Big Boys Hobbies

Hello from GA/AL border

J

just_curious

New Member
Joined
Nov 20, 2017
Messages
7
Hey everybody, new member here. Thanks for the add and I can't wait to interact, learn, help, meet-up, etc. with you all.

A little about me, I am currently in the military and stationed in GA. I just recently got into metal detecting and motivated to learn and eager to get some good finds!

Last time I went to my home town on leave, a tried my hand at prospecting. After that, the research was on and soon I discovered that gold was very prominent in GA/AL at one point. The prospecting videos that I would watch eventually lead me down the path of watching nugget detecting videos and I just had to have a shot at that. So, I bought my first gold detector (minelab Goldmonster 1000). Then, I found an estate sale with another nugget detector and got it dirt cheap (White's GMZ). Well as we all know, prospecting is time consuming, and has to take place in certain areas. Well me being in the military and having that schedule, along with living 2-3 hours from any gold bearing areas, I had to fill that void somehow.

I decided I was going to look for old coins/jewelry/relics locally when I wasn't able to make those trips to northern-ish GA. I tried using my gold detectors for coin shooting, but man that was a mistake. So, eventually I got myself some coin/relic detectors. I got me 2 White's Spectrum XLT's along with a "Magnum Forcefield Depth plus" coil and a "Hothead professional Search coil" and its been hours, upon hours (more like days) spent with boots on the ground and swinging those puppies. Nothing significant to note as of yet, but time and persistence will pay off (hopefully).

Also, I just recently bought me a White's Goldmaster2 and really looking forward to using that.

I have been spending countless hours looking at old maps, researching treasure legends, hunting down possible "conspiracies" and essentially just teaching myself the real history instead of what was taught to me in school. I think I have came up with some really good info, and I cant wait to chase those leads down.

So that's a little bit about me. Also, one last thing. Since I am not originally from here, and don't have friends/family around that are into this stuff, I am always looking to get out there and hunt with new people. This is especially important when you live in a state/region where there is no such thing as public property and the laws regarding metal detecting don't make the hobby to easy. So maybe some of you have family and friends with good properties that would let you detect on and you just want the company or try to cover more ground, let me know. Or even if that's not the case and you've had your eye on some properties but too nervous to do some door knocking, I have no problem asking for permission. I have pretty good people/communication skills, am able to establish a relationship with somebody at the door, and have only been turned down once (and I think it's because I wasn't able to actually talk to the homeowner herself, just relayed the message through the care-taker).

Anyways, enough about me, can't wait to learn what I don't know, and contribute what I do know and possibly make some friends/partners in between. Happy thanksgiving everybody!
 
Welcome!

Your State has no public Parks, Schools, Fairgrounds, etc? What laws are restricting your ability to detect?

This is especially important when you live in a state/region where there is no such thing as public property and the laws regarding metal detecting don't make the hobby to easy.
Click to expand...
 
Gauntlet said:
Welcome!

Your State has no public Parks, Schools, Fairgrounds, etc? What laws are restricting your ability to detect?
Click to expand...

GA actually has some pretty strict laws in regards to MDing. Whether or not it is enforced, IDK, but all property is owned by the state (unless private) and metal detecting on state property (in Georgia) is PROHIBITED! You can only detect private property, with permission from the land owner. This is especially the case when you consider the history in Georgia. Whether you consider native-American history, Civil War history, or the Gold belt. All this land was bought by the State/U.S gov for a reason. If you do any research into treasure legends, you will notice that the supposed location is owned my Federal or State Governments. If it is not, I would move on to a different treasure legend because it probably doesn't exist. Lets take the East coasts gold belt for example: Alabama's gold belt is the Talledaga NTL Forest, Georgia's Gold Belt is the Chattahoochee NTL forest, the trend continues all the way up the east coast. All have a few things in common, no metal detecting, no sluices, no dredges, PAN ONLY. The same can be said for the Cherokee land prior to the trail of tears, Now it is a Wildlife management area and owned by the Army Corps of Engineers. Now, whether they took ownership of these properties because of the gold deposits, or because of cached Cherokee, Spanish, or Confederate/KGC gold, I don't know. Prior to the establishment of fort benning, there was a plantation owner that buried $150,000 worth of gold and silver coins in 2 chests on his plot. His nephews found out about it, tried to beat it out of the old man, and was later found shot dead. Next thing you know, the land was scooped up and under tight security. 3 Soldiers found one of the Chests in the 1920's and the died of pneumonia about 3-5 days later.

I tracked another treasure legend after finding what I believe to be Spanish symbols in Northern GA (even though the mainstream history scholars tell us De Soto was unsuccessful in finding his riches during his search: DOUBTFULL). Anyways the area that I tracked this to just so happens to be a GOVT declared "archeological site" meaning no digging, no metal detecting.

I recently found an AMAZING marker tree, and another one a few days prior to finding the good one...well, it just so happens that I cant for the life of me find ANY maps of the area prior to 1949.

Sure it could all be coincidence and all in my head, but I would urge anybody to find a treasure legend that sounds legitimate, look for any supporting evidence, and then track it to the vicinity of it's suspected location and then look who owns that land.

I'm not trying to sound anti-anything, I'm just saying, if I thought that there was a good chance that a massive gold cache was on a piece of land, I would buy that land up too! lol
 
Last edited:
Gauntlet said:
OK, but where does it mention City Parks, Schools, or County/City Fairgrounds? After reading the longer post you made, it seems you're more interested in treasure legends and treasure hunting than metal detecting. Good luck.
Click to expand...

No, I wouldn't say that I am. I have yet to pursue a treasure. I just stumble upon stuff on these forums and get intrigued and look into it. If anything, I would LIKE to find some old coin cache, but the odds of that aren't in my favor.

But in reference to the laws, there is no PUBLIC land in Georgia. It is all either Private property, or state/federal/DNR property. A while back, GA passed a law that requires all metal detectorists to have written permission/permit. So, let's say there is a "public school". Well, that school is actually owned by the state, and you actually have to get a permit. But, GA will only issue permits to Archeologists that meet specific criteria. This is my interpretation (and many others) interpretation of the past and present laws. Going back to a statement that I made in a previous post, whether or not it is enforced or not, I don't know. GA also doesn't have any laws in favor of the public when it comes to accessing creeks/streams on private property. In GA, they actually declare the bottom and banks of waterways to belong to the property owner if he has property on both sides, and if the waterways split 2 people's property, then they split it 50/50. The whole "navigable waterways" only applies to a river that would allow a SHIP transporting goods. Some states say that the water/banks/bottom is of public use and you could float in, just don't walk out beyond the water marks at the high levels.

What I said in my last comment was just a side rant, but it appears that there is being deliberate attempts to kill the hobby in GA (even though I don't think its a high volume hobby here). If you would like to do some digging into the laws and see if you interpret it differently, I would love to hear your take on it. But all the land seems to be state, federal, DNR, Army Corps of Engineers, Historic, etc. Another huge problem is companies like Timberlands II LLC or Asbury properties LLC, etc. They own these HUGE plots of land where nobody is even occupying it, and there is no way to contact them to get permission. Of all the names like those that I have found when checking parcel data, I was only able to find contact info for one and still waiting to hear back.

I just don't want to do anything illegal to get myself in trouble or ruin it for others. That's how I read the law. I hope to find out that I am completely wrong, but cities like Roswell and Atlanta have apparently banned MDing all together.
 
I have detected city parks in Ga and never had a problem. Same thing in the Phenix City area. Even had employees in one city park tell me of an area that they said was good. It was on Federal property. Didn't find much there but again No Problem.
 
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