over the fields under the guise of slurry and top soil, again, I can only see this problem increasing in the coming years. 

So Where Does This Leave Us?

The companies selling us metal detectors don't give a toss about the state of modern metal detecting, their priority is to keep selling us the same shit over and over again. So answer me this, how much are you prepared to spend on the latest and greatness metal detectors if you haven't got anywhere to use them? This is why I'm so lucky to live by the river Thames here in London, I can get down there and not be disturbed or have someone swinging a fucking Deus 2 half an inches from my arse. Also I'm equally blessed that I have a permission on ancient land and I have the pleasure in knowing that the owners would never let anyone else on it however much money was thrown at them.