W&ET Featured Monthly Article Vol. 35 March 2001

Feature

Vol. 35 March 2001

It's Out There
By Thomas Szymanski

The author, Tom Szymanski, right, and his hunting buddy, Matt Cox, left, are ready with SCUBA gear and underwater detectors for a day of water hunting.

It's out there. Gold bars, silver ingots, diamonds, pieces of eight, escudos, emeralds, rubies, coins... the things we dream about finding. Unfortunately, up here in New England chances are pretty slim of finding any of that neat stuff, especially in the freshwater lakes, ponds, and rivers where my dive partner, Matt Cox, and I dive. What we do find are coins (mostly new, but some old ones as well), rings (wedding, high school, college, engagement, silver, etc.), gold and silver chains, pendants, earrings, guns, swords, bottles, glasses (reading and sun), crockery, marbles, religious medals and crosses, clay pipes, etc. Then, of course, there is the ever-abundant supply of nuts, bolts, pulltabs, bottle caps, screws, nails, spark plugs, car parts, cans, lead fishing weights and lures, fish hooks, etc.

Matt and I teamed up a few years ago when he introduced me to the pleasures (?) of river and dump diving. In turn, I introduced him to the fun and challenge of underwater metal detecting. During the spring, summer, and fall, we get together with our dive gear and u/w metal detectors at least every weekend (occasionally, during the week as well) and travel- sometimes only a few miles, other times for hours- to a new "hot site." We don't get rich, but we do have a good time.

There are times when, after diving for three or four hours, we have only a few coins and lots of junk to show for our efforts. Then again, we might end up with a few rings each, some other odd pieces of jewelry, and numerous coins. We love finding old Indian Head cents, Barber and Mercury dimes, Buffalo nickels, Barber quarters, and Walking Liberty half dollars (few and far between). On one of our dives last year, Matt was lucky enough to come up with two $20 bills, along with a couple of singles! I found an underwater watch, still working, at the base of a pier. Apparently, someone had dropped, because the buckle was undone and not broken. It's out there.

The majority of our diving is done either early in the morning or late in the evening when detecting at state and town beaches, parks, and swimming holes. We do not wade in the water up to our chests with our detectors, as do many other u/w detector enthusiasts. We don full suits and use SCUBA. We detect in water from only 1-2' deep, out to whatever depth the swimming area encompasses. Often a diving platform is moored in 15+' of water. If a wading detectorist is very good at holding his breath, he may be able to wade out to the swim/diving platform and detect under it, but Matt and I just don't have that kind of lung capacity.

The variety of underwater finds makes the hunt even more exciting. Pictured here are just a few of the bottles, ink wells, and old clay pipes.

We prefer not to be doing any u/w detecting when the general public is enjoying the swimming areas. When working a location, we usually bring along two or three diving cylinders apiece, and each of us can realize a couple of hours diving time on a single 80 cu. ft. tank. When diving in only 5-15' of water, it's relatively easy to log that much bottom time. Once we hear a signal from our detector, we're "right there" to fan away the sand or dig a bit to uncover our "hit." This is especially handy when detecting around large boulders or rocks, where a person wading and using a long handle scoop may experience some difficulty.

We try to get to our dive site and be in the water around sunrise, which in the summer is between 5:00 and 6:00 a.m. That way, we can complete our search and be out of there prior to the arrival of the beachgoers and swimmers.

Some water sites produce more rings than others. One example of a productive ring location for Matt and Tom was under a well traveled bridge.

Often, after a good breakfast and a bit of rest, we'll head for a river to do some bottom scratching for old bottles, inkwells, clay pipes, crockery, or anything else of value that we may run across or dig up. Not all the good stuff is sitting in plain view for us (or anyone else) to swim by and pick up. So, we swim along the bottom and look for that turn in the river or hollow where items may be deposited and not carried away. It's there where we will kneel on the bottom and start to dig. In most of the rivers that we have searched, there is always a mild current to carry away the silt and sediment that we disturb. Often after a few minutes of digging, we look around to find lots of fish feeding on the bits of nutrients that we uncover.

You would be surprised (as I certainly was) at what might be found under a few inches to a foot of sand or gravel. No metal detectors are used in areas where we are searching for nonmetallic "treasures," but when we are diving in close proximity to a bridge, the u/w detectors are definitely brought with us. One of my biggest wedding bands, a man's 14K ring, was found near a bridge.

