Magnet fishing

It is difficult to be an expert in all areas of magnets, so we have teamed up with Mathias Lassen, who knows a lot about magnet fishing, and he has written this for our magnet fishing FAQ.

The boy's dream of a metal detector

Since I was very small, I have had a treasure hunter hidden in my stomach, but I did not feel that I had the money for a metal detector. Fortunately, in 2013 I read about someone who had caught a hand grenade while magnet fishing in the lakes in Copenhagen.

I was sold!
I had to try it!

Today , 4 years later, magnet fishing has become one of my great hobbies, which I share with a lot of other passionate people at Magnetfishing.net.

What is magnet fishing?

Now you may be asking what magnet fishing is... Don't worry: we are not fishing for magnetic fish. Instead, it is magnetic treasures that people have lost or thrown into the water. And all you need is a relatively strong magnet, which you tie to a rope, and then you just fish loosely for the lake's hidden treasures. 

Which magnets are good for magnet fishing?

I have been magnet fishing in many places over the last 4 years. And I have tried many different magnets. I started with a Ø40 etc. hook magnet, which can hold 55 kg.: a very nice, small magnet, with which I have also caught quite a few different things, including hammers, knives and a single cash box. The only problem was that when I fished with the magnet, the magnet did catch a lot of things in the water, but as soon as I started pulling the line, the magnet dropped the treasure again.

I made up my mind. therefore because now something stronger was needed. So I bought 3 pcs. Ø60 mm. pot magnets that can carry 115 kg. each, at Magnetz. I then bought bolts, nuts, lifting eyes and some very strong parachute line online. And the last shopping place was IKEA, where I bought a frying pan. When I had got all the parts home, I made a so-called "magnet rig" - a kind of platform for the magnets. In the picture below you can see the bottom of the frying pan after installing the magnets:

Where can you fish with magnets?

When my magnet rig was ready, I rushed with another magnet fisherman to a lake to test it. We found a bridge where people often pass by, and so we hoped that some of them had dropped a lot of interesting metal things. Already in the first throw I could feel something heavy down there. Fortunately, I now had 3 very strong magnets, so I could fish better without losing things again. I raised the heavy treasure to the surface; it was a very old shopping cart. Not the world's most exciting catch, so I put the shopping cart next to a trash can and continued my treasure hunt.

I again threw out my magnet rig: WIN!

Apparently, there had been a lot of jewelry under the shopping cart, and now that the shopping cart was lifted away, we could easily catch the jewelry. Here are some of the pieces of jewelry we captured:

A lot of chains and a large earring were stuck on one of the 3 magnets. The earring had a lot of diamond-like stones in it, and it looked like they were held together by copper.

And then one piece of jewelry looks like gold with a lot of small stones in it.

It's most likely just some cheap trinkets as they stick to the magnet, but it's always exciting to see what you catch and I'm building a large collection of exciting catches from my magnet fishing - catches that I want have checked with a jeweler one day.