“Magnet fishing turns up everything from lost tackle to discarded firearms”
IF IT’S true that most anglers travel full circle in their fishing lives, that idea has taken a bizarre recent twist in my case. Or, at least, I’ve been playing a vastly up-scaled version of the magnetic fishing game I once enjoyed as a kid.
My dad still chuckles about the time we’d angle using magnets on the kitchen table, trying to catch various cut-outs attached to paperclips. When we hit the river, I even referred to maggots as “magnets”!
How strange that nearly 40 years later I find myself returning to this very concept, fishing with a giant magnet on a rope. It all came about from a chance meeting with fellow river walker Haiwen Xu. We’d been lamenting the amount of rubbish thrown into nearby waters, after she’d asked to borrow my landing net briefly to assist her on a litter pick.
Next thing, she suggested lending me some of her own equipment in the form of a magnet fishing set-up. Hence, the following week we met up for an afternoon’s “fishing” with a difference, searching for trash and, hopefully, treasure.
For the uninitiated, magnet fishing is surprisingly popular on urban waterways and turns up everything from lost tackle to discarded firearms! You’ll need a strong magnet, of course, and also permission from the water owner (and it is apparently banned on Canal & River Trust waters). This year alone, Haiwen has caught metalwork of countless kinds, and even a case of insulin.
I was also enthused to hear that she catches a few lost lures. Perhaps there was hope yet I could get my favourite Rapala plug back?
Assisted by my new friend’s daughter, Vivian, we quickly got to work to see what we could retrieve. The magnets quickly found their mark, bringing forth bits of wire, screws, bolts and weathered coins. The actual attractors themselves are impressively strong – and if you manage to stick to metal steps or a post it takes a fair old heave to free them! Depressingly, we filled a bin liner in no time at all, the net helping to reach random goods from lost footwear to dozens of empties. It goes without saying that regular doses of hand gel and gloves are recommended for this work!
Perhaps the biggest surprise for me was how tricky it can be to trap metal items. There’s certainly a special knack, which involves throwing the magnet as far as you can, before slowly dragging it back. Any slightly larger items tend to register a sudden tap, which I’m tempted to call a bite. “Hot spots” tend to be bridges, quaysides or any areas where human beings love to dump things.
While I’m not about to swap perch and bream for nails and drowned bicycles, it was a fascinating little session. The best I could catch was a lost spinner, but it was a good feeling to rid the river of a fair quantity of junk.