Short Stuff: Magnet Fishing

age group who's mothers and fathers. For some reason, more fathers than mothers, uh, and there were generally more mothers going seriously like, you're kind of spent three hours on the beach doing that, uh, roaming around the beaches and forest of America with a metal detector hoping to In my dad's case, I think he was probably hoping to

strike it rich was some rare find. Yeah. I think all of them were secretly some of them might have tried to play like you know, they were really just in it for the science or whatever, but they were hoping to find some roaming horde for some reason in Indiana, And I thought it was cool at the time. Because I would do anything to to try and get my dad to pay attention to me. So I would tag along and I would metal detect right alongside of him,

and I thought it was pretty cool. Uh. And I found myself when I heard about magnet fishing just recently I learned that this is a thing, saying, oh, wow, that looks like something I might want to try. And then I went, oh my god, I've become my father. Yeah, where you like, maybe I'll strike it rich. No, but I just think it's kind of kind of cool and fun. Well,

the idea of it. I think you can get into it, and it will be easy to get into because the barriers for getting into magnet fishing our purposefully kept low so that everybody can't get into it. Because it's supposed to be really fun past time, and we should tell everybody what magnet fishing is. I mean, if there's ever been a term that we needed to define, it's magnet fishing. Are you fishing for magnets? Yes, are using magnet magnets

to try and get a fish out of a lake. Yeah, there's so much mercury and fish now that you can magnets to catch them. No, that's what not when magnet fishing is magnet fishing is having a rope tied to a dope, very strong magnet magnet, which we'll talk about what these magnets are and how they work and stuff and that, and dropping it in a canal or a river or a lake or off of a bridge into any of these bodies of water, dragging it along and hoping that you pull up uh something cool or valuable

or both. Where does the dope come in? I don't know. I guess you should well never mind, So yeah, I can use my imagination. So um from looking at on YouTube, what I've seen, more often than not, what comes out of the lake or the river the canal is not anything most people would want to touch. So I think like being a magnet fisherman, you're you're you have to be fascinated by icky things, rusty things that were once not rusty or ikey, and that the fact that they're

underwater now makes them by nature interesting to magnet fishers. Yeah. And this is, by the way, comes from our old colleagues at house stuff works dot com and they aptly point out that this is pretty it's it's caught on

here in America pretty well, especially during the pandemic. They did interview someone who in our own state of Georgia who opened a magnet place to like kind of furnish supplies for people, and he was like, man, this it's like during the pandemic and during lockdown, things really blew up because you can socially distance. It got people out of the house. It really passes the time something you

can take your kid and do. So it's really been booming in the States in the past couple of years, but it's long been popular in Europe, and for good reason because Europe is old are and they're more interesting fines and you're way more likely to find some old unexploded munition that you might want on yourself, even though it's very dangerous then you might in America. Yeah, we should buzz market that dude too, because he seems okay.

But brute magnetics in North Georgia. Yeah, Clay Copeland, so um what what they've put together are And he's actually the reason that I said that this is this um hobbies being kept accessible purposefully because the he said that the most powerful magnet that they sell, the top of the line can pull over two thousand pounds of metal out of whatever waterway you're fishing in. Um, it's still

only like two dollars. Yeah, not bad for a hobby. No, And if you stop and think about it, you could, like there's a two thousand pound piece of metal that's getting close to like a car, you know, didn't it. I don't know how much carve's way. I don't know, Like two thousand pounds is what I'm guessing. Probably the topped out at two thousand pounds, so like a hummer probably weighs two thousand pounds. Okay, I think that might

be wrong. But the point is this, there's a two thousand pound magnet or a magnet that can pull two thousand pounds or two hundred bucks. That's a good deal. Okay, that is a good deal. Uh. You know, any kind of hobby when you're buried or entries a couple of hundred dollars and you could spend hours and hours like with your kids or something, not bad at all. You

should be sure of a few things. One that you have that you're really good at tying knots, because what you don't want to do is lose that magnet and then have to get a magnet to fish out that magnet so be good, really good at tying knots. You want to a rope that's fifty two d feet depending on you know, if you're obviously dropping off a bridge,

you're gonna want the longer rope. And I saw that nylon pair record is a really good option because it's like a thicker one because it's it's got that perfect mix of tough toughness and elastic city. And the magnets that you would buy two are not your normal refrigerator magnets, which are made of fair rite um. The ones that Mr. Copeland cells are made of neodymium, is how I'm going

to say it. I think that's right. And neodymium is a it's a rare earth metal and they mix it with a boron an iron and it's just again super strong, Like you're not going to pull anything approaching two thousand pounds with a a refrigerator magnet, even if it's super super big um. And that's the point. You want to fairly compact magnet that is also designed in a streamline manner so it's not gonna get hooked up on all sorts of muck. And kelp and seaweed and all that

