A FUNNY type of question!!

[tkcenterline]

Well not knowing a thing about MDing, the first day I got my Whites I took off for the beach at the Indiana Dunes State Park. It was in the afternoon, on a late Fall day. It was just one of those beautiful days. The beach was empty and the waves where rolling in. Not one person around. I set up a my detector and head down the beach. As I headed East along the water edge, It seemed that with every swing, I was getting a signal and finding coins, keys, and even a toe ring. I thought- man this is easy!! After about an hour of great detecting, I notice a guy riding a ATV on the sand and he was heading right towards me. As he got closer, I realised it was a State Ranger. He pull up to me and asked for my ID and Driver license. As he was looking at my ID he said" Did you know it is illegal to Metal Detect along the beach in this area of the Dunes and even at that I needed a permit. I was in total shock and told him that I just got the detector today and really didn't know I was doing anything wrong!!. He explained were I was able to get the permit and told me to follow him to the office. I walked about a mile and he rode. Once at the office, they signed me up and gave me a daily permit and told me the only place I can detect was in front of the pavilion, in an area about 50' x 50'. They explained to me that ever thing I find and had found was to be given back to them. So, I had to give them back all of my finds and they gave me a list of the rules. The office was within a block of where my truck was parked. After that, I just got in my truck and headed home. I had had enough fun!!! To tell you the truth, It was a very exhausting day for my first time out.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

TKcenterline: I heard of a guy in a similar situation here in CA, (but without the "scram"): He went to a certain beach, and started finding unbelievable amounts of targets. Ie.: hundreds of clad any day he went, as fast as he could dig, and a ring or two every time he went. He simply couldn't believe that the locals (since there was a club not far from there) hadn't seized upon the opportunity to be working this beach. He went for several weeks, every other day, and amassed quite a collection of rings, and hundreds of dollars of clad. Each day, he'd be right in full view of anyone and everyone (even rangers, etc...) and no one ever paid him any mind.

He began to post on a forum about his incredible luck. I assumed it must be some sort of grouping by erosion (ie.: storm hunting), but he replied that it was just random dry sand losses and a heavily used beach. After awhile, I got his confidence up, and he confided in me which beach he was hunting. It turned out it was a federally run beach, that is supposedly off-limits. Imagine his surprise when I told him "I thought that was off-limits"! He just couldn't believe it, because he had been un-bothered, even in full view of rangers, the lifegaurds, etc.... But once he "knew better", he then realized why no one else was keeping the current losses farmed out: because all the locales assumed you'd get busted or booted He was almost tempted to just keep going, since no one ever paid him mind. Ie.: maybe the rank-&-file personell just don't know the minutia, so why bother them?