Stuff you find
 

I like to gather the stuff I find while out fishing - things hanging in trees, floating on a bunch of lily pads or hung up in a moss tangle - so long as getting to them doesn't appear it will result in a bath! It's mostly bait fishing around here so any flies I'm likely to find were probably mine to start with! Lots of bobbers of course, and now and then a cool lure. The bobbers and such get tossed in an old minnow trap; old fishing gear makes a nice still life on a family room bookcase. The lures etc. get hung on an old chain fish stringer in the study.

https://i.imgur.com/BkRkd02l.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/8kJi4ptl.jpg

The other day my line got caught on a moss-covered length of rope, and when I pulled it up there was this magnet attached; guess somebody was fishing for something other than fish! It's a pretty strong one; I'm sure it will come in handy for something...

https://i.imgur.com/4GOrfs6l.jpg

Neat stuff, Phil. Artifacts of...? Another story herein.:bigbye:

I am a packrat also. One time, after a day of taking my gun for a walk, I came home with the front fender off a '35 Ford. The following year, I found the front bumper. Sadly, I don't think I'll live long enough to find much more of it.

I don't seem to find much. except for one day while grouse hunting. I was keeping my eye and ear on the dogs as I thought they were working a bird when my feet got tangled in something. Cursing, I looked down to see what was causing me grief to find I was tripping on a gun. To be more precise, 7 of them. I reported it to the police and it turns out they were stolen from a hunting camp some years earlier.

That's a funny story and I love that line "taking my gun for a walk" and will certainly use it in the future.

I have a tackle box full of lures picked up on the shore off of Stoney Point on lake Ontario, had to put new hooks on them but they catch fish!

Dave and Danny Suponski and I were hunting one of my favorite covers in the Vermont hills in a section that was logged over about sixty or so years earlier.
Dave found this badly rusted peavey sticking out of an old rotted stump, handle having long ago rotted away.

It now hangs on the wall in camp.


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I found these hand forged Leg Irons in the Chiricahua mountains in 1978 along with a Winchester stock that was just barely visible due to sediment laying beside it. This is in the heart of the Apache country. I wish I would have taken a shovel with me and Dug around. I thought later that the metal being heavier probably went down while the wood had ridden up. I know approximately where I found these and have thought many times about taking a metal detector up in the area and looking around. It’s on National Forest so I don’t know how legal this is.
I gave the stock to Dr Findlay E Russel whom I was working for in Portal AZ at the time. He wanted the Leg irons but I kept them I probably should have gave them to him.
It wasn’t until years later this quite Dr I had worked for was a WWll medic that received a Purple Heart and 2 bronze stars.

many years ago, I was grouse hunting an long unused farm in PA's Endless Mountain area - going through a second growth area I came across a peavey head just like that. Since I was just starting the hunt and did not want to carry it for a couple hours - I hung it in a tree in plain sight so I could pick it up on the way out :rotf::rotf::rotf:

after wandering around, on my way out I could not find it - could still be there for all I know.

All these stories remind me of Ted Lundrigan's The Watch, still one of my all-time favorites.

When I was boy tramping through all the woods, up and down streams and creeks, and traversing swamps in search of game rich country I would often find the remains of old corn liquor stills. Most were destroyed by the sheriff's deputies with pick axes, but I would occasionally happen by one in working order. One day while squirrel hunting in new territory I found three on the same branch, undamaged. I often wondered if the owners hadn't heard that Hillis kid coming and slinked off and watched me pause for a look, then pass on by. Some of them used a "shotgun" condenser, crafted of soldered copper. Those were works of art.

There's still a very few, well hidden deep in isolated stream bottoms, but it's not the big business it was when I was a boy.

This thread reminded me of a couple of guns my dad found in the Sierra Nevada mountains in the 1950's. The revolver was found in the wye of a tree. The tree had grown around it and the gun needed to be cut out of the tree. The muzzleloader was found still fairly complete. I refinished the wood and polished the brass. Once refinished, I noticed the notches near the butt of the gun. I have always wondered what they might represent?

the notches would make a great storey if we knew what they mint.....what happened to the trigger in the pistol...this pistol looks like a smith and Wesson 38 special or a old 32-20........interesting stuff...the only guns I ever found was a coupla single barrel 12 ga I fixed the old guns up and traded them off thru the years......charlie

Cant hook from the river in front of my cabin, Probably 120 years old. Free to anyone who wants to come and get it. I ain't shipping it!

Not a cant hook. It is a peavy.

Touche! You're right

Peavey is spoken for. That's what happens when you let Dave Tatman "Kentucky Bird Hunter" move in a half mile from you

Moonshine stills are all over the woods where I hunt. Like Stan says, most have ax marks in them.

Phil, that harbor magnet is a nice one! They're made for fetching tools you drop overboard. I have one way bigger that I use to find dropped nuts, bolts, nails, screws and washers and such when working on things in the tall grass around my house. I could crawl under a car much easier with yours than with mine.

Many years ago my wife's grandfather and his brother were tearing down a log cabin somewhere near Redding California and found this colt pocket navy pistol in its holster. I bought it from my wife's aunt when she had it for sale at there yard sale about 40 years ago.