Deus 2 W/ 9in. Coil Severely-mineralized Soil Nugget Hunting Trip Observations

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I don't know who to attribute the following quote to, but I bet most people have heard it or a variation: "Don't bring a knife to a gun fight".  I willingly took my Deus 2, the "knife" out to a seriously difficult spot to try out nugget hunting last week, even though I knew conditions called for the use of a pulse-induction machine.  I took the situation as a challenge and opportunity to learn about the prospecting side of the Deus 2.  

My dad with his ML GPX 5000 and me equipped with my ML GPX 6000 and new Deus 2 and the 9 inch coil hiked into a spot we've found good gold before.  Its a place that gives PI detectors issues with how hot the soil is, and doubly so when its wet.  Even being fairly dry for this time of year, as I suspected, the Deus 2 was pretty much shut down by how hot the dirt is there.  Its a red color, so loaded with iron-type minerals.  I set up the Deus 2 in Prospecting Program, but I wasn't able to quiet it enough to get it ground balanced and lowering the coil sounded off on the ground.  The ground level graph confirmed full bars mineralization level.  This is a great Deus 2 feature, by the way.  My dad jumped at the chance to use my GPX 6000 to locate some signals for me to cross-check.  Other than a blaring loud signal the Deus 2 said was ferrous and likely a larger nail (and was a nail), it kept signaling on rocks coming out of the holes on other targets the 6000 saw, so I gave up.  Seeing how it was futile in this spot, I decided to move .5 mile up the creek to a place I knew had milder soil and had given up nuggets in the past.

The new area was wider and more open on the creek with a more gray-colored soil.  The mineralization graph confirmed what I suspected and it was "only" about 3/4 of a full bar.  Now that's more like it!  I was able to ground balance and started detecting.  This location has been relatively trash-free and re-worked many times by GPX 5000 machines, so signals would be scarce.  However, I was surprised to get a good-sounding beep right off next to the bedrock of the creek.  It turned out to be a marble-sized, super heavy stone like magnetite.  We get some of these hot rocks with the PI machines here too.  The place turns out to be loaded with them, I found a few dozen before I started to ignore "00" VDI signals that sounded good.  The Deus 2 liked these iron stones, but did a great job of always giving an ID of "00", enough so that I became confident to skip them after about 3 hours. 

My dad showed up a few hours after I was there and used my GPX 6000 some more.  I think he has fallen in love, haha.  He got a some faint signals and I checked some with the Deus 2 since there were so few.  On a couple of them I couldn't hear anything and he dug up some small, deeper lead.  He did find 2 nuggets( 4 total) I was able to test pre-dig and the Deus just barely heard them. One was about .25grams 2 inches deep, and the other .06grams at 1 inch deep.  Both gave just a "sniff" of a signal to the Deus, but it also had VDI numbers jump from default "00" to 30-35, indicating non-ferrous.  I definitely think overall, the Deus did quite well on indicating non-ferrous with VDI twitching to show positive numbers not only on these 2 nuggets, but on other trash targets I found.  I found a 4in. deep .45 cal bullet at 4 inches that signaled quite well and gave a high VDI.  Bummer it wasn't gold!  Shotgun pellets gave VDI of 30-35 or so and every time I'd see numbers in the positive range I'd get excited.  Tiny slivers of iron wire 1-2in. deep gave VDI from 3-8 roughly and were iron just like indicated.  I thought the ID capability in this bad ground was quite good, even if all targets were fairly shallow.  The highly-mineralized dirt sure kills depth. 

Another observation was I found a couple of targets I had my dad scan with the GPX 6000 that it couldn't detect.  One was a sliver of lead, probably under .05grams and a tiny shard of brass from a bullet casing.  Both were near surface finds, but the Deus 2 found them and the GPX couldn't sense them, so while the 6000 detects small items deeper, the Deus 2 can ultimately find smaller targets if that is the goal.  I think the Deus 2 would do well on bedrock as long as it wasn't too hot and be able to sense small nuggets and flakes, but overall the GPX 6000 or other PI would have an increasingly large advantage in depth and audio response on nuggets larger than .25grams in my hot soil conditions.  My soil is severely-mineralized, so the gap in depth performance would diminish greatly if somebody with a Deus 2 were to use it in much more benign conditions.  Sticking to bedrock use with the Deus might be a good strategy, though the 9in. round coil is a bit too large I believe for tight bedrock areas in general.  It can be done though.  I went back to this general area 2 days ago and found 5 nuggets in shallow bedrock with an 11in. GPX coil, so I think the 9in. Deus 2 coil would have been able to find them too.

In summary, if you own a Deus 2 and are primarily a coin and jewelry hunter, use it diving or at the beach, etc., but want the ability to also find natural gold nuggets from time to time, you have a tool that can do the job and certainly find you small gold targets.  However, if you plan to hunt in gold-bearing areas often and they have bad soils, get a PI machine. A VLF like the Deus 2 lose too much depth and usability and will be greatly hampered vs. the use of a pulse-induction machine.  No surprise there for those who prospect a lot for nuggets under tough conditions.  If one has an area really loaded with trash targets, here is the perfect situation to bring in a descriminating detector like the Deus 2, in order to "cherry-pick" non ferrous targets out of the iron.  A VLF machine still has a place, perhaps also including in spots with ore dumps and super fine gold specimens.

Even though I knew it was going to be difficult, I'm glad I spent a day out swinging for nuggets with the Deus 2.  It was a real pleasure to use with how light and ergonomic it is.  I got to learn more about how the machine operates and that knowledge will come in handy when using it in the future.  I doubt I'll ever seriously again use the Deus 2 for nugget-hunting in my area since I already own several PI machines that just do the job more easily.  I tend to hunt 99% of the time with a PI, but figured I'd give the Deus 2 a go.  While I wasn't completely impressed by its performance, I certainly don't much regret a great day outdoors doing some learning and easy-swinging in a beautiful area.