Ok, I have had the same issue. Basically I was told by a park employee I could not metal detect. I packed up and left to gather more information. So I drove back by the same park and low and behold someone else was metal detecting. Instead of confronting the situation I decided to go home and write a letter to the parks commission. The later responded to my letter saying metal detecting is authorized on park grounds with one exception no digging. Basically just bring a screwdriver to pluck your hit out without digging a plug. The Park commissioner was very polite and also stated he metal detects and understands the frustration. Due to other detectorists not respecting the detectorist bible by destroying sprinklers and tearing up lawns without making it better. This hurt other detctorists. bottom line is to contact your parks and recreation people. They will provide you the necessary information legally.
Master Chief, can I comment on this encounter, and the resulting lesson you drew from it ?
a) Whenever someone in a parks dept. says "because of holes", or "because of destruction of sprinklers", it's only natural for us md'rs to think to ourselves: "durned those md'rs who must've left holes or destroyed sprinklers". Right ? But hold on. Not so fast. I'm not so convinced that there ever was, necessarily, incidents of holes, damage, etc... that causes the desk-jockey to answer in that way. It may simply be, that this is just the knee-jerk mental image of ANY desk-jockey tasked with thinking of "metal detecting". It is the connotation and image of metal detecting afterall. Right ? So if they say "no because of holes", or "yes but you can't dig", don't be so quick to assume that .... therefore .... "someone must've left holes in the past".
b) That's great that you now "have permission" to detect, but can only probe for shallow stuff. Wonderful. But ... seriously now .... what are you going to do, if deeper silver/oldies are your goal ? Walk away from them ? I dunno about you, but shallow clad doesn't excite me. And if I start a hole with nothing but a screwdriver, and continue to hear the signal "a bit further down in my slit", then odds are, I'm going to keep going. And eventually, you're going to end up making a bigger mess "with nothing but the screwdriver", than you would have if you'd simply cut the plug.
c) Nice that you got a "Yes" (albeit only for surface clad). And because of this, you conclude that the moral of that story is, that we should ".
... contact your parks and recreation people. " [for clarifications, rules, permission, or whatever]. And likewise, had the person said "no you can't", then odds are, your conclusion would have been the same:
"See it's a good thing I asked. Otherwise, how was I to have known I can't be doing that, and ... .thus.... could have been arrested!" So you see then, that whether the answer was "yes" or "no", it's easy to conclude that "gee, it's a good thing I asked". I've never quite understood that train of thought. Because, seriously now, did you really think you'd get an answer like this from someone in authority:
"Gee, that's a silly question. Why are you asking me? You don't need my permission if it's not specifically prohibited" No. Of course not. They will either bestow on your their princely yes, or their princely no. Afterall, you asked. And that merely implies their permission or sanction was needed (lest why else would you be asking them, if it didn't need their say-so ?).
I'm betting any park in the entire USA (yes, where md'rs have, gasp, dug) you can find the same exact answer. I mean, seriously now, do you really think any park personell is going to say "sure, you can dig?". Sometimes you got to just avoid that one individual in the future. Sorry to say.
