Finders Keepers

[ktarlecky]

once i found a $20 bill. Too bad the local bar would not accept it for a few drinks. Worn and tattered...ya know.

and i found my brothers integrated weight pouch a week after we dove the site last. Turns out a bunch of little fish thought it would make a good home. We didn't notice the fish until we got home

 

[Jambi]

Just spoke to a friend and he told me he found a $5 floating at about 10ft. He dried it off, took it to the local indian casino and won $400. All on his birthday. Some people have all the luck!

Jambi

 

[ScottyK]

About three weeks ago Jen and I were doing a shore dive, and came across a tangle of fishing line. We always cut loose any line or other plastics we find, and bring them back with us. I started pulling the line in and rolling it up. I assumed I was pulling in the hook end with a heavy clump of something attached to it. All of the sudden, a really expensive rod and reel came bouncing into view along the bottom

It was a pain to drag around for the rest of the dive, but it cleaned up nice.

Over the years I have also found:

An antique U.S. Divers knife that's big enough to filet a dinosaur.

Enough fishing gear to fill ten tackle boxes.

A nice dive watch at Dutch Springs. It was overgrown with gunk, but was still keeping perfect time, and cleaned up nicely. Seven years later it still works great!

Scott

 

[DA Aquamaster]

The most interesting thing I ever found was a mo-ped that had been thrown off a train bridge. The first thing I did was call the police to report the find. It really should have been the second as they were so keen to impound it that they would not let me take even minimal efforts to drain it, flush it and preserve it.

90 days late they called me and said I could have it as they were unable to determine or contact the owner. (?) I declined the offer and advised that they could haul the rusted remains to the dump.

The second most interesting find was a clean aand shiny vial of cocaine found under another bridge, where it appeared to have been recently thrown prior to a traffic stop. This I carefully inserted into a plastic baggie sans any new fingerprints and took it to the local Police Dept. The desk sargent looked at it, took it out of the bag, dried it off with a kleenex and said "Hmm looks like cocaine...not much we can do with it though as there aren't any fingerprints on it". And then he handed it back to me and went back to his paper work. My response was "so...I'm supposed to keep it?" At which point he finally got a clue. I did not bother to inform him that finderprints actually hold up well in fresh water and that there may well have been prints on it right up to the point where he wiped them off.

The more ordinary stuff consists of a few pairs of sunglasses per year (about 1/3rd of which are spendy), 4-5 anchors per year, a few fishing poles and a watch or two per year (about 1/3 of which still work - it's hard to kill a timex or casio).

I dive under docks regularly, but by invitation only from whover is responsible for the docks. I am the guy who usually gets called when a boat cover goes missing or someone drops their wedding ring, prescription glasses or wallet off the dock.

You do not want to block boat traffic and you really need to have someone on the surface to advise the boaters that you are there. You also need to be aware of the various cables used to secure the docks and be cautious of the potential for huge amounts of monofilament and other entanglement hazards.

 

[FLArmyBrat]

My b/f foiund a ticklr stick/lobster guage on our 4th cert dive (one less thing to buy for the Keys) and two nice shiny quarters in Blue Springs LOL

Now, where do we go to find a couple of tanks??? LOL

Laurel- The Frog Queen
:royal:

 

[MikeFerrara]

I've found fishing tackle lots of places. Since I fish, I keep it. Once the boat was still attatched to the rod and tackle box.

There's a place we dive in Lake Norefork once in a while called "Big E" Lots of swimming and cliff diving goes on there. The cliff drops streight down to 90 - 100 ft and the swimmers drop all kinds of stuff. I also know of a submerged ridge in the same lake that has lots of lost anchors around it. I've never bothered to bring any up though.

A couple years agao they had a clean-up dive at Burnam harbor in Chicago. I never heard what kind of stuff was found but people have been dropping stuff in there since the Chicago worlds fair.

 

[Kat]

Any sign of Jimmy Hoffa on clean up day, at Burnam?

 

[budgy]

This year I've found a folding canvas chair and a pair of binoculars off the same pier, I've also retrieved sunglasses and a torch but the owners got them back.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Kat once bubbled...
Any sign of Jimmy Hoffa on clean up day, at Burnam?

Not as far as I know.

 

[seakdivers]

Knavey;

Yes, we checked with the police, and they did not have anything that matched up. The gun had been undersea for quite some time.

We are actually familiar with the connection between diving and crime.

Long story short, my dad's office was broken into, and several rifles were stolen. My boyfriend located the perps., and after their confession he sent the local PD on a dive to retrieve the guns in the area where they said they had dumped them. They had wrapped them in plastic & duct tape, and had dumped them off the shore in an area that dropped off to about 60 feet with the intention of coming back and retrieving them after a "cooling off" period.

The best part was that they had broken into the LDS to steal dive gear as well, and get this - they MAILED it to themselves so they wouldn't be in possesion of it when they were questioned!! LOL
Nice little Federal crime on top of it all - what idiots!!