How ya doin' Tom? The subject is beat to death too many times here on The Net. Yet, the subject is not dog-walking or detecting or even trespassing. The subject is whether or not someone will respect another's person or property. My (late) brother owned a very nice home on a golf course (The Squires north of Milwaukee). His property line actually was 14 feet into the 5th fairway. He was a member of that particular club. He had no problem with golfers going around the dense hedgerow he had there to retrieve their ball. Some of the "turds" would actually play the ball on his lawn! Leaving a divot on a manicured lawn and playing through! No, the beef is not with the "trespasser", it is with those that "leave their mark" that causes laws to be written against detectorists. The part of Pa-dirt's post that I should have quoted is, "Otherwise, I would pass. Too much work." Too much work to ask permission? TTC
(GOOD debate does cause some to think.....) I don't think we are talking here about respectful detecting. One of the recurring themes of your posts is, "Shut up and just stop drawing attention to our hobby by asking so many "attention drawing" questions." Well, unfortunately, too many just keep right on "testing" the waters by pushing the "powers to be" into action. When a county's board gets together to make laws, they hold a public input session. They don't hear from the millions of respectful detectorists at the meeting, they hear from the one landowner with the divots in the front yard. That is how these ridiculous laws get made. And money (still) talks. What is the motive for those that post threads about obscure spots, 10 miles from a road, with no current residents, and no close neighbors? It is to probably to justify doing something "innocuous" that they got "burned" on and need to spout to rile like-minded. TTCWhy yes, .... as a matter of fact, .... I find metal detecting to be VERY "respectful" of other people's properties.
It's the highest form of honor I can render to another person's property, to find it o be a hunt-worthy-site
Sure. Then we leave no trace (marks), and presto, that base is covered , eh ?
Seriously now , I do see the mental image you put on this. To compare it to someone's yard . Like your brother's property that blended into a golf course, so people (gasp) stepped into his grass to fetch their golf balls. And as you can see in that case, even he wouldn't bat an eye, as it's a non-issue. But then factor on top of that, someone who's not even living there (as opposed to your brother who was), and in-the-middle of nowhere , in which trails are used by the public.... and ... well ... you get the picture.
Like when I was a kid, we used to use short-cut trails to school across vacant lots. Now in retrospect, those vacant lots were owned by someone. They eventually got built on, as houses continued to spring up around our neighborhood. But it was simply a non-issue.
Sure, a front yard of someone's home is another issue. And sure, the notion of "metal detecting" (or picking up a golf ball, verses actual golfing) is another issue.
It's the highest form of honor I can render to another person's property, to find it o be a hunt-worthy-site
I agree! I never give those modern McMansions a second look, but if I see a humble 1700's Georgian, I will always be fantasizing about being able to metal detect there. If someone came to my door asking to metal detect I would probably decline, but out of wanting to finally hunt the place out myself , then I would sit and talk about metal detecting stories for a little while (which always happens when I meet another metal detectorist). In the fall I talked for an hour with someone who came out of the woods with his metal detector happily announcing to me that he found a trash pile after I asked I told him I also detected. I never mentioned to him that I already did a clean search of that trash pit a year before, the 1803 cent I use as my avatar was within 20 feet of the trash pit, hopefully he managed to later find something great there (and finally be able to find bottles from the deep part of the trash pit, which I wasn't able to do.)
There is no simple solution here to a complex problem. The bandying back and forth will continue. Each "side" will push its agenda until hell freezes over yet the problem will remain. Time and effort spent gathering support for one's platform would be better spent digging(pun intended) into the goobly-gook mountain of ridiculous written law available rather than depending on "jackleg" lawyers here. TTC
10 to 15 dollars worth of LEAD musket balls? Did you first file a Notice of Intent (recoverable minerals requirement).... did you cordon off the recovery area per EPA environmental requirements? Mm? TTC
The IRS are not worry about the small stuff, just the buried treasures worth a lot of money.
The EPA's requirement to scrape is exactly why I got so much old and so little clad coinage off a certain lot. I posted years ago about the SW corner of Howard and Kinnikkinnic (?). Ultimately got 28 wheats, 4 sil dimes, 1 buff , 1 sil quarter, and ONE CLAD penny over the course of a summer. Research showed that corner to be a summer stop for a roving carnival. The top soil was pushed over into a back corner. I saw that one of the old buildings here in Murphys was raized! Got the research going but.... two feet of fill came in MUCH too soon! Pooh! I watch for such places. TTC
