Uncategorized Category | Page 367 of 584 | The Ring Finders

After receiving an email about a lost wedding ring I immediately contacted Curtis R. and got the scoop as to how he lost his unique Tungsten Carbide wedding ring. He was swimming at Pleasant Lake with his wife Chelsey and his children he was standing in water 2 t0 3 feet deep and shook his hands up and down and shortly after that noticed his size 13 wedding ring was missing. It is a unique ring because it had a Hawaiian wood wrapped around the outside and it was the one he was married with so it was also special to him.

We made arrangements to meet at the lake the next day around 2 pm. I began the 100 mile trip to the lake without incident and met Curtis and his family and suited up for the search. He pointed out about a 50 by 25 foot swimming area he was in and I started my grid search. After one sweep N and S, I focus my search from the deeper end to the seawall. About 6 feet from the metal seawall I got a good signal and in the scoop was his ring.

Smiles and a yell « he found it » was made. after some pictures and a handshake I told him he was officially married again after a week. It was a PLEASANT experience finding his ring.

Beth call today, saying her husband, Ross, had lost his wedding ring on Sunday just days after they celebrated their 12th anniversary.  Ross and the kids had been swimming in the pond out back of his friends’ house when he noticed his ring was gone.  This 90 degree day was perfect for a hunt, so Gregg Larabel and I jumped into our cars and met Ross at the friends’ home.  We started where Ross said they had spent most of the time in the water.  Then his friend got home and told us he thought Ross might have lost it when he fell off the raft while playing with the kids.  That was in deeper water than where we had already searched, so we moved out to chin-deep water and searched some more.  We were just about ready to give up for the day when I made one last swing thru the deep water–and that’s when I got a good hard signal of 50 on my At-Pro.  It is not easy to scoop the bottom when you have to stretch to keep your chin out of the water, hoping not to drown!  So it took me a few tries, but the ring ended up in my scoop, leading to lots of smiles all around.  That warm feeling just never gets old.             

While relaxing on their friend’s boat dock Father’s Day weekend, Iowa resident Matt (last name) felt his titanium wedding ring slip off his finger. He watched helplessly as it landed on the wooden planks, bounced and then rolled through a large crack out of sight into the murky water beneath.

Matt and his friend, Jad, searched for a number of hours that evening, diving and sifting through the mud, weeds, stones and zebra shells, all to no avail. It had to be there under the dock, but try as they might, they couldn’t find it. Did a fish swallow it? Stranger things have happened.

I received a text from Matt the next morning. He and his wife were leaving to drive home to Iowa. Would I be willing to search for his ring?

After contacting Jad, I arranged a search early that afternoon. Once on location in the neck-deep water under the boat dock, I encountered a cacophony of signals. The lake bottom under and around the dock was full of metallic debris. Metal cans, fishing lures, bolts, nails, coins, bottle caps, pull tabs… But no ring! To make matters worse, the remains of old dock moorings, re-bar and metal pipes kept overwhelming the non-ferrous targets, making it almost impossible to discriminate the iron. Chad’s ring, being made of titanium, added another challenge; the unique metal can act in strange ways when other metal is present.

It was a small search area and so the only option was to systematically remove every metallic object under the dock. Eventually, using this strategy, Chad’s wedding ring found its way into my scoop and into the light of day! Mission accomplished once again. In Chad’s absence his friend, Jad, posed with the ring for posterity.

So glad to have found your ring, Matt! May its story continue for many years to come.

On June 15 I received a phone call from Illinois resident, Hugh Rider. He was adjusting a boat cover on his dock at his cottage on Delavan Lake, Wisconsin, when a bee stung his hand. Instinctively, he shook his arm away from the offending pest, only to see his gold wedding ring fly and bounce off the dock into the lake. It was like adding insult to injury—a bad dream in slow motion.

After a 45-minute drive, I arrived at the picturesque lake. The area has been a vacation destination since 1878. Today, cottages dot its shoreline. Hugh arrived shortly after I did and together, we made our way to the boat dock. Once in the neck-deep water I first encountered aquatic plants. Such plants can be problematic for a detectorist as the foliage wraps itself around the coil and stem. But it was the historical evidence of cottagers going back over 100 years that presented the bigger challenge. There were the remains of concrete moorings with reinforcing iron, pipes, chain, bolts, screws and cans. But somewhere amongst all the ferrous metal was a precious gold wedding band. It would require all of my 40-plus years of metal-detecting experience to decipher that signal amidst the ferrous “roar.”

After what seemed like a lot of trial and error, Hugh’s ring finally gave up its hiding place and appeared in my scoop! Mission accomplished!

Hugh was delighted, of course, to have his wedding band back on his hand. And his smile tells the rest of the story.

Engaged two years to the day and married last December 2019, Bangladeshi university student, Hasan Aziz, lost his gold wedding ring in the water at Big Foot Beach State Park on Lake Geneva. It happened June 21, 2020 while receiving a swimming lesson in chest-deep water.

The next morning, I received a text message from Hasan asking for help. We arranged to meet on location that evening. On arrival, I was met by an entourage of college friends, all eager to be part of the search experience. Donning my Excalibur SCUBA detector and a couple marker buoy’s I began a systematic grid search. Happily, it didn’t take long to locate Hasan’s precious ring. When we did, a chorus of cheers erupted from his friends on shore. Then after a fun photo session, it was mission accomplished once again. Hasan’s smile tells the rest of the story.