My 1st encounter w a park ranger..

NightHawk

Last night I had my first run-in with a park ranger. I went to a park that until lately, as far as we knew, was off limits to detecting.

However, last week while doing some research on park regulations I found out that this particular park was open to detecting after all.
The state of Oregon has a web site listing ALL state parks that are open to detecting WITHOUT a permit.

So anyway I get off work, head up there and start searching. I'd been there for about an hour when I see the park ranger pull up. He walks over and says " I'm sorry but but detecting is not allowed in this park" (I must add he was VERY nice about it) I informed him that the state's own website list this park as OPEN to detecting.

He smiles and says "well to bad we don't have a computer here to check on that"

I smiled back and pulled out a screen shot I'd printed of the entire web page, listing all the parks open to us INCLUDING the one we were standing in.

He was totally confused, he told me his boss had commented just a few weeks ago that detecting was off limits here. I even offered to stop for the night and leave if he thought it would cause problems but he said no, it says it's ok so go ahead and keep looking.
I then told him he could keep the printout to show his boss if he liked which surprised the heck out of him (he even said "Gosh, really?) I haven't heard anyone use "gosh" is a sentence in well.... never...lol

Overall I have to give Mike credit for being very professional and polite, it went MUCH better then I thought my first run-in would.

If I hadn't of taken that printout with me I probably would have been SOL and would have had to quit.


The total take for the night wasn't that great but I did have some 1st.

1 Quarter
5 nickels (1 Canadian, my first foreign coin)
4 Dimes
13 Cents
1 Cub Scout Wolf Neckerchief slide (1st one for me)
1 Webelos Scout Neckerchief slide (Another first for me)

mr3holesinone

Great job on doing your research and having the smarts to have the documentation with you.

kiyote

Awesome! I'm in California so that's really exciting to know--- most parks around here don't mention it anywhere at all. No mention of bans, just no mention. It's like, "Hey, no one said I can't bring my pet alligator to SAMs club."

ricko

Nice work... being prepared is the way to go... Cheers, RickO

Meltdown

Where in Oregon are you hunting?

Edited to add: I'm in Portland and recently purchased a Garrett 250 at a yard sale. - Haven't taken it out yet other than my backyard.
I'm excited to get started!

NightHawk

<< <i>Where in Oregon are you hunting?

>>



I live in Springfield, haven't hunted to far out of the Eugene/Springfield area yet but I hope to soon

I've got my eye on some beaches on the coast.

Meltdown

Cool. I lived there for about 5 years before moving up north to Portland.
I have plans to hit the beach myself. That sounds like easy digging and lots of potential.

MICHAELDIXON

I'm proud of you for not putting the smack down on him!