Johnson County Anyone?

Warshrike · Oct 2, 2013

Anyone near Johnson county? I'm in Greenwood but having difficulty finding some decent spots. Looking for older coins but having zero luck

cotterbass · Feb 16, 2015

I'm in Greenwood, too. Just moved here last year from Pennsylvania and I'm looking for places to metal detect. Heard a lot of horror stories about limited legal areas to detect (state antiquity laws). Older gentleman here, looking for a detecting buddy. Interested in very old coins and historical artifacts.

Kevin in IN · Feb 17, 2015

Hey guys , find a plat for the county you wish hunt, some local libraries have them, some can be found on line on historical sociaty web sites. Then look for houses that have disappeared by using google sat images. If its in farm fields, most farmers are real nice about letting you hunt when crops are out. I bought a 1914 plat at an auction, and use the 1879 that is online for my county. These books are priceless for finding old sites. Good luck. Kevin

Tom_in_CA · Feb 17, 2015

cotterbass said:
......Heard a lot of horror stories about limited legal areas to detect ....

Probably not unlike "horror stories" you would read about shark attacks or bee-sting deaths. Certainly "imminent" and "to be feared".

Peyton Manning · Feb 17, 2015

I emailed the city attorney here and he said as long as no one objected public land would be ok. So if I do it on let's say non manicured land no one is likely to object

Madison county

Tom_in_CA · Feb 17, 2015

reply

Jeff, how much you want to make a bet, that you could go in a week from now, ask a different city official (of equal rank and say-so), and get a completely different answer.

wingmaster · Feb 17, 2015

If you ask one that don't know then it's just easier for them to say no when in fact there's no law on the books against it, and can even make them think about making a law against it even though it was never a problem in the first place. Just make sure to cut a neat plug and take a hand towel to put the extra dirt on as its impossible to get all of the dirt out of the grass around your hole, most county and city parks it's fine in and all state parks, state land, and federal land is off limits as it's illegal in state parks, state land, and federal land in Indiana. I detected a little city park that the grounds keeper said it's really off limits but he said he was watching me and how I was doing it was fine as he couldn't tell I even dug a hole when I was done, and those were deep silvers at 10"+ which goes to show taking the extra effort to leave it with no trace is worth it. HH

Tom_in_CA · Feb 18, 2015

wingmaster: Trying to understand your post. Are you saying that all state and fed. land is off-limits ? That's not true to say that all state and federal land is off-limits to md'ing. There are plenty of examples of state and/or federal land, where it's a non-issue, no specific prohibitions, etc....

wingmaster · Feb 18, 2015

In Indiana you cant detect on state land, you can get a permit to detect on the beaches on some state park lakes though but you can't detect old home sites only the beach with a permit. All federal land like the hoosier national forest is illegal, now if it's owned by a county or city most of them you can detect but some counties it's illegal to detect in the parks I've heard but not very many and I believe it's just because some of the other states counties have made it illegal so it's spilling over as in if they done it, it must be a good thing. If you look at the federal land guide lines it excludes coins as being off limits but then says it's not ok if an item were to reveal the age of a site, so in one part it's ok to detect for coins but the archaeologist are going to say they could be used to date a site. There is no way to get an accurate date from coins as a person could be carrying a coin that's predates the site by far and it was currency anyway there's plenty of examples out there it's not like your going to find currency they didn't knew existed or the only one like it. If it was so important to them why don't they just go study the sites then, they know where they are. HH

Kevin in IN · Feb 19, 2015

Wingmaster has it right for Indiana state land. The only exceptions are some state parks will issue permits to hunt limited beaches. And when you do get a permit they act like you just stole something. Michigan is very nice to hunt , most state parks allow detecting, and your not treated like a thief . Federal land forget it. I hunt Indiana dunes stete park most every year. Opens day after labor day, be sure to have a permit! They tell you that you can hunt the water, then chase you out. Just never know what the rules are until your there. Kevin

Peyton Manning · Feb 19, 2015

Tom_in_CA said:
Jeff, how much you want to make a bet, that you could go in a week from now, ask a different city official (of equal rank and say-so), and get a completely different answer.

that's why I printed it out

Tom_in_CA · Feb 19, 2015

jeff-gordon said:
that's why I printed it out

ok. And since you appear to acknowledge that it's Russian roulette game, then what's to have stopped you from looking it up yourself? To see if there's any rule that said "no metal detecting" or not ?

wingmaster · Feb 19, 2015

Not only that it's a good way to get a law made against metal detecting when they wouldn't have even given it a thought, a lot of these politicians just want to make a law even if it's not a good one just so they can say they left there mark and done there good deed while in office. HH

Tom_in_CA said:
ok. And since you appear to acknowledge that it's Russian roulette game, then what's to have stopped you from looking it up yourself? To see if there's any rule that said "no metal detecting" or not ?