Vacation, Restrictions, Banned, Oh My!

[xmarks73]

Hello everybody,

I am, extremely sorry to post this tired old question that I am sure has been posted a million times. I live up in Michigan and was planning on a 3 day trip out of the frozen land for a few days of beach detecting in Florida. I thought a nice day of relaxing beach hunting would be exactly what I needed to ease the winter blues. It seems everywhere I look online, there are no detecting laws or rules, but yet Florida has a huge detecting community. Am I missing something? It seems most of public land is off limits, but there are a lot of beach finds. I have been detecting long enough to know that, nobody wants people from out of town coming and detecting the land they hunt. Lord knows there is enough local competition as there is everywhere. On that note if anyone out there could toss me a bone as to where I could enjoy a 3 day metal detecting vacation, I would really appreciate the help. Thanks to anyone that could lend even a starting point to a destination. Thanks and Happy New Year everyone!

[JackInFlorida]

Hey xmarks73,

Sounds like lots of guilt in that post. Have you been gleaning MDing sites from here as a non member and now just post to get some information? For shame!

Florida has well over 1000 miles of shoreline. There is only one county that has any law against MDing on the beach. I don't recall which one. You can usually detect on the beach in a state park, so long as you ask the property manager first to be sure. Pick a site that is popular with tourists, there shouldn't be that many tourists on the beach this time of year, so you can have almost any beach to yourself. Consider night hunting too, it's a blast, but the wind might be a little chilly this time of year.

If you select any place in the Northeast part of the state, let me know, I'll go swing with you.

Good Luck, Jack

[xmarks73]

Hi Jack,

lol no, I had an id X.marks on this site but lost my password. School and work has taken me away from the hobby for awhile and I forgot it .

I was reading posts saying all state parks were off limits and you could only hunt from the waterline to the start of the dune. Your post definitely brought some light to my decision. Thanks for your reply. I was worried I would not find anywhere on the beach line to hunt. I have only been to FL once and it was with the family at the mouse house. I never made it to the ocean. It’s going to be a blast. If I do end up in the northern part I will definitely take you up on that hunt. Its always great to meet fellow treasure hunters. Take and talk to ya soon.

[Treasure_Hunter]

99% of Florida beaches are legal to hunt, even in front of hotels and homes, Fla beaches are owned by the public. Only areas you really want to watch out is National Seashore, the cape area (NASA), and the Treasure Coast area. Vero Beach is about the center of the area, runs roughly from Ft Pierce to couple miles north of Sebastain Inlet state park, that area you can hunt, just can't hunt in the water as there are treasure hunters with paid for state leases that protect that area, but you can hunt from the mean low tide line to toe of dunes legally there.

Hope that helps some..

[mad4wrecks]

You cannot metal detect on Riviera Beach, Florida (just north of West Palm beach) either due to a city ordinance. I found out the hard way. I am not aware of any other cities in Florida that ban detecting on their beaches.

Tom