A state park beach story from my area

The archie marched out onto the beach, still holding his briefcase, and proceeded to read the riot act to my friend. My friend had no idea what the guy was talking about. And when he realized that this guy was trying to tell him "not allowed", my friend thought this was a joke of some sort. And started to chuckle and go along with it, as if the guy was joking. But it soon became apparent that the guy was NOT joking.

The archie pointed to the cement ship, and was blabbing something about cultural heritage, and state beach, etc... At this point, my friend began to realize this had something to do with archaeology. And by then he'd surmised the guy's title or status. But my friend is not-the-type-person to be pushed around. So he stood his ground , replying that this beach is routinely detected, and he knows of no rule or law. And that he had no intention of stopping. When the archie began to see that he was not making headway with my friend, he marched off saying he was going to get a ranger, and get-to-the-bottom of this.

My friend went back to detecting. But the more he thought about it, the more he began to get the willies. After a few long minutes, he decided he didn't want to be there if this suit-&-tie guy did, in fact, return with a ranger. So he decided to call it a day, and start the hike to his vehicle.

On the entire hike back to the parking lot, he kept one leery eye in the direction of the museum in the far distance, where he'd last seen the guy march off to . But no one came his way. He loaded up his gear, and no one ever appeared.

To be continued :

That night, he related the incident on a local CA md'ing forum. Several of us from this area got a good laugh out of that, knowing that this beach, and every beach here, is totally open game. So in our opinion, this guy was simply wrong. As discussion arose as to the entity that oversees this beach, it was plain to see that it was a state beach (as is 90% of our coastline). So it was going to be merely a simple task of looking up the state park's dept's codes/rules, to show that this guy was off his rocker. Right ?

But the more we collectively looked into this, the more we realized that it's probably NOT a matter that we should "clarify" or "fight". Because truth-be-told, there *is* some boiler plate verbiage , in our state park's dept. wording, that does have stuff about cultural heritage. Or "harvest and remove" language, etc..... So it was decided that we would do nothing at all. Because odds are, this suit & tie guy goes back to Sacramento (or wherever he's from) and no one else on planet earth cares less. It was only a fluke that he even saw my friend, and odds are, he would never see another md'r again from his inland office castle.

And to this day, you can hunt any state beach in CA, and probably NEVER find anyone to say so much as "boo" or care less. They've always ever simply been fair game.

So this is an example of how not every "scram" constitutes gospel law. And not every "scram" constitutes something we collectively need to fight or get clarified (lest we simply open up a can of worms).

To be continued ....

And an interesting thing happened , a few months after this event :

Another buddy of mine was suiting up and getting his md'ing gear ready, in the parking lot of this same beach. An older couple sitting at a picnic bench next to their RV saw the guy getting his detector gear ready. They told him "Don't you know this beach is off-limits ? They're passing out tickets" etc.... My friend quizzed them to find out how they came to this conclusion ...

And the answer was simple: They read it on line that someone had been hassled and chased off, and threatened that a ranger would be called etc.... YUP ! They apparently were a lurker on that forum, and had only read the headlines of the title of the thread. And thus, human nature takes over, and they start "spreading the news". Doh !

So too do I sometimes wonder, when I hear of threats of "jail" and "off-limits" and "tickets" blah blah, that it might be the exact same type of evolution. All it takes is for a scary post-title to get tossed out there, or one statement-between-friends, and you can NEVER put it to rest ! This was shown in this particular beach example, on a micro-scale. And I don't doubt for a moment that it can happen on macro-scales.

And oddly, if anyone ever tries to put the rumor/fear to rest, guess what they will do to "get to the bottom of it " ? Yup : Go ask an authority, who will in turn pass the "pressing question" onto an archie's desk, blah blah Then it becomes a vicious self-fulfilling circle

I'm only posting because I feel sorry for you having to talk to yourself

I was down at Sunset SB over thanksgiving (camping and detecting). I was out on the beach over the cliff from the campground, couldn’t find much!

I like your stories Tom. Hope to cross paths some day, your infamous and I mean that in a good way

Tom , if you ever need to talk , I'm here for you. You may need multiple sessions. But my therapy program will not allow a discussion regarding permissions. It's been talked to death , OK ? It's dead. I also only charge Cali boys 25 % !!! Your welcome. THE KOB

Just go detect the state beaches, I do, without asking.
Just not Historic state beaches. I get asked to leave at those if I'm seen.

Tom, i wish youd stop pulling your punches and call the the archies what they are- Grave Robbers.