One site that Matt found a few years ago continues to give up some good items. He has been diving there for at least nine years and has shared it with me for at least five years. To our amazement, it continues to produce surprises. Last year, after working an early morning detector site, we decided to give this one another going-over and hopefully find some more old bottles and inkwells. We each swim along the bottom with a weighted milk crate into which we deposit our "treasures," and I felt a tug on the sleeve of my wetsuit jacket and turned to see if I had been grabbed by a giant freshwater eel or Matthew. Fortunately, it was the latter.

Crosses, gold chain necklaces and bracelets, assorted jewelry and coins abound in some choice underwater hunting sites.

P>He was holding up a beautiful eight-sided, amber colored medicine bottle bearing the name of the town in which I was born: "EXETER, NH." He was excited. I was green with envy! A few inches under the bottle that he found was a 1,500-year-old Indian pottery shard that he carefully placed into his crate. Nice find. After having a chat with an authority on bottles, we later found out that the bottle that Matt was fortunate enough to uncover is a four-figure find. I keep thinking that if he had been swimming to my left instead of my right, that little beauty would be in my display case instead of his. Oh, well. After all, he did discover this particular site first, and we both have taken some very nice old medicine, wine, and whiskey bottles, inkwells, embossed flasks, clay pipes, marbles, and a couple of very old swords. It's out there.

The following week we took a three-hour ride up to the northern part of Vermont, to a beautiful lake called Lake Willoughby. It had a swimming beach at one end that was about 50 yards across. We thought that, for sure, no one with a metal detector would have hit this one. We'd probably have to rent a trailer to haul back our treasures. Well, after about an hour of searching, our combined efforts had produced one quarter, two dimes, a nickel, and seven pennies. Wow! We have learned through experience that if we don't find very much after an hour of searching in one location, it's time to get out, cut our losses and try somewhere else. That one was certainly worth the ride (and getting up at 2:00 a.m., not to mention five bucks for breakfast, ten bucks for fuel, three-fifty for an air tank refill. Yeah, we slayed 'em that day. Sometimes, it's not out there.

When you think of water hunting you probably don't dream of finding silverware or silver service pieces. It's out there!

Prior to my getting together with Matt every weekend, I would seek out, by myself, old swimming holes and day camps such as Boy and Girl Scout camps that were abandoned or sold many years ago. Big lakes or small ponds- I don't care. Wherever people get together for some fun in the water... you'll find coins, rings, gold and silver chains, pendants, earrings, and religious medallions. Some of the jewelry is kid stuff, but some of it isn't.

About ten summers ago, I waited for a rainy, dreary day when no one at a particular day camp was in the mood for swimming, and I anchored my small boat just outside the swimming area. This small pond was located only a few miles from my home. You don't have to travel too far to find some neat stuff. Look in your own backyard first. The roped-off swimming area was only 40' across and extended out into the pond about 25'. I donned my gear, slipped into the water and swam over to the little beach. Turning on my detector and tuning it, I discovered that wherever I moved the loop, there was a beep. No one had ever detected this site. They couldn't have, because I came away with 167 good items, including numerous rings, Buffalo nickels, Mercury dimes, lots of other coins (mostly clads) many religious crosses and medals, and silver chains.

Of course, there was the usual amount of nails, nuts, bolts, screws, ..22 cartridges, pulltabs, and bottle caps. I collected everything and sorted the stuff out later. Never leave a piece of junk on the bottom, because you'll forever be re-detecting it and wasting precious time. Unfortunately, I had brought only one tank, but when the next rainy, dreary day rolled around, I think you know where I went. I took the day off from work and headed back to my little "honey hole." This time wasn't quite as productive- only 128 good finds. Admittedly, those places are few and far between. With more and more people purchasing detectors, unsearched areas, both land and water, are becoming fewer and fewer- not that they don't exist, but they are getting harder to find, at least up here where Matt and I live.

The jewelry, coins, even some toys keep the author going back for more underwater adventures.

Matt is employed at a full-time fire department and manages to get quite a few days off from work to dive every summer. I am retired from the telephone company, with 30+ years of service. So, whenever Matt manages to get a day or two away from his obligations, he gives me a call and we're out lookin'. The only regret I have about this detecting business is that I didn't start doing it 20 years ago.

We don't always come back with a good haul, but on occasion we do. All you need is time, a good metal detector, a good place to go and some luck. Don't hesitate about detecting places where other people have already searched. No one person gets everything. Your detector may find a target an inch or two deeper than the previous person's machine. Don't think that there's nothing left for you to find. Don't worry...

It's out there.

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