The portion of that site that talks about CA, also says something to the effect of "inquire at each location". Now I don't know if there's any difference between state BEACHES verses state PARKS here, but I would think they'd both be under the same controlling entity, right? (the "state park's dept" I would assume is over state land parks, and state beaches, eh?). But trust me, the state beaches here can be detected till you're blue in the face, and there's no problem.
I've often wondered if someone were to take that FMDAC site litterally, and start "asking" rangers here, what would happen. I suppose if this never dawned on the rank-&-file ranger you were talking to, you might get someone to look into your pressing questions, and find something about sea life, or about cultural heritage, or whatever, and tell you "no". So sometimes you gotta take that list with a grain of salt, and talk to local long-time md'rs, to see what areas are ok, and which to avoid.
The reason why so many states on that list, end up just saying "inquire at each ranger's kiosk" is that year's ago, when someone made up that list, there was and is admittedly, in each state, sensitive historic monuments, and other parks where perhaps no one cares less. So if you were the bureaucrat faced with trying to make a 1 paragraph answer to metal detecting, what do YOU think the easy answer would be? You certainly can't go on and on delineating out "yes over here, but no by that cabin, and yes on the beach, but not in the astroturf", blah blah blah. So they just make it simple and tell you "ask at each place". And then you risk someone's opinion (who frankly might never have given the matter thought, if they'd stared right at an md'r), giving you a "no", and then starting to boot others!
So just based on the reality of the CA situation, it makes me wonder about the list, and about some of the dire sounding things said of other states.
