Islands in the stream...

[ScubaFinder]

Or, islands in the River as the case may be. Does anyone know for certain the legalities of hunting on islands in a river in Florida? I know for fact it is illegal to hunt IN the river, and legal to hunt ON the land...but what if the land is in the river? Confused yet?

 

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[ScubaFinder]

Nobody says anything about size...my only question comes from the fact that this island is surrounded by a river that is illegal to even search in, much less recover anything. I think your thoughts are right, but I'm hoping someone has verified this based on how Florida feels about hunting the river itself.

Generally, submerged lands are marked on a map, and all of them are illegal to hunt in Florida without a permit. I would assume the islands are not considered "submerged" but it depends on whether the lines on the map recognize them as seperate from the river or not. If I was talking about some of the bigger "named" land masses, I wouldn't worry much. The ones I'm thinking about are the many small islands, almost sand bars that are scattered along the indian River.

 

[Peg Leg]

Most of us understand that the Indian River is NOT a river but a Lagoon. It was named the Indian River because of the AIS Indians covered the area and controlled almost the whole area all the way to the center of the state.
The St. Johns River IS a river.
Your question is a very good question and I hope someobe can provide an answer.
Peg leg

 

[ScubaFinder]

I understand that also PegLeg, but the state lists it on the map as a river, so I'm going with how they classify it, as that is what would be used in a court of law. So for the purpose of this discussion, it's a river....cause I would doubt very seriously whether or not I told you the ACTUAL river I'm investigating. :P

 

[ScubaFinder]

Thanks Cornelius, that pretty much answers my question. I'll check the elevations against the tide charts and have my answer.

 

[Dinkydick]

Hi All:

I just thought I would mention this here to see what transpires.

During my many years of commercial diving I had the chance to dive in
Titanium mines. In my area the Titanium is mined using an electric powered
floating dredge. The dredge floats in the location it is working in and moves
to other places by dredging and refilling behind itself. The water depth is 40
feet in all areas.By moving the floating dredge the ore vein can be followed.
Restoration of area tailings are restored to a natural state with no evidence
that the land was ever mined.

Question How is this covered in State and Federal dredge laws? I do know that
OSHA has no control over the working safety conditions as they are covered
by the Bureau of Mines which is completely different.

How come our restrictions on dredging rivers, lakes, shorelines etc does not
apply to them? I know that Titanium is older than 50 years.

FWIW Titanium Dioxide is grey in color and it's prime purchaser is Dolly Madison
Food to be used as a whitener in it's cream filling. Think of this when you eat
your next "Twinke".

An by-the-way, none of you would want to dive in the water the dredge floats
in. Think of melted chocolate ice cream that sticks to everything. It blots out the
sun when looking out the helmet window.

Dinkydick

 

[SEAHUNTER]

Hello Dinkydick
I do not want to dive in the melted chocolate water, but I sure would be interested in more info on the electric floating dredge.
Seahunter

 

[sherpa t]

Last night I rode my Triumph home the back way, which was a relaxing trip. My mind let go of the days stress and this post popped into my head. Followed by Peglegs interest in waterways and Shortly after that " Treasure Girl " as we call her. ( Cash and Treasures show on cable) caused me to do the ...wait a minute thing.
She did a show here in Florida, Mega-teeth and fossil. This show had people snorkel the bottom, digging and sifting the bottom etc. and now I'm wondering how they were able to do that ??
anyone have thoughts on this ??

 

[ScubaFinder]

Sherpa, I've done that, and it is indeed strange. I was free diving to 35 feet, checking out a C-47 that lies about 200 yards out in front of La Cieba in Cozumel for 30 seconds or more, and then slowly ascending back to the surface. My time under water was in excess of 2 minutes when normally I do well to hold my breath for 1 minute.

The thing i figured out was that the more you do it in succession, the longer you can hold your breath. The other side of that is that the air in your lungs compresses, so on the bottom, you have less of it. You can stay down until you are completely out of air, and as you ascend it's like getting a new breath as the air expands in your lungs. I couldn't explain it either, but I could do it. There are quite a few good fossil spots in less than 20 feet off Vero beach, I would imagine with a little practice, I could spend a full minute searching on the bottom. It's strange, but it works...I extended my time by around 10 seconds each time I went down.

