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Punching Pasture with the Nexus SE

Now winter is approaching and most of the fields are under crop its time to take what's available, normally pasture fields, the area's we normally visit have light chalky soil and a real pleasure to dig....however over the years targets can sink very quickly, it's not uncommon to dig corroded shotgun cartridges 8"-10" deep which is from experience on the edge of most machines capabilities.
Having not used the Nexus for some time I wanted an excuse to get out there and renew my old back problems... and if the gods were looking down on us uncover something interesting.

Strategy....
I wanted to concentrate on bigger targets and not be bothered by small stuff so the discrimination was to be set higher than normal to reject ring pulls, one advantage of using this setting was shotgun cartridges give a tell tale click at the end of the signal, small coins would possibly be lost but they were not on the agenda for this particular series of exercises. If there was a situation when I only wanted to hear targets in the lower conductivity range the Nexus can be simply fine tuned to ignore large targets and find only small coins, like a reverse discrimination.

Essential tools were :
A long spade preferably a post hole spade.

A body scanner to be used as a pin point probe, conventional probes are basically usless when trying to locate deep targets, body scanners have a range of up to 10" on better sized targets with a vco audio. I have a small quantity of these scanners available at £30 plus post, contact me if you are interested.

A pointed trowell and long handled screwdriver to make target recovery safer when the spade is no longer required.

A digital camera, keep a good record of your finds and capture some amazing scenery.
A tape measure, because one man's 10" is another mans 2 feet.
And finally my trusty compadre Bazza who would help with the digging and provide the coffee and entertainment.

Our first trip was to an old favourite where we held some small digs last year for friends, targets can be very far and few between but occasionally the land gives us some nice treats. The farmer gave us permission to dig deep but was more concerned about the unpredictable moody bull in the field, he explained only days before it had kicked his quad bike and left some bad damage, needles to say the only place to park was field.

We took our chances and started detecting keeping one eye on the bull in the distance, it seemed like an eternity before the first signal came along, we dug down 12" to recover a fragment of a Bronze pot, you could see the rim quite clearly.
The second target followed quite soon after, it was a smooth wide sound the meter gently glided to the positive with no urgency, this was a textbook signal for the Nexus...pure and deep with no sounds of audio rejection. Barry kept an eye on the bull while I lifted a large square of turf still connected on one side, and started to remove the loose soil placing it on to a poly sheet to stop the surrounding grass from staining. After plenty of huffing and puffing Barry said "you stand and watch the bull and let a man do the digging" ....fine by me.
Bazza plunged the spade down into the never ending hole but lost his grip and fell forward, almost in slow motion twisting and falling to the ground splat into a massive wet cow turd. Hysterics followed for quite some time only to be broken by Barry saying "Gazza the bull" I looked up to see it still stood in the distance, more like a spec on the horizon, "its miles away" I said...Bazza replied  " that's not the bull that's a cow the bull is just there behind the bushes and closing in fast" time for a quick exit only just having enough time to kick the dirt back into the hole and get to the 4x4, this was a target for another day.

Bonus find
Another Tuesday arrived it was time to meet up again, it was the first frost of the year, we parked at the top of the valley and walked down to the bottom field opposite a church, the fields were pure white with frost. Barry was using the XP Goldmaxx hoping to find a bonus hammered, I still stuck with the Nexus and the same discrimination settings as the previous week.
The field had a lot of iron targets which made the Nexus pop and spit where as Barry and the Gold Maxx started digging straight away collecting small targets between the nails. I kept telling myself to ignore what Bazza is doing....youre not after small stuff...your chance will come if you just stay disciplined.
After a while I found a reasonably clean area of the field and the machine settled down, the first  6 or so targets were shotgun cases...all with the tell tale audio click. A nice smooth sound gave up an interesting artefact which I have yet to identify. Followed by a really nice crotal bell at exactly 13" deep giving off a very loud signal.
Then a pure short sound came through, it sounded like a coin, I put the spade in and flipped a turf over to find an immaculate gold lady's ring lying at the base of the hole shining like a beacon, I could not believe the condition.. The ring has words DAR (i think) on the front and a date and other info on the inside, I would really like to re unite the ring with it's original owner.
 

1 o'clock soon came around and it was time to head back up the hill, it was a good day, all in 3 crotal bells (all the same style and condition), some large bronze lumps, 2 musket balls a part of a flat brooch and the nice Gold ring all at sensible depths.

The field on the hill
Another Tuesday morning and the temperature had only just hit 1 degree there was a very strong north wind biting into us making our eyes water, we made it worse for ourselves by sitting in the van for an hour before with the heater full blast while looking out of the windows trying to imagine where people would have lived all those years ago. (not on that hill that's for sure)

The field had a lot of contamination mainly from iron and a couple of thousand shotgun cartridges thrown in for good measure, I tried the smaller coil which helped but the cold wind got the better of us, after about an hours searching it was time to retreat. Between us we only managed to find 3 musket balls and about 30 shotgun and 303 shells, not a good day !

Essential tools for digging deep targets

 

     One of the musket balls found with the Nexus dual 6" coil                                                       Underside view of the Nexus SE control box  

More to follow.............................soon                                               

 

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