Topic: Missed opprotunity to recover lost lures using SI

[Piscivorous Pike]

OH RATS!! 
OH RATS!! Just like my last fantastic over the mountain game shot while deer hunting and not using the GPS to  verify my brag about the shot...

I did not use my 798I SI  to save the day, specifically recover the lost lures.  But here is an idea that should help.

I have recently started using fluorocarbon leaders on braid.  I have tried every type of connection, Japanese knot, Albrights, etc. to connect the flouro and still I keep having the flouro shatter at the junction from going through the rod guides.  I am not new to knots, I lay claim to one braid knot I invented and was published in 3-1995 by In-Fisherman and named for me but I have not solved this breakaway problem and invariably I have cast away several Rapalas.

I just figured out how to recover them, maybe at least sometimes.  I am going to bemoan that $6 for the season now.

I had my SI out for the first time and was fishing bass.  When the 6 feet of leader sailed away under tow of a perfectly good Husky Jerk I watch it hit and submerge in 12 feet of water by a subsurface tree.

HB new GPS is supposed to be the most accurate in units out there.  I should have hovered on the spot and marked it.  The SI has limited applicability here but location is important to recovery.

Once marked by visual references and GPS I could have picked up my 250# pull salvage magnet and dredged the bottom and branches there.  I bet I had a chance to recover my lucky lure.

You think?  Well, at least consider the method, I will try to use it next time.

[Jolly Roger]

I think the magnet works as long as the lure is made of / contains iron AND the magnet gets in contact with the lure. I used a sea-searcher magnet with a lift capacity of 64 KG on several occasions for fine searching for small objects after I located something in the sand with my metal detector. Worked pretty good to find small iron stuff.
I used it once to lift a "sunshade stand" on which my lucky blinker got caught. Turned out to be no sunshade stand at all 

[Piscivorous Pike]

Maybe not everyone will recognize that... but if I am correct the word association of BOOM! goes well with your buried treasure.  True?

anti-tank mine isn't it? vintage 40's?

[Jolly Roger]

Hi Pike,
yes, you're right. It was a German T 42 Anti Tank mine. It was the first of more than 30 AT mines that I discovered in that area. This one caught my blinker and I could see the mine from the boat, because the water was about two metres deep.
Since it was on a beach where people go swimming in summer time, I just couldn't believe that it's a mine I saw and suspected it as a sunshine stand or a mooring stone. I dropped the magnet on it, but couldn't get it out of the sand, so I used my boathook to get the initial lift and than hauled it up to the surface with the magnet. BIG surprise......
I went diving there on many occasions and the place was (and still is) contaminated with this stuff. It was dumped from the french army after WW II and came from a SS barrack in the town.
All the stuff I found was handed over or reported to State's EOD or the Coast Guard. Sometimes they didn't like any more  .
There were other models as well, the first one an American Anti Personal M3 and the second one a German T 35 Stahl ("Steel").

[Humminbird_Greg]

Are those still 'active'?

[Jolly Roger]

Yes and No Greg,
these particular ones were active in the way that the explosives used in the mines (poured TNT in the ATs and flaked TNT in M3s) was still capable to explode if set off with the right fuse respectively right energy.
They were" inactive" in the way that they weren't fused. The fuses were laying spread all over the beach in the water.

One British Mark 4 was different. That one was fused and the safety pin nearly rotten away. I left it untouched in place and told EOD about my estimate. They didn't believe me until one of them pulled it up to the surface only to throw it back into the water as he realized that I was right.

Another time I found a German "Riegelmine 43" and we screwed up completely on that one. This mine is always fused due to the way it's constructed. The fuses used in it are Zugzuender 43. I found more than 50 of these fuses and NONE of them had the safety pin intact.
We decided to blow it place and attached 500 gramm of PETN explosive to it to set it off.
As we fired the charge we were all disappointed, because we expected a water column of at least 30 or 40 metres height. All what happened was that a bubble appeared on the surface.
Later we discovered that we have blown up practice version of this mine and I wanted to break in tears, because we destroyed 1000 $ of collector's worth.

But what the heck? Better save than sorry.....