Kicked off public land ? (Coin hunting)

Hi all!
Just wondering if anyone has ever been asked to leave a public place, around a foot ball oval, not on it?
For metal detecting? As far as I’m aware your aloud to? The person who said I can’t detect there was a foot ball club blah blah, he reasons that kids will trip over little divets that I leave in the ground and than the club will be responsible for it. What a load of rubbish, they play foot ball for crying out loud! They tackle each other and get hurt and yet they cry over a little divet. But they don’t cry over the pot holes in the drive way? Anyway they took a photo of my rego and said they are gonna report it to the Ballarat council. Should I be worried about this?

I want to keep the peace but also want to protect my rights to be able to detect !

Cheers, Caleb

It is Public land and is for public recreational use. You have as much right to be there as anybody else. If the footy club owned or was leasing the land and were responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of the grounds then that would be a different story. Upkeep of public land is paid for from our taxes.
He has no authority to ask you to leave just because you are swinging a metal detector. Suggesting that kids will/could trip over the plugs sounds a bit irrational Greenish to me.

Every man and his dog who uses that field hack it to death, and especially with sprigged foot boots, Then of course there are the golfers who use the oval to practice their swing on. They dig larger divots than a responsible metal detectorist.

If you are using the correct target recovery methods then nobody should be able to see where you have been. If you are leaving visible holes in the ground then ya better cease and desist said practice.

Reasonable request if you are digging on the actual field. Bit of an unwritten rule to just stay the other side of the boundary fence.

Detecting is one thing, but when you're digging up public land is another matter altogether. You need to be detecting when there's nobody around, that way you are not attracting attention.
A lot of people see this as misusing public land by you digging it up regardless of how good you are at hiding your holes.

Nothing to worry about , as mentioned it’s public land ......

Sounds like a bit over zealous local

Most of the council workers attending to sports fields & groundsmen , in the Goldfields region are all worded up after a guy with a detector in Maryborough , about 6 years ago , dug 40 holds on the actual oval ...!!

Yeah I wouldn’t dig on the oval that’s just disrespectful and probably a bad look for the hobby. But I wasn’t on the oval at all! I was out side the boundary fence where people sit and watch ect.
But I’m just wondering how I can legally show a person I’m allowed to do it there or any public spot for that matter? Like in writing. So I can just pull out my phone and show the guy who is all butt hurt and than watch him walk off with his shriveled up raisin ego. Lols
P.s. iv had more trouble with football club people than anyone else in my life. Growing up in a small town, if you were not part of the footy club, you would get blamed for the vandalism in that town by those football kids, when in fact they were the trouble makers themselves. I laugh now though, a lot of them are no hopers now and some are in jail or messed up from drugs, just the way i predicted they would turn out. . . . Anyway back on track, I guess I’ll have to get up at 6am to hit these spots than if I don’t want to argue with sooks. I also found my first florin from that spot today .

its much better to detect public area's when people are not using them.
best times early morning or late at night work for me here.
having said that public land is just that and im a taxpayer as well so within my rights to be on it.
i never use a shovel in or around parks or sports grounds,after pin pointing a target i use a small pointed miners pick to prise out anything i find.
too many unfilled holes being left by other's out looking which spoils it a bit........cheers Mark

I have been coin hunting parks, ovals and beaches and such for many years and never really had any issues apart from the occasional person who has enquired if I was looking for nuggets or if I was looking for mines to which my usual reply is that if you see me running away then you know I have found one, , occasionally a parks and gardens worker might come over and ask you to watch out for sprinklers when digging.

Detecting parks and grassed areas is where you have to be careful not to leave obvious signs of your activity or you will get possibly get challenged, but even if you do as I have been in the past you can just demonstrate your technique to them and they can see you are not doing any serious damage and they will leave you alone, the best way is to use a coin probe, which can be a screwdriver with a ground pointed end which is ok for decimal coins as it can scratch them, but if hunting older areas I use a brass probe with a rounded end as its less likely to scratch an older pre decimal coin that could be valuable, there's a bit of a technique involved in using the probe to minimise the damage to the turf, so have a look on you tube and you will find people demonstrating it.

