During the first UK lockdown I spent a lot of time on youtube and came across a video on magnet fishing. For those unaware of this hobby that is becoming popular all across the world, you have a large magnet on a rope and you throw it into the water to pull out magnetic metal that is polluting the water.
After a week or so of watching videos, I ordered myself a magnet. I didn't spend much, the magnet and rope set me back £25 and I was ready to go cleaning up the local waterways. My magnet has a combined 300kg pull, that means each side has a 150kg pulling weight which isn't that big compared to the bigger magnets.
At first, I went to a local fishing pond and found little things you'd expect fishermen to lose such as fishing lures but I wanted to find better things so headed off to the local canal in search of better treasure.
Using google maps I searched for parts of the canal where I could easily park the car and found one spot next to a disused pub. The large gas bottles are the co2 bottles from the pub thrown in the canal by kids, I have 4 of them now. Bikes and for some reason, bedframes come out quite often.
Yesterday's big find was a boot lid from a mark 1 Ford Capri, it took me about 30 minutes to free it from the mud and get it onto the bank. When you finish your time fishing you either load your finds into your car to bring them home to be collected by a scap man or phone up the scapman to pick them up from the canal side.
I'll be making odd posts about my finds as I do my bit to clean up the local canals and rivers so stay tuned.
Seems like a fun and useful hobby. It is nice that the junk man will come by and pick up the junk on site, leaving room in the car for the treasure finds.
Sometimes you find thigs too big for the car so having good scrap man means it doesn't end up back in the water.
It would suck to pull the big things out and then just have them put back in to re-pollute the water.
It also gives us a bad name with the public who walk down the waterways if you leave a mess behind you.
Astounding! Good to see you back
I've needed to get my head right and this new hobby helps so much with that. I'm in the best place I've been for years.
I love your new hobby! When Lock-down is over, we'll do a swap, you bring the girls up to the stables to ride our ponies and then we'll bring Mia to come help dredge the canals ;)
That sounds like a plan, Arwyn was saying just the other day she misses horse riding.
That is very interesting. I wonder if you will keep this hobby or if it will be a temporary phenomenon. Maybe you'll let a later report follow, I'll let a follow follow ;)
I want to keep it going and have ordered a bigger magnet, also I have problems with my mental health and this hobby helps so much to clear my head.