Diminishing returns of a Civil War relic hunter

maxxkatt

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North Atlanta, GA
Metro Atlanta and points west and north have quite a few large civil war battle sites. Only one major problem. All are either on private property owners who are reluctant to give permissions to detectorists and governments, city, county, state or federal have snapped up all the good properties and will not let you bring a metal detector even on the property.

Recent case in point. About 200 acres in west georgia of a major CW battle. The city bought up the land recently to sometime in the future build a park. But the no relic hunting signs went up a few weeks after the property closed. UGH!

So now we are reduced to finding an acre here and asking permissions or an acre there that is so remote and the owner is out of state that you can accidently stray on the property without any real worries.

So for us johnny come lately CW relic hunters we just have to !!!!! and do our best. The culprit is large and fast growth of the metro Atlanta area. It seems like all the companies and people are moving south from the north.

Ok, through complaining for a while. Will get back to some of the few CW permissions that I have found in the past 2 years. And boy do I keep their locations top secret.
 
Actually the same here in rural Mississippi.
I had a permission on a huge plantation which also was a campground for around 40,000+ of Sherman's troops. Sherman stayed a few days because the plantation owner was one of his Masonic brothers.
The Biden administration is building a over 1000 acre solar "farm" there.
They better have that 1000 acres locked up tight or the meth heads in the area will strip the copper out during the first night. At some old soccer fields we hit last week, it looked like they had climbed some very tall light poles to cut the copper wire near the lights.
Atlanta has been attracting corporations from up North for decades.
It is not a new phenomena.
 
Actually the same here in rural Mississippi.
I had a permission on a huge plantation which also was a campground for around 40,000+ of Sherman's troops. Sherman stayed a few days because the plantation owner was one of his Masonic brothers.
The Biden administration is building a over 1000 acre solar "farm" there.
They better have that 1000 acres locked up tight or the meth heads in the area will strip the copper out during the first night. At some old soccer fields we hit last week, it looked like they had climbed some very tall light poles to cut the copper wire near the lights.
Atlanta has been attracting corporations from up North for decades.
It is not a new phenomena.

Solar power farm. They had that issue on the Detectorists British TV series in the third and last season I think. Same problem, located new solar farm right slap dab in the area where they were pulling Roman coins.
 
I know where 2 places where Missouri bought some land where they camped. It was 35 or 40 years ago & said sometime in the future they "might" have a park, no relic hunting. They said probably Never, since was only camped. I said they ought to let us find stuff with detectors & give what we found to a museum. That's when I fought out they hate detectors :shock:
 
I know where 2 places where Missouri bought some land where they camped. It was 35 or 40 years ago & said sometime in the future they "might" have a park, no relic hunting. They said probably Never, since was only camped. I said they ought to let us find stuff with detectors & give what we found to a museum. That's when I fought out they hate detectors :shock:

I have learned from Tom (in CA) that you just don't ask the authorities anything that has to do with metal detecting permissions. It is better to hunt, and plead innocence if confronted and just leave if asked to leave.

Gov officials have no problem with saying no to any type of requests. That is the career safe method.

But to give a citizen back their right by saying yes, can cause them trouble with other nosy citizens complain.

That seems to be Universal in this country.

So my policy is if no signs to the contrary, all city and county properties are fair game in terms of metal detecting and I don't seek permission.

State and federal property are different. No or almost never on federal except designated beaches controlled by the US Corp of Engineers in GA.
Also in GA, have to be careful of most state parks. Some say no, some are ok with it unofficially. On these state parks I usually get the scoop from other local detectorists on which state parks really don't enforce any detecting laws.

Federal Civil War parks in Georgia are an absolute NO. It is a felony to even have a metal detector in your car trunk in these parks. These guys don't mess around. Fortunately there are areas outside the park on private property or city or county property you can hunt.

A recent event shows the government grab. In Dallas, GA 200+ acres of nowhere that was the main CW battle was purchased for "future park" and immediately up went the signs "NO RELIC HUNTING".

So we better hunt the sites we can hunt as much as possible. The government grab and restrictions to metal detecting are increasing.

Politically it is very attractive to the politicians voters for the politician to vote an area off limits to save it from those horrible detectorists who dig holes and plunder our common resources. That is a no-brainer soap box speech that never fails.

Have you ever heard of a politician advocate that citizens be given or given back some rights? Well I have not in all my years. They always strive to take away or limit our rights.
 
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