stuff too. Should we take a break? I think so we're really just getting started with magnet fishing. Everybody, all right, We'll be right back by the way during our break. I just looked it up. The average weight of a car is about pounds, okay, so I think like one of those smart cars maybe about two thousand pounds. I'll take smart car. It's basically the same thing as a hummer. Uh. And before I forget the other thing I meant to mention on what you might need to get started is

a tetna shot. I mean, it's kind of funny to say, but that is no joke because you are pulling old, rusty things out of the water inevitably, and that's the nature of magnets and metal and being underwater. So you do want a tetna shot and to have like some

like gloves and stuff like that. You also want to have um some common decency because one of the reasons that um some magnet fishers fisher people have a bad reputation in some places like the UK and Germany are apparently two places where they kind of frown upon magnefishing because people magnetfish pull out some metallic junk that they don't want and just like leave it on the side of the river or the sidewalk that like the walking

path alongside a canal or something like that. Kind of get the impression that if you haul something out, it's up to you to either keep it or throw it away, not just leave it there, yes, or turn in in the case of unexploded munitions, if you find an old World War two hand grenade or bullets. I mean, it seems like I looked up a lot of these fines and stuff, and it is disturbing how many weapons are in bags in rivers. Uh. It really makes you wonder

why it's in there. But lots of guns are found, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of bullets are found. I saw one where this little six year old girl and her parents pulled six hundred bullets out of a lake. Uh. And like I said, like a K forty seven someone found a Tommy gun. Wow, that's a pretty good find. That's revolver pretty good. Fine, But you know people are dumping dangerous things, uh era like Civil War era swords.

Pretty good fine, Um, but there are dangerous things down there. Uh, and if anything is unexploded, don't just I think the assumption is it's always dangerous, so you should probably get in touch with somebody about it. Yeah, and that's especially true in Europe, where a lot of World War Two

artillery and ammunition. Until welighing around. Yeah, um, I saw a blog post Chuck that I guess I hadn't heard about the Tommy gun because it was called like the the greatest magnet fishing fines of all time, really, and one of them was like a bench, like a park bench, and the caption was who couldn't use a free bench? Like they were really trying to sell? So I guess that the Tommy gun hadn't been found yet. I saw one guy who there was a picture of him holding

up a machine gun standing beside no why. It was either eight or ten of those stupid rental scooters electric scooters. People just throw those in bodies of water. Yeah, and shopping carts too. You know who does that? People did? Teenagers? I saw one guy found a human body that had handcuffs on. No, yes, no, yes, boy. I used the wrong search terms for magnat fishing fines because I didn't see anything like that. I just searched for like most

interesting fines A body with handcuffs? Are you for real? Yeah? I mean you know that's what this one goofy website said. Goodness, wow, that was pretty much my worst fear when I was a young STERVEYK. Shanning in Lake Erie. Yes. Yeah, and just bumping into a body that I just knew was out there five feet away from me, headed right towards me. The idea of finding one magnet. Oh my god, I'm gonna have to go like chill out for a little

bit before we record our next short stuff. Well, could you imagine they're pulling this thing out and it's it's coming up handcuff first, So either around the ankles, are around the wrist. Yeah. So I mean that's that's a pretty crucome discovery. Yeah good Lauren, Well thanks for ending it like that. Sure, Well, we're not quite done. It's um. I just wanted to say how discouraging it is that people are pulling out so much trash. It's great the people that are doing this to pull out the trash

and dispose of it. Well, but as I was researching this yesterday, Emily texted me that our house is next to sort of this bamboo forest with a creek, and she saw a truck pull over and throw a gigantic microwave into the creek and speed off and it Now I have to go fish that microwave out. She got his license plate. But I'm like, what are you gonna do? You know, over to be like the cops in the Big Lebowski. Oh yeah, we got a whole team of

guys working on it. But now I gotta go fish this microwave about it Just there's no way I can let it sit there. You're gonna get yourself a two dollar magnet magnet from Mr Clay Copeland of Brute Magnetics. I probably should, because that'd be the easiest way to do it, and it would be legal in Georgia. Legality wise, we should mention that it's everywhere so far except for

South Carolina. It is legal because in South Carolina it falls under the South Carolina Underwater Antiques Act, which prohibits you from collecting things with equipment deployed from the surface of the water. And that even means magnets. Yeah, especially magnets, is what I heard. Yeah, in Europe is a little more controlled, not controlling, but they have more restrictions in things in place. Right. Yeah, again, there's a lot of

unexploded ordinance. It's just the right age to blow up in your face accidentally when you're inspecting it to figure out what it is. That's right, So it makes sense. So that's magnetficient. Go forth, check out brute magnetics. Get yourself a magnet and throw away the stuff you don't want. Don't throw it back or just leave it on the side of the road. Okay, uh, that's it for short stuff. Since Chuck agreed, that's official. See you later. Stuff you

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