 

[sherpa t]

Jason,
Let me try to rephrase my thought, I was thinking more along the lines of how they were working, or digging in the river bottom. (From a Florida owns the river bottom and it's contents point of view.) What is different from a shovel full of gravel with fossels verses Pegleg or yourself wanting to explore a river spot. Did that group of about twenty people brake the law on cable TV ? or have they found a loop hole ?

 

[ScubaFinder]

Ahh, my bad.... Most of the laws and regulations pertain only to man-made artifacts. Fossils are fair game, and aren't regulated by the state like treasure is. Keep in mind, the state is only interested in history and archaeology, therefore 10,000 year old fossils don't interest them, only 300 year old gold and silver.

 

[ScubaFinder]

I was trying to be funny Cornelius...saying the state was WAY more interested in 300 year old gold than 10,000 year old fossils. I know they like fossils too, but I like to rib them anyways.

 

[FISHEYE]

Jason,

you may want to try an get ahold of some old old charts of the intercoastal as there are only a few natural islands,the rest are spoil islands made by dredging.i know of a natural island where someone found a 40lb silver bar on a shallowsand bar.i may check it out soon.

 

[ScubaFinder]

Thanks Fisheye, I've been pouring over the old charts for weeks. Part of my thinking is that spoil island may very well produce also. I've found that several of them were created by dredging from areas that could very possibly contain treasure. I've always maintained a belief that there should be goodies in the ICW, but you can't get to them due to the restrictions. Specific spoil islands that were created when they dredged the ICW channel seem a likely, and legal candidate for trying to find some of it. I have several picked out, and will hunt them on my trip in early April.

Jason

 

[FISHEYE]

Jason,

the dredgers also dumped the spoil on natural islands.how they got away with this makes me wonder.one island has a gopher turtle thats really rare an has been around for hundreds of years.they dumped the spoil on it.i have been to the island many times an have never seen the turtle or even holes in which they live in.after the last 3 bad hurricanes i did see a bunch of them on the mainland shore wandering around as if they had just lost thier homes.so i guess they had enough sense to leave the island due to the aproaching storm since they have been around for over 100 years.it was later on that i found out that they were native to the island,had i know this i would have givin them a free ride back to the island.

 

[Peg Leg]

I have always said that there was more treasure in the ICW than could be recovered from oceans near the beaches.
If you research this in depth you will see the same thing that I see.
For an example take a look at what happens with a storm surge. That little strip of land that A!A is on would be NO MORE and if it was no more where would the ships end up-in the ICW.
Take a look at what happend in DESTIN FLORIDA a few years ago. A storm surge put over 14 feet of sand across the roads.
Use this same thinking and apply it to the little barrier reef that A1A runs on.
Yes I know it is not legal to search the ICW. But what if it was done through a Non Profit Research Project and is it ILLEGAL to MAG the area or to MD the area as long as you do not remove anything?
Peg Leg

 

[ScubaFinder]

The way I read the law, it prohibits searching as well as recovering. I talk to several people within the state govt. and they told me that if a spoil island was shown with a border on the map of the ICW, it was considered land and the regular hunting laws applied. Sand bars or spoil islands that appear only at low tide are not marked on the map as being "bordered by the ICW" are off limits. Anything I recover from a spoil island that is marked on the map is mine.

I have never heard of anyone hunting on the spoil, which was another reason for my post. I was expecting someone to jump in and say they'd been doing it. I doubt I'm the first guy to ever have this idea. Considering the areas that they dredged up to make some of these spoil islands, I'm pretty excited about the possibilities.

 

[wreckdiver1715]

Also, remember that many of the islands on the ICW are man made, the result of dredging the channel.

Tom

 

[ScubaFinder]

Yep Tom, that's what i'm talking about...spoil islands as I hear them referred to, are merely the dumping grounds for dredging projects....these are what I intend to hunt in a few weeks.

 

[ScottyLee]

I tried to hunt on a spoil island one time. Found lots of bottle tops and beer cans....lol