Should Magnet Fishermen be licensed

[Heartland]

Magnet fishing has become more popular late and magnets more powerful. The dedicated can haul bikes out of the canal and recent finds have included safes and loaded guns. CRT appear to discourage the practice, yet it is a benefit to the navigation if rubbish can be removed from the waterway. The CRT objection may be the result of the finds being abandoned on the bank. Some who use the magnets do arrange for the metal to be taken away and may even have some financial benefits from doing so. If a licence was introduced then the CRT might also benefit as well as having their waterways cleansed. There is nothing worse than having mattress springs around the propeller shaft as some previous contestants in the BCN challenge have found out!

[BruceinSanity]

AIUI, the concern is the risk of dredging up unexploded ordnance. If CRT say don’t do it and you go ahead anyway and haul a present from the Luftwaffe out onto the towpath, they can’t be blamed for sanctioning your behaviour or your subsequent distribution around the scenery, unlikely as that may be.

[Jen-in-Wellies]

Perhaps they should have to throw their catches back after landing them like regular anglers . CaRT should be responsible for restocking the canals with scrap, unexploded bombs, shopping carts etc. Also magnet fishers need to be more grumpy.

 

Jen

 

Jen

[pete.i]

I don't know about magnet fishers but cyclists hould be licensed and taxed. But back to the topic. It's not just ordnance which could happen but is unlikely. Anything that is dragged up from the depths could cause injury or worse. CRT are just protecting their back because in this day and age they could get sued for almost anything. To be honest I don't blame them trying to discourage magnet fishing.

[Ace 01]

Heading up the GU today through Milton Keynes and almost every bridge hole had a pile of metal bits dredged from the canal next to it.

[koukouvagia]

17 minutes ago, Ace 01 said:

Heading up the GU today through Milton Keynes and almost every bridge hole had a pile of metal bits dredged from the canal next to it.

I wish someone had been magnet fishing near the Grafton Road aqueduct (New Bardwell, MK).  They might have fished out this trike and prevented it from becoming entangled round our rudder last week.

 

 

 

[Sea Dog]

39 minutes ago, Ace 01 said:

Heading up the GU today through Milton Keynes and almost every bridge hole had a pile of metal bits dredged from the canal next to it.

A good thing, as long as it gets taken away before it gets reintroduced. Hopefully the catch rate will continue to outstrip the restocking, but then it's going to be a short lived hobby and we'll eventually be back to normal, I suspect. 

[Pie Eater]

It is a pity that CaRT do not take the opportunity to remove the scrap from the towpath before someone throws it back in again to foul a boaters propeller.

 

A missed opportunity I think.

 

 

[Heartland]

The tribal practices of the troglodytes appear to include throwing metal objects into the cut. May be C & RT should reclaim the material placed on the bank. There must be a scrap value 

[Stewart Kirby]

I used to indulge in the odd bit of magnet fishing with my sea-searcher after stopping for the day. But in concentrated on locks and their surrounding looking for windlasses. I don’t see any strong reasons for licensing and in any case it would be unenforceable. How many towpath gnomes do you think have licenses?

[MHS]

16 minutes ago, Heartland said:

The tribal practices of the troglodytes appear to include throwing metal objects into the cut. May be C & RT should reclaim the material placed on the bank. There must be a scrap value 

Unfortunately the cost of collection and transport would likely be higher than the scrap value. 

Now if the scrotes were throwing in Aluminium or Titanium that would be a different matter. However neither would be easily retrievable by a magnet. 

[Murflynn]

23 minutes ago, Heartland said:

The tribal practices of the troglodytes appear to include throwing metal objects into the cut. May be C & RT should reclaim the material placed on the bank. There must be a scrap value 

 

35 minutes ago, Pie Eater said:

It is a pity that CaRT do not take the opportunity to remove the scrap from the towpath before someone throws it back in again to foul a boaters propeller.

 

A missed opportunity I think.

 

 

who exactly are the representatives of CRT who have nothing better to do than clear away scrap from the towpath?  In our local dog walking park we often refer to the dog poo fairy and the litter fairy (both entirely imaginary, I should add).  Does CRT have equivalent employees?

[Cheshire cat]

Not quite on message but the thing I foind interesting is the state of the stuff they fish out.

 

There is a debate on here from time to time about the need to black the baseplate. It has been argued that at baseplate depth the water contains little oxygen but judging by the state of the stuff that comes out of the canal I would say that steel still rusts, even at depth.

