ARMY CORPS LAKES

[MJWADE]

sunday was my first time to be confronted metal detecting by any law what so ever! twice at whitney beach detecting, two army corps rangers walked up and said i could detect along the beach at the park i was at, okay. then i went to another park across the lake and two new guys said i couldn,t detect there. most historical artifacts aren,t metal anyway what the hell.

 

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[Relic Ron]

I'm surprised they didn't ask to see your permit, Several years ago I went to Lake Lavon and got a permit and was instructed I could only hunt designated beaches and could not pick up any artifacts like bones or arrowheads and if I found anything valued over 20 dollars I would need to turn it over to them....What a joke.

 

[TerryEastTexas]

Several years ago a couple of detectorist got arrested for hunting in a non designated area in a Corp lake. They lost everything. I'm just saying, be careful.

 

[McKinney_5900]

The COE in Texas don't play. Lavon quit issuing permits altogether.

Oddly, locals give advice to hunt the lakes, and give their finds stories. One was a county sheriff who was in the process of running us off of a HUD house hunt. He said he goes off hours/season and parks outside and hops the barrier. I wanted to say, "You realize that's against the law?"

I was more in the right on the HUD house than he was with the lake.

Sad thing is that these lakes are really just big mud holes.

 

[Diggin-N-Dumps]

Thats crazy to hear. Ive hunted a few lakes up here and havent been approached, but most my areas are public swimming spots

 

[kudzu74]

I have recently researched this before going to a place by Benbrook Lake. By law you are required to have a permit from the district engineer to detect in non-maintained areas of Army Corps of Engineers property, however, maintained areas (ie. parks and beaches) its not required to have a permit though there are regulations on what you can take and what must be turned in to the local office for the corps at that location. Basically, they say anything over $20 value for like rings, etc. go into a 'lost & found'...but I assume they do not care about coinage unless its a silver or gold horde. Either way I ain't tellin' where I found it in that instance. But I have done some research to determine the ownership and history of a location I hiked to with my eldest son on Monday though it was too hot to detect at the time we enjoyed the hike and even found a geocache there before we knew there was one at that location. I was bummed not to be the first modern day adventurer there as evidence showed by trash in the area it was an unknown place to most in the area and the geocache only had 10 entries besides ours in the 13 years its been there with little information on the place. I will post pictures of it when I can its was a pretty old place but I was hoping it was an anglo settler's homestead. It turned out to be more modern probably from around the 40s or 50s. I am still trying to figure out what exactly the place was used for and why it was abandoned and pretty much forgotten though I have determined its either corps land or belongs to Sid. W. Richardson foundation now which is the legacy of the Bass Brothers in Fort Worth area if anyone is familiar with the history of that family. Richardson was their great-uncle. If anyone knows the location or is familiar with the history of it that I described please share with us. Thanks!

 

[kudzu74]

FYI, I posted the pictures on a thread I started on Benbrook Lake...go to that thread if you would like to see pictures of the place I mentioned above. I have not metal detected there as of yet. I have found several other place that look as if they are on ACoE land, so I am gonna try to get a permit from the district engineer as a 'CYA' precaution...plus its too hot right now anyhow.