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Has Anyone Else Been Harassed Whilst Prospecting?


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32 minutes ago, Hard Prospector said:

When asked by anyone this is my standard answer;

Looking for lost coins

Anything with markings I try to return to rightful owner (be it the person or Church). Even car keys and cell phones.

Fill in all holes

Dispose of all garbage collected during process.

***I then show them the divers bag with the rusty metal trash inside.

I do of course collect all the trash I find and as a rule that is when I try to be visible - I make a great production of taking it to a trash bin and emptying out so people can see I am cleaning the beach. The rare times I get asked I usually laugh and tell people I clean up trash and get paid pennies to do it!

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Many years ago, I was detecting the edge of a local park with a friend.

An elderly lady bailed him up, and asked if he could come and do her place, I’ll pay you she said.

Perplexed, he asked her what she actually wanted done, oh just the weeds along the edges of the path she said.

She thought we were Council workers, and our Detectors were some new kind of silent weed whacker. 😖

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Watched a yootoob a couple of years ago posted on an Aussie prospecting forum of a bunch of half drunken prospectors at a camp shooting the crap out of anything that moved or didn't move. What a really good look to inspire confidence and trust in the prospecting community.

Read on another Aussie prospecting forum where one prospector was saying how when he and his mates go prospecting, if they see a cattle beast without ear marks or ear tags it's wild cattle and doesn't live long. This clown is a minelab dealer and I pray that's not the sort of info he advises his customers to follow.

In WA (rightly or wrongly)there's no shooting on crown land like in some states. There's no shooting on pastoral leases without a Pastoral letter. There's definitely no shooting on mining company ground. Half our cattle are wild and don't have ear marks or ear tags until such times as we manage to catch them in a muster.

Unfortunately there seems to be a bit of a mentality with many that because you have a $25 miners right, and because you are in the WA outback and it's huge you can go where you please and do as you please.

So confrontations will always be inevitable.

 

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35 minutes ago, madtuna said:

Unfortunately there seems to be a bit of a mentality with many that because you have a $25 miners right, and because you are in the WA outback and it's huge you can go where you please and do as you please.

Madtuna, i thought it would've been the go to pull into the property homestead first.. even if you have a 'golden ticket' to prospect.. it's sad to think that this isn't the norm anymore.. 

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12 hours ago, Erik Oostra said:

Madtuna, i thought it would've been the go to pull into the property homestead first.. even if you have a 'golden ticket' to prospect.. it's sad to think that this isn't the norm anymore.. 

You would think so, under their miners right they are supposed to do thier best to contact the pastoralist, but they rarely do. With the 40E permit they are supposed to send a copy to us, but they rarely do.

What is really disheartening is when forum members who know what they are supposed to do and all profess to do the right thing, travel 3000+ klms across the country yet can't travel an extra 30klms to let me know they're here. Not even an email or a phone call. Yet my name, phone number, email and every detail down to what socks I have on is plastered on the same forums they inhabit.

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I don't prospect, but when detecting, I generally like to keep a very low profile whenever possible.

I have not been harassed too much on the beach (mostly by intoxicated yahoos, try to keep beach hunts to the very early morning hours to avoid this and crowds, in general) and in public places where detecting is allowed.  Have had some folks get mixed up on their property lines and call us on it, but we use tracking apps that clearly show the property lines of our permissions and can prove in the field that we are on the right side of our lines.

Now I know my hunting buddies would harass me to no end if I was caught using "whilst" instead of "while"  when conversing with them, so I tend to suppress my impulse to use literary language when out detecting with them. (Just poking a bit o fun, Erik, keep those story vignettes coming, you know two peoples separated by a common language and all that, no one here but us crude yanks :biggrin:).

18 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

I do of course collect all the trash I find and as a rule that is when I try to be visible - I make a great production of taking it to a trash bin and emptying out so people can see I am cleaning the beach. The rare times I get asked I usually laugh and tell people I clean up trash and get paid pennies to do it!

I always keep some previously found trash in my pouch even when starting out so I can produce it in the off chance I get questioned at the beginning of my hunt in a public place and I feign disappointment in my lack of detecting skill as a detecting "newbie" - it demonstrates I do remove the junk to whoever is posing the question, and puts the thought that I might be carrying treasure somewhat out if their mind if they have more nefarious goals.  A bit sneaky, but effective.

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I am the one to give grief to some of my fellow beach hunters.  I sometimes come upon them or they come upon me and they 'jump' my detecting pattern or grid.  That is my first 'beef' with them and I'll sometimes get over that one and have a bit of a chat.  I won't chat the guy who isn't filling his holes.  My blood begins to boil and by the time I catch up to them or they get to me I'm in fight mode.  I know I should be more calm and explain but I sometimes walk around them and yell 'fill your holes' whether it is day or night.  I ask if they would be hurt if they stepped in some of their own holes.  I know I would be.  There is a popular deep scoop now that leaves a crater and a jogger or old person with bad limbs or eyesight could fall and ruin the hobby for all of us.

I use to take the attitude that an open hole with dirt around it was easier to spot than a soft hole.  This was until one day many years ago an old lady took me to task on a great patch I was working.  She told me there were so many holes she couldn't walk across my diggings and she was right.  That changed me FOREVER.

Think about your kid or mother stepping in the hole you leave ... even prospecting.

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25 minutes ago, mn90403 said:

I won't chat the guy who isn't filling his holes. 

mn90403, it thankfully hasn't come to that yet.. my only 'competitor' on the island usually sticks to his own bay and leaves all the others to me.. my main gripe with him is that he just won't fill his holes.. the first time i broached this sore point with him i told him i knew there was another coin-shooter on the beach because of the long line of deep holes he left.. he had a good laugh and said the high tide would fill them up again.. in my mind he's sorta right and wrong.. on our steep narrow beaches the high tide does refill any holes.. but what about in the meantime? like you say, he's not the only one on the beach.. anyway that's my little moan, just glad he's the only one to deal with here..  

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Oh, I was going to edit my post but I'll put it up here.  

When I come across someone who has not filled their holes I feel like someone is going to 'accuse me' of it so I have to fill THEIR holes which can slow me down if that is what it is about.  As far as I can tell the only good personal reason why someone would not want to fill their holes is so they can get on to the next target.  That is pretty selfish.

It is also one of the reasons I hunt like Steve.  I go in the middle of the night or at other times when people and prospectors are not around.

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Hi Mitchel, I just imagine my kids when they were little, running around the beach with no thought to where they were going…why should they, they were kids. I always do my best to fill my holes. Someone else's kids may be playing nearby.

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