question on sources!

[jvance91]

good morning from WV guys. had a question on about how y'all go about finding good sources about finding places to relic hunt. i just upgraded to a ACE 350 and i am really getting into this hobby. not far from my house (less than 2 miles) there is an a placed called Pricketts State state park. knowing i cant detect in state parks but there should have been some kind of activity near my house. but my question to you guys is how do you go about finding old maps and old photos and history of places you detect and do you guys know any good sites? any input is greatly appreciated! thanks for looking guys have a good one and happy swinging.

 

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[Tom_in_CA]

Don't be so quick to think/say that you "can't detect in state parks". This is not entirely true. If you look at the fmdac's state-by-state list, you'll see that WV is a state that sent back "no response" the inquiry sent out to them. Thus I suppose that would make them "silent on the issue" ? Eg.: not forbidden/prohibited by specific edict. However, like all "parks" (even city and county), there will no doubt be things that could be "morphed" to apply to you, if you were a nuisance in some way (snooping around obvious historic monuments, leaving a mess, etc...). Not sure what Grim's book "Treasure laws of the United States" has for WV, ....although the book is now getting quite old.

Even some of the states with dire sounding wording (or outright "no's") on that list, you have to "read between the lines". For example: CA says "inquire at each kiosk you come to". Yet I can tell you for a fact, that you can hunt state-of-CA beaches here till you're blue in the face, and no one cares (and .... no ... no one "asks at each beach" either). The reason there is dire sounding wording on such lists and Grim's book is simple: way-back-when, whenever someone went to compile such lists, they merely did the seemingly obvious thing: They asked! Doh You know, like send out 50 xeroxed letters to each state's capital head-park's guy asking: "what are the rules regarding metal detectors in your state's parks?" And you can imagine, if you were tasked with answering such an inquiry, what would be the easy answer? So they'd morph ancillary things about disturbing vegetation, cultural heritage, and so forth, to a question that perhaps had never been an issue before. Thus when lists like that started making the rounds, you had old-timers scratching their heads saying to themselves: "since when?" See how that worked? So it just eventually evolved into md'rs just making a blanket statement that "state parks are off-limits", when it was not necessarily ever so, or even actual practice up-to-today.

I suppose you could do your OWN homework and study the WV state-park rules (no doubt available on-line at their website, eh?). And if you see no prohibitions saying "no metal detecting", then there you go. Print that out and that should be your answer. Of course ANYONE can gripe about ANYTHING at ANY time (that you're bothering earthworms, etc...). But so too is that going to be true of even the most innocuous of sandboxes anywhere. And I suppose you could ask high enough, and long enough, up the chain of bureaucrats, and eventually find someone to tell you "no" (which is what I believe those lists are basically evolved from).

 

[jvance91]

thanks tom! i was under the assumption that all state parks were off limits to metal detectors. but now i will do some further investingating myself and maybe i can find something of interest around the outskirts of the fort in the woods. im sure there has got to be something hiding in there. as far as i know no one around town is to big into detecting so ill give it a shot and see what happens!