Magnet Fishing

Most of what I found was keys and coins, mostly coppers but I might have a quid total if I'm lucky! Not sure who accepts dirty, heavily tarnished coins though.

Two bikes this time, but I'm pretty sure there's two more down there in the mud. It's really thick mud in that section so I think all the heavy scrap is sunk in there deep down.

I developed a bit of an audience while trying to pull out the second bike and got a round of applause when I eventually pulled it out! It was good to brighten some people's day but I think I'll go somewhere quieter next time. As always I was very pleasantly surprised with the overwhelming majority having positive reactions to what I was doing, and one woman even came and had a go.

Most interesting finds were these two Israeli coins and one Indian coin:

I frequently get asked what happens if I get my magnet stuck and can't pull it out - well this is what I did after I plus 3 passers by couldn't pull it out.

I ended up driving my car down the harbour wall and attached my rope to the towhook. A conveniently placed mooring post made it so I could wrap it round and pull the magnet pretty much perpendicular to the harbour wall.

I had an interesting find that I definitely wasn't expecting; a fossilised tooth from what I think was a prehistoric marine reptile, not magnetic but fell off when I was removing chunks of metal from the magnet:

And here is the pile of scrap metal I ended up with:

This was a very good location, every single cast brought up multiple bits of metal, and I never moved from the first spot I stopped at along the harbour wall. I suspect I could go back thousands of times and still pull loads out.

I pulled out 107 in about 3.5 hours as well as one big bonus canister. Nearly every single cast I pulled more up. Nothing particularly interesting this time unfortunately but I did get 2 bikes from the old YoBike scheme and a Voi scooter with the battery removed (presumably stolen).

Near the end of the day a young woman asked to have a go and promptly got hooked after a few casts, so hopefully I've helped create another future magnet fisher!

I found these four in the Gloucester & Sharpness canal. The nail I found near the two swing bridges at Purton, and the others further down towards Sharpness where the old railway bridge collapsed. I thought the mooring hook might come in handy as a rope anchor in places where there's nothing to attach the rope to.