Tom, our Jekyll Island Georgia is a beautiful place. National Seashore, public beaches etc... just been redone when they broke the development Charter over 100 yrs old..politicians no less, state goobermint. .

when you go over the causeway there are two big columns with a welcome and a law .. it states no removal of artifacts and no metal detecting. it also states the U.S. C. code numbers.

many years ago a local residents teenage son cleaned up after a storm with an old unit. i mean a pile of stuff. he took it into Brunswick to sell for scrap, so much the shop owner called police. . Police came, they took his stuff, the State Patrol came in which are responsible for the island. made a case but politics and phone calls prevailed. it was quietly done away with, never got his stuff back though.

My cousins husband was State Patrolman there at one time. He said they now take your stuff, take your machine, tow your vehicle, lock your butt up, you go to Federal court, and its rough fines. but the next Island over is perfectly legal. just islands like Jekyll which is developed, and St Catherines is an archeo dig, and Cumberland and Sapelo historical.. big trouble big signs warning. its actually against the law to remove artifacts or sea stuff. its stated on the welcome columns in big letters. its a coast famous for sand dollar sea creatures. you can take a bleached out dead one without much grief, but people get the live ones too, not supposed to . it can and has been enforced before. big shells too have a lot of live creatures. supposed to leave them too. God help you mess with a turtle. you can fish crab net shrimp.
a friend said he was going to the beach and wanted to borrow a unit. i told him sand only because it was single freq and he said fine. it was an old Tesoro. did not ask where he was going. when he got back with my unit he said he felt like a freak. people looking at him.. he thought his fly was down or something to start with, then heard them say something about what he was doing. he got embarrassed and put my detector up. did not hunt anymore.....he had never done it before. the unit was an Amigo one knob i marked where to set it. THEN he told me where he was at..... one of above...... i told him if they had taken my machine he better hope they did not let him out. he found nothing in the brief moments he was doing it. that was a blessing.

a local cop off out of uniform, in my town was at a park and the park staff called the boss and he came close to a citation. he was new to hunting, using a screwdriver for digger. would have gotten suspension at least. Park staff said was law against doing it in parks. well the city county merged and the law is not clear now, the county allowed the city did not without permit for 6 months and no breaking the dirt or going on ball fields. now its all the same entity. but we have always hunted the city without a permit, we never heard of such, but it is in writing. and it was hunted for decades. no problem i ever heard of. poor guy has some Murphys law luck.

so it boils down to the caught and the uncaught, know better or just play dumb, risk it or not, official or officer discretion on a case, and which busy body wants to make an issue.

dixiedigger57 said:

.... National Seashore .... and no metal detecting. ....

Click to expand...

Ok. A few observations:

1) You're citing places that have actual specific rules "no md'ing". Thus not related to the topic at hand. Where we're talking ancillary language, that's not specifically saying "No md'ing". Eh ?

2) And I have a sneaking suspicion of how such specifics came to be. And the "related attention" that every-cotton-picking park personnel is "on the lookout". Care to take a guess ?

But sure, we all know to avoid NPS and obvious historic sensitive monuments. But that's not the type scenarios I'm addressing .

dixiedigger57 said:

.... . in my town was at a park and the park staff called the ....

Click to expand...

Now you're dealing with something down on the municipal level. Where you say the law "isn't clear". Ie.: perhaps nothing specific, yet someone can gripe on the ancillary ground grey-area-wording. Right ?

If so, then, sure, there will ALWAYS be flukes in life. Where an over-zealous cop can rough up someone for nothing but a tail-light out. You can ALWAYS find a headline clipping where horror befalls someone who "spit on the sidewalks", or whatever. For example: I have a newspaper clipping here of someone who got a ticket for eating a hamburger while driving. The cop called it "distracted driving".

Sure, if you want to worry long enough and hard enough, it will get to the point that you won't step out of your front door in the morning. If we take stories like that (to which I suspect there is more to the story), to somehow cause us all to give up detecting, or grovel at every city hall we come to, is the day we all might as well give it up.

I mean, seriously , there are people md'ing parks all across the USA daily (as evidenced by the show & tell on our forums), and .... why aren't we seeing these horrors befalling them ?

I've gotten "scrams" and stink-eyes in my 45 yrs of this. And sure, they'll always spell out how it's violating this or that, or that they could "write you up". But on-the-all, that's rare. You just give lip service and move on. Get a thick skin. Choose lower traffic times. If those type things are too scary for an md'r, then they need to stick to sandboxes or private yards.

thats what i do Tom.. low profile pick my sites look whose working. i never got canned.. i had one come up on me that was a civilian in committee associated with city, and they spent and raised tens of thousands for a park rennovation. . i showed him a broken crown bottleneck with cap. i pointed out a lot of glass. i said your daughter is barefoot, all 5 yrs old at most., this came out of the sawdust from the swings. i got a"Carry On Pilgrim".,. thanks and keep it clean and dont leave a hole so nobody will yell at you. . we come here often now that we moved across the street... your ok in my book... and i still hunt it, and clean my trash..