"still leary about digging on a school field tho." Why are you leary? Were you planning on leaving open holes? Planning on leaving evidence of your presence?
And if it's a matter of the "temporary evil process" of digging the target that makes you skittish, then welcome to the harsh cruel world of metal detecting
Because there is just no way to get around this (unless you intend to only go for surface targets *just* under the blades of the grass). Simply put: No matter how you slice it, in this hobby, you're going to have to get the targets out. And simply put: there is NO municipal or county entity, who will tell you "
sure, go ahead and dig in the park"
They ALL have verbage to disallow things like "alterations" "vandalism" "destruction" and so forth, right? (pre-dating metal detecting, btw). But THINK of it: all such words indicate an
END result, do they not? So if you leave
no trace of your presence (cover, stomp, ruffle, etc... your spot), then presto: you have not "altered" "vandalized" or "destructed" anything, now have you?
And sure, let's face it: some busy-body lookie-lous will make an automatic connotation, merely seeing a man with a detector, or seeing you with a screwdriver probe, etc... Thus this hobby, unfortunately, is a little like nose-picking: you have to use a little discretion. Avoid those busy bodies
to begin with, and no one cares. Go at low traffic times, and don't start any deeper retrieval with lookie-lous watching, etc... I hunt parks, schools, etc.... all the time, and don't have a problem. But then again, I don't wear a big red target on me by going when the maintenance/mowing crews are there for that day, don't go in the middle of little-league game, don't go waltzing over people's beach blankets in the middle of archie conventions, etc....
