I took a few days off earlier this week to go camping and try some magnet fishing. Here is how it turned out.

A few weeks ago, I decided I needed to go camping just to get away from everything that is going on in the world. Getting off the grid for a few days was amazing. I spent a couple of weeks prepping for the trip and bought a new tent and a few other items. Somehow, I ended up going down a YouTube rabbit hole and came across something called magnet fishing and decided to give it a try.

For those that don't know, magnet fishing is pretty simple. You take a big ass magnet, tie it to a rope, and launch it into high traffic areas of rivers and lakes. The goal is to fish out metal objects that have been dropped by others. Fishing docks are filled with lost lures, weights, and other tackle and equipment. Other great spots are rivers where people go kayaking and tubing. We've all been on a trip down the river and lost or had a friend lose different items along the way and magnet fishing is a great way to recover items lost by groups like that.

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I spent several hours magnet fishing up and down the Rifle River at Big Bend Campground. Honestly, for the first time out it was very frustrating. I quickly learned that the magnet I bought wasn't as powerful as I needed it to be. I hooked on to a lot of metal in the river but just wasn't able to get a strong enough connection to get it out. After about 5 hours, the only thing I was able to recover was one nail and one old rusty nut.

After a quick lunch and a few beers, I started up again and ended up meeting some of my camp neighbors along the way. As we talked they mentioned that they saw something in the river by their site, but couldn't figure out what it was. The best guess was a small boat trailer. I launched the magnet out there and we discovered that it was a little bit bigger than we thought. The item in question turned out to be an entire metal canopy with a canvas top and decorative lights still attached.

A few weeks earlier, that campground was almost completely flooded and the river was extremely high. That wasn't the strangest find either. My camp neighbors found a big generator in the river earlier that day. Even though it wasn't necessarily something I found with the magnet, I'm still marking it as a win from the first time magnet fishing. After that, we spend the better part of three hours digging that damn canopy out of the river.

Big thanks to Brendee, Randy, and Heather for helping me "find" and dig that someb*tch out of the river. Check out the pics below to see the journey. Also, if you are looking for a new hobby while camping, I highly recommend magnet fishing. Just don't buy a weak magnet like I did.

Magnet Fishing on the Rifle River

 

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