So, I was looking for a hobby me and my dad could do together. We’ve not got on too well in the past, very different personalities. Recently he’s been struggling with mental health issues for various reasons, and it was suggested some ‘quality time’ with him might help. He’s big on history, scrounging/wombling and getting stuff for free, but conversely it has to be something that requires little actual commitment, as if he don’t feel like it he won’t do it. So something that can be dipped into (ha) on the odd days he’s feeling enthusiastic about it.
I’d been watching magnet fishing videos for a while on YouTube, easily 9 months before I even bought the kit. I find em interesting and also relaxing. I thought it might be something he would go for. Free sh1te, never know what you’ll get, historical finds, etc.
So I researched the best setups, bought some climbing rope, carabiners, cable winders, some rubber gauntlets, found a couple of buckets and then bought a magnet. Although everyone sings the praises of the ‘beast’ 550kg ones, they’re over £150 and I wasn’t planning on spending that much until i knew if it was worth it. So I bought the next one down, 300kg, which was £60. It seems a better prospect in VFM terms.
Last thing I needed was a grapple. This is for recovering things like pushbikes and shopping trolleys, and dragging branches etc. out the way. It’s bought 3x small crowbars to weld together to make one, they took forever to turn up and when they did at the 11th hour before I was leaving to go the my parents, they were wrong. I managed to find a chunk of 3-4” rebar and knocked one up quickly out of that and an old lifting eye.
So with all the gear and a OS map of the local area, we went out. I took absolutely curse word all pics or video (not quite ready to start a magnet fishing YouTube channel yet!) but it went down pretty well with him despite being a stupidly hot day. We drove around a bit crisscrossing local rivers and following the chesterfield canal a bit, and tried a few places.
Here was our finds. We were out about 4 hours. Considering this was our first time and we hadn’t scoped our locations beforehand, I was pretty pleased.
The massive rake thing came out of the bottom of a lock, and had presumably been for cleaning it out. The thing above it was a fisherman’s chair. On top of that we got an old fire grate, some pliers, a pushchair that went in a bin cos it was minging, a couple of lighters, some chav cans, some big cast iron clamps presumably also off the lock, 20 million bottle caps, a few fishing lures, 22p and two knives.
Not to mention loads of unidentifiable scrap steel.
Interestingly at least one location we went to had been fished before judging by the detritus left at the side, yet we still got tons of stuff from there. That would suggest either they had a much weaker magnet, or wasn’t very methodical in their search technique.
One knife is a small kitchen knife that given its location seemed to have been thrown off the bridge above, the other is a pretty nice Gerber bear grylls branded survival knife in a sheath, with a antler handled firestone attached to it. It’s a nice little knife and costs about £40 so is a pretty good find.
But most importantly, my dad seemed to enjoy it, even wanting to go out on his own to do it since (although he didn’t cos it rained heavily) and getting his maps out to scope out locations.
So next time I’m up we’ll be going out again to some more researched locations, hoping we can get some interesting stuff.
I’d been watching magnet fishing videos for a while on YouTube, easily 9 months before I even bought the kit. I find em interesting and also relaxing. I thought it might be something he would go for. Free sh1te, never know what you’ll get, historical finds, etc.
So I researched the best setups, bought some climbing rope, carabiners, cable winders, some rubber gauntlets, found a couple of buckets and then bought a magnet. Although everyone sings the praises of the ‘beast’ 550kg ones, they’re over £150 and I wasn’t planning on spending that much until i knew if it was worth it. So I bought the next one down, 300kg, which was £60. It seems a better prospect in VFM terms.
Last thing I needed was a grapple. This is for recovering things like pushbikes and shopping trolleys, and dragging branches etc. out the way. It’s bought 3x small crowbars to weld together to make one, they took forever to turn up and when they did at the 11th hour before I was leaving to go the my parents, they were wrong. I managed to find a chunk of 3-4” rebar and knocked one up quickly out of that and an old lifting eye.
So with all the gear and a OS map of the local area, we went out. I took absolutely curse word all pics or video (not quite ready to start a magnet fishing YouTube channel yet!) but it went down pretty well with him despite being a stupidly hot day. We drove around a bit crisscrossing local rivers and following the chesterfield canal a bit, and tried a few places.
Here was our finds. We were out about 4 hours. Considering this was our first time and we hadn’t scoped our locations beforehand, I was pretty pleased.
The massive rake thing came out of the bottom of a lock, and had presumably been for cleaning it out. The thing above it was a fisherman’s chair. On top of that we got an old fire grate, some pliers, a pushchair that went in a bin cos it was minging, a couple of lighters, some chav cans, some big cast iron clamps presumably also off the lock, 20 million bottle caps, a few fishing lures, 22p and two knives.
Not to mention loads of unidentifiable scrap steel.
Interestingly at least one location we went to had been fished before judging by the detritus left at the side, yet we still got tons of stuff from there. That would suggest either they had a much weaker magnet, or wasn’t very methodical in their search technique.
One knife is a small kitchen knife that given its location seemed to have been thrown off the bridge above, the other is a pretty nice Gerber bear grylls branded survival knife in a sheath, with a antler handled firestone attached to it. It’s a nice little knife and costs about £40 so is a pretty good find.
But most importantly, my dad seemed to enjoy it, even wanting to go out on his own to do it since (although he didn’t cos it rained heavily) and getting his maps out to scope out locations.
So next time I’m up we’ll be going out again to some more researched locations, hoping we can get some interesting stuff.
Ax GTi Turbo