California Drought - Any stories from dried up lakes, etc.

certman68

Full Member
Aug 10, 2015
104
64
Florida Gulf Coast
Detector(s) used
CZ-21
Primary Interest:
Beach & Shallow Water Hunting
Has anyone heard any stories of people detecting the now dried up lakes in California?

Figured it wou'd be a bonanza but haven't seen any stories.

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No...Probably to busy playing Fallout Shelter.
 

a few guys have been posting but they are land hunters and posting on other forums since they are hitting what is now dry land
 

the lakes in the part of CA that I'm at, are "boom and bust" cycles to begin with. So this isn't the first time they'd dried up. I mean, this one may be worse than prior ones (water levels a tad lower than previous droughts) But there's been prior droughts, in the preceding decades, to the point where you can walk out on dry land, where it was previously swimming areas. So in the sense of revealing prior swim zones, this is "nothing new".

Because when you think of it: People tend to swim fairly adjacent /close to shores, eh ? (like to wade, splash, etc...) No one tends to go out swimming to the MIDDLE of lakes (assuming big lakes, that is). And to the extent they might (water skiers, for instance), it's not the concentrated "swimming" that is normally associated with the zone right next to the dedicated "swim area" that is set aside. They often have buoy marked "swim" areas that you're not allowed to fish in (so that fish hooks don't poke swimmers feet), or motorized boats in. Those denser packed swim areas are the places that you'd expect the rings in. And those zones have been revealed over and over.

Hence in that sense, this is nothing new.

A few reservoirs in CA have now gotten low enough to reveal old foundations and such of yesteryear structures/burgs. At one such spot (which had been a stage stop) I got a seated half dime, and my buddy got an early IH. Plus misc. age indicators.

So this is why you haven't heard much posts on this from CA: This is "old news" in-so-far as boom & bust cycles have always gone here. Perhaps in mid-west states (where the water table barely fluctuates up and down a foot or two), to have a "dried up lake" would be a bonanza. But for here, there were guys already doing this in the 1970's drought, then again in the late '80s drought, then again in the '90s drought, and so forth.
 

Excellent perspective. Thanks for the education. We hear so much about it on the news I didn't realize that it's cyclical with varying degrees of severity.

the lakes in the part of CA that I'm at, are "boom and bust" cycles to begin with. So this isn't the first time they'd dried up. I mean, this one may be worse than prior ones (water levels a tad lower than previous droughts) But there's been prior droughts, in the preceding decades, to the point where you can walk out on dry land, where it was previously swimming areas. So in the sense of revealing prior swim zones, this is "nothing new".

Because when you think of it: People tend to swim fairly adjacent /close to shores, eh ? (like to wade, splash, etc...) No one tends to go out swimming to the MIDDLE of lakes (assuming big lakes, that is). And to the extent they might (water skiers, for instance), it's not the concentrated "swimming" that is normally associated with the zone right next to the dedicated "swim area" that is set aside. They often have buoy marked "swim" areas that you're not allowed to fish in (so that fish hooks don't poke swimmers feet), or motorized boats in. Those denser packed swim areas are the places that you'd expect the rings in. And those zones have been revealed over and over.

Hence in that sense, this is nothing new.

A few reservoirs in CA have now gotten low enough to reveal old foundations and such of yesteryear structures/burgs. At one such spot (which had been a stage stop) I got a seated half dime, and my buddy got an early IH. Plus misc. age indicators.

So this is why you haven't heard much posts on this from CA: This is "old news" in-so-far as boom & bust cycles have always gone here. Perhaps in mid-west states (where the water table barely fluctuates up and down a foot or two), to have a "dried up lake" would be a bonanza. But for here, there were guys already doing this in the 1970's drought, then again in the late '80s drought, then again in the '90s drought, and so forth.
 

Of the four or five beaches I detect the water is not low. Also what most people that don't live realize is that it for the most part it stops raining here at the end of April and don't start again until maybe Sep-Oct.
 

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