Catch and release in Arizona

[Qball]

I just returned from 5 days in Pima and Cochise Counties in Arizona. Before leaving I researched antiquities laws there and determined that the only safe course was to take nothing but photographs and leave the detector at home. With a local friend as guide we searched the desert floor for what we could see with the naked eye. We really wanted to find some Hohokam sites which might have evidence of painted pottery and the first spot we found turned out to be littered with it. Again all finds were right on top of the ground, no digging and no taking. Hope you enjoy these pictures as much as I do.

 

[CRUSADER]

interesting. So I assume this is federal land?

 

[Qball]

About 85 percent of Arizona is controlled by the Federal or State governments and after more than a century of pot hunters and fighting over the other 15 percent legal access for the purposes of relic hunting is very difficult for honorable men. Unlike England where you have established a system for registering your finds none exists here. This has not stopped the plunder as I observed evidence of diggers not ten feet from the signs that proclaim the dire penalties for doing so. Arizona is large, empty and wild but how long until justice prevails and when it does it is swift and terrible.

 

[relicmeister]

Photographs, and memories of the experience ain't all that bad , and still worthwhile.

 

[vpnavy]

Thanks for sharing...