metal detecting ghost towns or old mining towns

[davin]

is it legal to metal detect ghost towns and old miming camps?
thanks.

 

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[Ammoman]

Depends on who owns the property.

 

[davin]

plubic land, BLM or forest service land.
thank you

 

[galenrog]

Even with public land, it depends on the land status. Also, state and federal antiquities laws would have some bearing on which sites would be legal to detect.

 

[davin]

thanks for the advise and now i see i have home work to do so i dont get in trouble.
thank you.
davin

 

[Tom_in_CA]

thanks for the advise and now i see i have home work to do so i dont get in trouble.
thank you.
davin

I don't know what "homework" you intend to do, but .... don't over-think it. Like, were you going to be looking things up for yourself ? Like to make sure there's not an express prohibition saying "no metal detectors" ? Or if you don't see something that specific, are you going to fret yourself over verbiage about cultural heritage ? (heaven forbid you found a coin over 50 yrs. old). Or will you fret yourself over verbiage about "harvest/remove" ? (which ... if you stood on one foot and squinted real hard, could apply to md'ing, since we "remove" something). Or how about "alter and deface" verbiage ? (since we "dig" after all)

Or is your "homework" going to be calling bored desk-bound bureaucrats, who will probably give you the "safe" and "easy" answer of "no" (when truth be told, they could probably care less nor ever gave the matter thought before)

I'm sure that no matter WHAT public land entity you care to inquire about, or fret yourself deeply enough, you can ALWAYS find someone, or some form of verbiage, that will probably say you can't even hunt a city sandbox.

So just use the rule of common sense: Sure, don't be tromping around in front of purist archies. As long as it's not an obvious historic sensitive monument (Bodie, Ft. Churchill, etc....) and as long as you're in the middle of nowhere, then .... grow a set

 

[maccounty]

Grrrrrr....

 

[prospexican]

Also make sure to cover all the holes, and take your garbage with you. Lets do good for the whole community.

 

[Tiredman]

I watched a video on Facebook of a whole group screen sifting a well known ghost town. They weren't archies

 

[SittingElf]

Not too concerned about hard core enforcement this upcoming summer when we move to Oklahoma for two years. I'll be buying a junker truck and heading for the boonies regularly to hunt. Lots of ghost towns and empty towns there.
Have detector, will travel!