Well, after a weekend off, we travelled to a site that we'd not been to since April this year. This permission has produced some incredible finds from superb samples of pottery to a nice example of a Iceni gold stater.
This was our twentieth visit to the farm as a whole, the first being 16th March 2014.

The landowner said that there were two fields that had been re-ploughed and seeded with winter barley. This would perhaps be a good test as to how many artefacts and coins remain in plough layer after several methodical searches, the previous ploughing session was for potatoes.

The first field we had a look at is a 40-acre field that has indeed produced some incredible history.
Unfortunately, not as much history was revealed as expected. This can only be down to the intensity of previous surveys as, after all, there is a limit to how much history is actually present there.

We moved to another field that also has had as much attention as the previous one and again had produced some superb finds. Again, not as much history was recovered.

We are now certain that there are TWO main factors that seriously affect all metal-detectorists dreams and desires, either there are NO items present OR the site has been over-saturated by metal-detecting.
Ironically, even our own sites are proving the fact that, once covered 100% over several visits, very little will remain. You then have to accept whether or not it is financially viable to visit that area/field again and perhaps "rest" it for a couple years?

Admittedly it is really sad to have to drop a site that was once an incredible permission and may have been number one your permission list. That's life I suppose and we accept that there are many more exciting sites to explore.
At least there are other fields that may be of interest at this permission, one of which is having potatoes lifted at the moment.

Anyway, at least we did recover some history in the form of 7 Roman coins, a complete fibula, the head of a fibula, a couple of Roman mounts, a couple of ferrous artefacts, a lead pot mend with the Roman grey ware still attached. 

​HD images of the days recoveries can be seen here.

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Today saw the team visit an old favourite in the hope that we could recover some nice finds and explore the mysteries of ground settlement and "direct" drilling affecting the finds rates on our sites.
As you may have read, we recently posted an article showing the vast difference of finds rates between re-ploughed fields and the same fields that had been only been directly drilled.
We will also take a look at "Ground Settlement" and how it may affect finds rates too.

First up was a large field (40-acres) that had just been "worked" and seeded with winter wheat. The area we chose to start was where we had recovered 87 Roman coins in one visit when it was ploughed and drilled with peas. This would certainly test the theory of ground settlement and more targets coming into range as we know that several Roman coins have been recovered in this small area on three occasions after ploughing.
Today we could only muster two small Roman grots that must have been disturbed by the "working" of the surface.

The next part of the field had not been detected since Jan 2016 and produced the remainder of the 48 Roman grots and artefacts including several pieces of Roman pottery. This clearly shows that settlement had not resulted anywhere near the amount of finds recovered earlier this year when newly drilled. In fact, the two coins on this occasion were more likely to have been completely missed due to the crop alignment. This also shows that anything less than 100% coverage will result in missed signals.
This should help anyone doubting their machine and ability as we have already posted.

Anyway, back to the survey, oddly enough, it was stooping down to pick up a piece of Roman course-ware/grit-ware that a lovely Bronze Age flint arrowhead was found lying right next to it. The arrowhead was the largest we'd ever found and was an exciting find indeed.

The ploughman arrived with the gamekeeper and we had a laugh and chat.
He gave us a run-down on what was ploughed and what was directly drilled. There's that worrying phrase again... "directly drilled".... we know from experience that the recovery rate is substantially reduced when compared to a ploughed field.

With 50 Roman coins, one cut-quarter that looks to be quite early, the flint arrowhead that could even be Bronze Age, lots of nice pottery and quite a few artefacts, we had a pleasant day... and the weather was brilliant! 

With that, we tried a "directly drilled" field that has produced several Medieval coins and artefacts when ploughed. Sure enough, and without surprise, no signals were encountered at all. We will only return to this field when ploughed.
 
Our next field was still in wheat stubble and is where we'd discovered a probable Roman villa. Several Roman coins, pottery and fibulae were recovered in a single visit earlier this year.
This is where we would discover if the field had "settled" any since we surveyed it when newly drilled in February.
No signals were encountered as expected and both our theories of "Direct Drilling" and "Land Settlement" after being initially detected (with great results) had been successfully tested today. 
The problem we have is that quite a number of our favourite fields have been directly drilled this year.
Unfortunately, these fields do not warrant the travel-time and cost until they have been re-ploughed.

Hopefully we have a couple of back-up plans to fall back on!

HD images of the days recoveries can be seen here.

Today's survey took us back to the new permission that produced the head of Vulcan and the gold stater at the end of last month.
The landowner text me to say that he'd drilled the field after ploughing it.

The field conditions were about as perfect as you could wish for; level and dry with very soft soil that was so easy to dig.
​There were lots of ferrous signals, the mineralisation was very high, higher than our normal sites and lots of Roman pottery.

After an hour it became clear that something wasn't quite right but we carried on for another hour just to see if we were in a "quiet" spot.
The third hour saw exactly the same results with only one Roman grot and nothing else of note. This prompted us to call off the search for anything Iron Age or Roman and move on to another permission nearby.

As promised, we called in at the farmhouse to drop off some maps for the landowner for him to mark his fields upon them.
We were met by a chap who happened to be the ploughman and we introduced ourselves. He acknowledged that he'd already seen us detecting earlier.
We gave him our opinion of the field that we'd been detecting by saying that it must have been heavily detected previously.
​Our suspicions were confirmed as accurate as he said that there had been several detectorists in that field over ten years, even camping in that particular field!
It doesn't take much to realise that they must have found several items of high value that warranted such intense coverage.
This just shows how fortunate we were to find the gold stater the other week against all odds. Even the camping detectorists have given up coming back due to the lack of finds there after ten years saturation detecting. 
Funnily enough, the ploughman said that they'd claimed to have never found anything.... and once gave him a musket ball!
PAS will have missed out on some great records....

We were pleased that our suspicions were accurate but saddened that so much history will have gone unrecorded on the PAS database.
With that we paid a visit to permission number 2.
This one is a totally different beast with the soil extremely hard and claggy when wet.
The first field we surveyed was still in stubble but had been directly drilled. This field was last surveyed in June 2016 with lots of Medieval items being recovered. Sure enough, and as expected, nothing of note was found.
Ploughing this field may reinvigorate it?

The next field was ploughed and drilled with winter wheat and produced Medieval  buckles, a jetton, a voided long cross and lots of lead.
We were about to have a look at the field next door when the sprayer arrived! With that, we carried on hoping for more signals.
Nothing else excited the coils so we decided to have a last move to another area of the permission.
Jeeps!! Would you believe it.... we ended up behind the same flipping spraying machine on a tiny country lane! Worse still, it turned into the field we were about to investigate!
Being scuppered, we decided that the odds were stacked against us and we'd call it a day.

Hopefully our next outing will be back on familiar territory upon a field that has just been drilled and produced over 150 Roman coins on 3 previous visits.

For the technically minded; Déus V4.1 with 13" coils and the 9" HF coil operating GMP in standard and a mix of GB set at Manual and Tracking.

Images of both searches can be seen here and here.