While working an oval once I spotted another bloke over the other side of it stroll out with a detector in one hand and a prospecting pick in the other, on finding a target he started to whale into the turf with the pick opening up a big hole, on seeing this I decided to leave as I didn't want to cop the blame for it, obviously its common sense to try and minimise the effect on the grass so that anybody in authority that sees what you are doing has no reason to try and stop you, or use it as evidence to try and pass laws to ban the activity.

cheers

au-fever

The best people to contact is the local council. Most public land is controlled by them. Find out if the area that you want to detect on is either under the control of the local football club or under council. This way you know the best way to handle it. Public land is controlled by someone. If it is under the football clubs control they may have the right to kick you of. But if it is council that a different kettle of fish. You will have to find out there rulings otherwise you may be breaking their bye laws.

wombat

In 58 years of detecting I have detected a lot of school grounds, parks and Football grounds and beaches etc.
     I have been asked to leave just one school ground by the caretaker and denied entry to a school ground by a teacher who was working that weekend. I did not argue the point with either of them. There are plenty of other places to detect.
     And as Wombat suggested. You could contact your local Parks and gardens Dept or the Council and ask them nicely  to give you a written permission to detect certain areas.

Adrian FYI school grounds aren't considered public places.
You need permission to be on them & you can be charged with trespass without permission.
To detect around sportsgrounds, public parks etc. you need to check with the Local Council. I know of some councils in NSW that have bylaws prohibiting/restricting detecting or prohibiting/restricting detecting in certain areas.
For example Lake Macquarie Council prohibits detecting in its parks & garden areas but ok on lake beaches. Lithgow Council has prohibited digging in its parks & gardens basically prohibiting detecting. Heard recently that Bathurst Council has taken the same path?

https://www.lithgowmercury.com.au/story/2312337/scan-but-dont-go-dig-in-queen-elizabeth-park/

I should say there was no one using the football oval 9or around it at the time. Some guy just pulled up , ran his mouth , took a photo of my rego and than drove off again.

mbasko wrote:Adrian FYI school grounds aren't considered public places.
You need permission to be on them & you can be charged with trespass without permission.
To detect around sportsgrounds, public parks etc. you need to check with the Local Council. I know of some councils in NSW that have bylaws prohibiting/restricting detecting or prohibiting/restricting detecting in certain areas.
For example Lake Macquarie Council prohibits detecting in its parks & garden areas but ok on lake beaches. Lithgow Council has prohibited digging in its parks & gardens basically prohibiting detecting. Heard recently that Bathurst Council has taken the same path?

https://www.lithgowmercury.com.au/story/2312337/scan-but-dont-go-dig-in-queen-elizabeth-park/

Public schools and their surrounds are owned by the Australian tax payer. It is our taxes that pay for the construction and maintenance of these places. The caretakers are payd from our taxes.
However if I was a school caretaker and I spotted somebody digging holes in my garden bed or or nice lawn areas I would likely get a bit miffed and tell them to b...er off.....n then I would go fetch my own tecta and find out what said somebody was looking for.

I think it is a matter of using a bit of common sense and if you constantly feel as though you have to keep an eye out for somebody who may pounce on you, then it is likely that you should not be there.....Why else would you be feeling guilty?

In Canberra, public school ovals are out of bounds to the public during school hours but are freely available for public use on weekends and school holiday periods.
Anyway, as I indicated; I have had almost zero probs during my detecting days,so I have no real worthwhile complaints.......Some clown took a pot shot at me once and another dipstick wanted to take my tecta off me at the beach one day.

My bad Adrian - thought you were in NSW for some reason. South Coast beaches probably?
Anyhow it's bullshit but public land never seems to ever be truly that.

Someone took a pot shot at you?? Wtf???

Yeah, a long time ago just a few clicks out of Wedderburn. Didn't see who it was but the slug whacked into a tree a few feet away.