Brad Plohman

Ditto for me. I was trying to figure out why I had 86, 87 for what I know to be mild mineralization conditions. I'll have a look at that bar next time.

There's some good discussion here on GB Phase Number vs Mineralization.

Thanks Steve, all the water around here is ice for another 3 months so I haven't actually tried it yet to say one way or another. It'd probably be fine without, as most of the gloves I use have their own grip, this just ensures it. I'm also really pleased with the look of it. Again, great job on this shaft, I love the feel of it on my arm and can't wait to put it to work.

I added some rubber gun grip material to the handle on my Steve G shaft for a little more grip in the water. I left enough space between the panels to still show off that beautiful carbon fiber handle. The rubber material is sticky back and very thin. It adheres really well and I think should stand up in the water no problem. https://www.ebay.com/itm/222358091494

Great year! Thanks for sharing.

That cleaned up beautifully, nice work!

Thanks. Pretty sure these are just your run of the mill, random, lost gold ring at the beach type rings.

I thought I'd tag my review of Steve's XPD2 shaft on to this thread otherwise Steve H is going to have to give Steve G his own Deus 2 shaft forum, lol. I ordered a Deus 2 shaft as well as a custom CF scoop handle for my 720i. Steve G; outstanding my friend, your craftsmanship is impeccable! Every part of this shaft is well thought out and the tolerances are exact. The cam locks hold the shafts so securely that there's no wobble or need for spring pins to control torsional rotation. That and the non-fixed cuff gives me flexibility tilt the handle slightly inboard for comfort while still being able to adjust it so the when the coil lays flat the cuff stand is level. The recessed positioning of the remoted is excellent. It makes it easy to access the buttons with my thumb while maintaining a grip on the handle. I also discovered some hidden genius in the design of the remote mount in that it's not glued in, but rather threaded in to an insert in the middle shaft, so if it ever does get damaged or broken it's an easy fix. This also makes it easy to break down for travel, just unscrew the remote mount and you can easily remove the middle shaft from the handle. The scoop handle was no different, and fit perfectly into the receiver on my scoop. Great Job Steve! Merry Christmas Everyone!

Very nice, congrats!

Nice review F350, that shaft looks real good in the pictures! I'm running down to the border tomorrow am to pick up my 'SGD2' shaft as well as a Steve G custom sand scoop handle for my 720i. Very excited!

Run kitty run! I don't know the answer to this but thank you for sharing your observations. To me iron tone shouldn't disappear just because you change the tone selection to Full Tones, but I'm far from expert on this machine. I can't help but thinking this is more than a settings issue and might be something that will be addressed in the next update? I'm looking out the window at snow as well. Maybe I need to get a cat?

I share your quest for a better understanding of the Disc & Notch settings. For the fresh water/gold ring hunting I do I definitely find value in notching up to 28ish. Now am I just as well to run the Disc up to 28 and not worry about a notch? Run the Disc at 6-10 and notch from that point to 28, or notch 00-28? I feel like there is probably more than one right answer here.

Rick, I was accustom to swinging an Excalibur with a coverless 10" slimline coil in the water. I found the D2 9" with the coil cover on slightly easier, and the D2 11" with the coil cover on slightly harder. The Deus coils not being centered didn't bother me like I thought it might. I found fastening the coil covers on snugly with a half a dozen zip ties greatly reduces the sand build up and clean out frequency. Also I drilled a hole in the antenna clip so I could see the LED, got rid of the o-ring and zip tied that as well. I hope that helps.

Beautiful ring! The old rings just have more character.

Thanks, there's nothing professional going on with the pictures I just use my Samsung S8. I find natural light washes out the gold color so I just use the LED lighting in my kitchen. I put the rings on a piece of printer paper and use about a 25% zoom which seems to focus better on all the rings.

Thanks. I us a small ultrasonic cleaner and my Dremel with a 1/2" felt polishing pad and Mothers Mag Polish. I think it was OBN that put me on to that.

That's all polished up for the class photo

My season in Canada is over now and here’s a look at the good stuff. I finished with 13 gold rings, all with the Deus 2. I hunt fresh water usually waist to neck deep and thus rely almost solely on the audio of the D2. Until this year I’ve only ever hunted with Excaliburs. I have to say, all the programs, modes and settings on this thing were a little overwhelming to me at first and I wasn’t having fun the first few times out. All the discussion on this forum has helped a lot. Being in fresh water I tried several of the inland programs and settled quickly on the General (1) program due to stability and quiet operation. I see General is the only inland program that uses Conductive Soil Subtraction like the Beach/Dive programs. I prefer Pitch Mode for its indication of target depth by pitch, especially on the beaches that classify well. The quiet operation of General (1) combined with pitch mode and a higher Audio Response (5) really lets me hear those deeper targets. Surprisingly when I get a lower pitch audio response indicating a deep target; it actually turns out to be a legitimate size deep target and not a smaller scrap sitting near the surface. The low notch I’m using may be helping in that regard. I run a notch from the point of discrimination (7) to 28. I tried running with and without it and found that using the notch greatly helps me avoid wasting time digging micro crap, especially given most of the time I can’t see the remote. I could possibly be missing fine chains or very small gold but it certainly looks like I’m doing ok in the small ring department. I don’t know the vdi’s for all the rings but the one to the left of the penny was 34. In a quest for depth I started using very low Reactivity but found that combined with my lower underwater sweep speed, I was getting weaker target responses. After some testing I found bumping the Reactivity up to 2.0 greatly improved the target response. There’s definitely seems to be some great descriptive audio. I don’t have a good understanding of it yet so I’ll be digging lots for a while. I asked a friend with a Deus 1 what audio quality he looks for in a good target and his answer was “Smooth”. I think that’s a good word to describe it. I’m using the GGA phones and love them. They have tons of volume, but they do use the Bone Phone output you’re limited to square. At this point I do still feel like I can size and shape a target better with an Excal in All Metal. I don’t expect to learn the Deus 2 audio overnight. Looking at the results of this first season, what really stands to me is the high ratio of small rings I found. 7 out of 13 (54%) were smaller, penny size rings. Typically for me only 10-15% would be small rings like that. It could certainly be just blind luck however my gut feeling is the Deus 2 had a strong hand in it. I’m sold; this thing is a serious water machine! Did I mention its bloody deep? Very happy with the D2 and can’t wait for spring to come. Any feedback from Deus veterans greatly appreciated. Good luck all.

Love those old rings, congrats!

Looks good Steve!

Agreed, I hunt almost exclusively in freshwater lakes and a modified General is my go too. Very stable and quiet with only the occasional non repeatable false. Pitch makes it easy to pick out the deep targets.

Looks like a winner, it's on my wish list! Thanks for the update.

The draw seems reasonable. I spent 4hrs in the water this morning hunting in a low target dense environment at vol 5 and the remote battery indicator still reads full. I popped one of the cups open to have a peak at the "secret sauce" and they're different from what I've seen in my original GGAs with the sealed piezo boxes but still appear to be very much piezo. Also I'm very happy to confirm this morning, they do report gold. 🙂

Straight at both ends with a 10" coiled section in between, lots of length.

Yes, that's correct Chase, I just went and checked to be sure. You have to select the bone phones and the only option is square. If you select the wired headphones there is no output to these headphones.