[Jen-in-Wellies]

41 minutes ago, Cheshire cat said:

Not quite on message but the thing I foind interesting is the state of the stuff they fish out.

 

There is a debate on here from time to time about the need to black the baseplate. It has been argued that at baseplate depth the water contains little oxygen but judging by the state of the stuff that comes out of the canal I would say that steel still rusts, even at depth.

Alternatively, all the scrap iron in the cut will scrape the blacking off the baseplate anyway.

[Peter X]

I don't know whether this topic was inspired by a recent item on the BBC website:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-45527455/magnet-fishing-for-guns-in-midlands-canals

In the video a CRT man is quoted as saying "Technically it's against the law". He seemed to me to be emphasising the word "technically", as if to say "Officially I'm telling you not to do it, but if you're going to remove some junk from the bottom of the canal, CRT probably don't mind". Sensible attitude as far as I'm concerned; turn a blind eye to it but anyone who gets hurt can't blame CRT.

[Bee]

I guess its the same as taking stuff from a skip , illegal, but then I expect chucking stuff in the same skip is illegal too. There's so much to worry about these days, I might go back to bed.

[cuthound]

My local magnet fishers dragged this little lot out of the Coventry Canal and arranged for the local "totters" to collect them the next day.

 

However others leave piles of scrap by each bridgeholes, presumably for the "scrap metal fairy" to collect.

 

 

19 hours ago, koukouvagia said:

I wish someone had been magnet fishing near the Grafton Road aqueduct (New Bardwell, MK).  They might have fished out this trike and prevented it from becoming entangled round our rudder last week.

 

 

 

 

Bluddy towpath cyclists - they start 'em young these days ?

[billh]

On 16/09/2018 at 13:19, BruceinSanity said:

AIUI, the concern is the risk of dredging up unexploded ordnance. If CRT say don’t do it and you go ahead anyway and haul a present from the Luftwaffe out onto the towpath, they can’t be blamed for sanctioning your behaviour or your subsequent distribution around the scenery, unlikely as that may be.

Fifty or so years ago , working in and on the Ashton and Rochdale Canals, all the live ordnance we discovered was of British origin. Anti-aircraft shells, .303 bullets,  hand grenades  and  a couple of  clip-on tail fins  for 250 pound bombs.  Two hand grenades, found in central Manchester required, according to Bomb Disposal, a controlled explosion. This in the run up to Christmas  needed  temporary closure of Princess St and Whitworth St on a Saturday afternoon. I had noticed the safety  pins on these grenades had rusted away and the levers(?) were held in place by muck and rust.

A few years later we fished a German Luger pistol  from the canal, we were dragging rubbish into a boat and it landed  on the floor. There was  great consternation at the local cop shop as we handed it to the PC on the front  desk:  "We just found this".....

[Sir Nibble]

OK, supposing magnet fishers need licences. You drop your windlass in the cut are you going to leave the seasearcher in the locker? Beware unintended consequences.

I would lump magnet fishers alongside metal detectorists, you never know what you might find and sometimes it's a bloody good find, like archeology. If someone does drag out some explosive, is that worse than you boating a few inches over it? 

What does the presence of WW2 hardware within range of a magnet say about dredging over the years?

[cuthound]

Magnet fishing made the BBC Midlands local news tonight, with more on Inside Out BBC1 19:30 tonight.

[Grassman]

If they fish the stuff out, it doesn't get collected from the towpath and gets thrown back into the canal, it could be worse for we boaters than if it had been left alone.

 

Most of the stuff would have been in the canal for years and would have settled on the canal bed probably in the deepest part towards the middle but out of the way of our propellers. But there's a distinct chance that the newly thrown in stuff would be sticking up more and possibly in shallower waters nearer the edge. 

[Jen-in-Wellies]

CaRT will be appointing a Director of Magnet Fishing soon on £100k a year and a department and staff. Responsible for licencing, promotion and going around restocking bridge holes with shopping trolleys, bikes and Luftwaffe bombs.

 

Jen

[Heartland]

Don't forget the rivers some might find muskets, swords, coins and arrowheads there- and perhaps others have. There were fording places where road traffic passed and was a location noted for loss.

Edited September 18, 2018 by Heartland

[Stilllearning]

15 hours ago, cuthound said:

Magnet fishing made the BBC Midlands local news tonight, with more on Inside Out BBC1 19:30 tonight.

It’s in the ten most read items on the BBC website atm.

[Psycloud]

Jeremy Vine show is covering it right now.