Fish story

Other than blogging, and my newfound zest for commenting on Twitter (biggest thrill to date: 600+ likes on a comment I made about Bill Barr), I don't have any hobbies. I don't collect stamps. Or retro salt & pepper shakers. Although I know how, I don't needlepoint. Or garden. Or golf.

But since COVID, a lot of folks have adopted new hobbies. And one of those new hobbies is magnet fishing.

No, you're not fishing for fish with magnets. You're fishing with magnets for junk. And the practice brings out the inner environmentalist and the inner treasurer hunter in its adherents. Environmentalist, because the magnet fishers are cleaning a lot of detritus out of rivers and lakes. And treasure hunter because you never know what you'll find.

Most of the stuff that gets found is along the lines of discarded hammers and discarded nails. Keys. Old signposts. Railroad spikes. Shopping carts. Bikes. Old appliances. And plenty of things that you wouldn't be able to easily haul in by yourself: abandoned vehicles, fridges. (More serious magnet fishers invest in large magnets and grappling gear that let them drag out some pretty heavy things, though.) Safes are popular quarry, with the eternal optimists among magnet fishers hoping that they'll find a jackpot: diamonds, rubies, pearls. Too bad most of the safes that get jettisoned were from robberies, and they've been looted of any loot.

A frequent find - one which adds detective to the environmentalist-treasure hunter mix - is weaponry.

Just recently, a Massachusetts magnet angler plying his hobby near the now-decommissioned Fort Devens found a mortar shell and a "pineapple" grenade. Arthur Flynn's catch of the day brought forth cops and the bomb squad:

“The subject in question was advised to discontinue his endeavors,” a trooper wrote in a police report, noting that the weapons had been “severely corroded." (Source: Boston Globe)

Flynn's discovery triggered some alarms with both state and federal officials. Also environmentalists concerned about some dormant hazards being dredged up from the sediment. They're calling for this emergent hobby to be regulated. And the Army's taking some heat.

The discovery of the unexploded munitions led officials at the Environmental Protection Agency to chastise the Army, which still oversees the shuttered military base, for not alerting the public more widely to the discovery of the old weapons. A few weeks after the grenade and mortar shell were pulled to the surface, the EPA noted, someone else magnet fishing near the base pulled up what appeared to be another explosive device.

The EPA, concerned both the environmental impact of all this unexploded ordnance floating around, not to mention the potential loss of life and limb, started to put some pressure on the Army. And when they didn't budge, the EPA "invoked a rarely used dispute-resolution process between government agencies to press the Army to take action." 

The Army finally got off its duff, and they've begun figuring out what to do with all the other dangerous items hanging around the Devens area. And there's probably plenty, as Devens was an active base from World War I through the Iraq War. (In fact, my Uncle Charlie - among the last men to be drafted towards the tail end of WWII - was briefly stationed at Devens in 1945. They had run out of uniforms, so Charlie drilled wearing his civilian overcoat. And they were short on weaponry, too. When they were marching around, Charlie shouldered a fake wooden rifle.Talk about toy soldiers. Anyway, I'm pretty confident that any errant grenade Charlie might have tossed was unarmed. Probably just a baseball) 

“The Army reminds the public that keeping munitions, even Civil War cannonballs, as souvenirs is dangerous,” said Robert J. Simeone, an environmental coordinator for the Army overseeing Fort Devens.

Note to self: check tchotchkes to make sure I don't have a Civil War cannonball sitting around. 

Because of environmental and just plain danger issues, magnet fishing has already been banned on certain spots along the Nashua River near Devens, and a broader ban is under consideration. The state is also concerned that:

...the hobby could also threaten archeological sites and removing certain artifacts from such areas may be illegal.

Like those Civil War cannonballs, although Massachusetts wasn't exactly a battleground state then. (I guess some things never change. We're still not a battleground state.)

One local magnet fisher took up the hobby after a particularly aggressive seagull made off with a mackerel he'd caught while fish-fishing. No seagulls have gone after this fellow's magnetic catches of the day, which include a washing machine, a stop sign, and a Ducati motorcycle. 

He called police, believing it was stolen, and they called in heavier equipment to remove it from the Taunton River.

No final word on that Ducati, but it's a pretty safe bet that a Ducati found in the drink was, indeed, stolen.  

While I won't be taking up magnet fishing, but I have to say, it does sound kind of fun. And you don't have to bait a hook to make something happen.