Uncategorized Category | Page 483 of 598 | The Ring Finders

I got a call from my RingFinder partner, Dave Boyer, to help find a wedding band that Ryan S. lost in Lake Michigan. I jumped at the challenge until I got to North Point Park, Michigan. We walked a 1/4 mile to the dunes, up another 200 feet of beach sand and then down the other side of the dune about 400 feet to the water (cardio). After catching our breath from the climb up and down to the water, with our equipment, we got to work. The lake was very calm that day but very rocky bottom. Ryan explained that he was about waist deep and dove forward into deeper water and swam under water. When he dove under his ring came off, so the logical thing to do was grid search about 3 feet to 5 feet. We were in the water well over an hour and I just wore my swim suit and a shirt. I was getting very cold so decided to call it a day. We got several signals and found to dig any of them our steel scoops barely made a dent in the rocky bottom. Coming up with a few nails we decided to pack up and climb back up the hill. Instead of climbing back up the dune we saw 100 steps up to a cottage so up we went (cardio again). We discovered, that once we got up to the top we had to walk 1/2 mile to our car. Day 2 I contacted anther RingFinder partner Ryan Cole to help search the water again but this time I wore my wet suit and asked Ryan to bring his snorkel and mask. The water although rocky was crystal clear and calm. We repeated our steps from the day before (cardio again) and got to the water and started our search. I forgot to mention that the lake bottom was littered with hot rocks so there were false signals all over.  I started deep again and Ryan went shallow using his mask from time to time. We were in the water about 45 minutes when the ring was found among different signals in knee deep water. Ryan S. became a very happy man  once again and after rejoicing awhile we looked up at the sand dune and began to climb up (cardio again) and back to the car. I forgot to mention that this was the second time this year Ryan S. lost his ring it was found up North in another lake by another RingFinder, C. Raison.

Dillon lost his Damascus wedding band while playing in the back yard with his dog. The next day, I showed him how to use my Garrett GTA 350 detector and I used my Teknetics T2. He actually found the ring himself in a few minutes. I have had this happen before. Searching as a team can save time because the ring owner knows were to look. Dillon was not only pleased with having his ring back. He also enjoyed the pleasure of metal detecting.

Another Ringfinders successful recovery
Paul J Miederhoff
theringfinders.com

Jumping off boat docks runs a very high risk of removing rings from one’s fingers. I mean one moment the ring is there snug and happy on your finger and the next thing you know, slurp, the lake monster sucks it off and swallows it whole. It’s not fair!

There ought to be warning signs posted on piers to warn would-be-jumpers about this potential hazard. Maybe such signage would have prevented Milwaukee resident, Juan Garcia, from jumping and losing his beautifully crafted 14K white-gold wedding band to the ring-slurping, ring-swallowing monster of Lake Beulah, near Mukwonago, WI.

Juan contacted me the other day to inquire if I might search for his ring. The nature of the search required that no discrimination be used on my Minelab Excalibur detector and so I was prepared for the usual accumulation of ferrous metal that tends to accumulate around boat docks like flies on a carcass. We are talking steel washers, screws, nails, bolts, wire, tools, etc. And I was not disappointed. Eventually, however, Juan’s ring appeared in my scoop! One very relieved owner couldn’t get it back on his finger fast enough! A good sign, I thought to myself, that all’s good at home.

Thanks, Juan, for the privilege of searching for and finding your ring. So glad we were able to get Lake Beulah to cough it up for you. Thanks too for your generous reward.

And so the moral of this story if there is one, is this. Be sure to read the warning signs that are absent from boat docks before you jump off them. Just imagine they exist. They read, “Jumping off this dock with rings on your fingers may be hazardous to your marriage;” or something along that line. But if you or someone you know just didn’t see the sign, contact me. We might be able to coax the ring-swallowing lake monster to burp it up.

TESTIMONY

Thank you Paul again for your service. I have been married for 14yrs now. I was devastated when I lost my wedding ring and it was hard to think about living life without my original wedding ring. Now I can pass my original wedding ring onto my boys. Thanks again. God bless. — Juan Garcia

It is too bad Golden Retrievers don’t retrieve gold, gold rings that is. If they did, then Chicago resident, Adam Katz, wouldn’t have called me.

Adam jumped off the family’s boat pier into Lake Geneva the other day to join his Golden Retriever in a short swim back to shore. When the pair emerged, Mr. Katz’s rose-gold and platinum wedding ring was missing.

I arrived on location and first assessed the depth. While the water was over my head in some places, the search was do-able with snorkel and mask and with the help of a weighted dive belt. It also helped that the water was unusually clear that day.

In the next four hours I extracted an assortment of fishing lures from the lake bottom and twice untangled myself, and my detector, from yards of abandoned fishing-line. A pair of trophy-sized Large-mouthed Bass visited me on several occasions; they seemed to be smirking whilst I dealt with the evidence of fishermen whose valiant attempts to catch them had clearly been foiled. But finally it was my turn to smirk.

Adam’s ring came to light from its hiding place among one of the many clusters of aquatic plants. “Aha! Caught you!” If you had been on shore you would have heard those words trumpeted from my snorkel.

Thanks, Adam, for the privilege of searching for and finding your gorgeous ring. Thanks too for your generous reward. I also enjoyed meeting your beautiful canine swimming partner.

I’ve been thinking; maybe there’s a way to train Golden Retrievers to fetch gold rings; now wouldn’t that be something! In the meantime, if someone you know has lost a ring give me a call. For them at least, I might become their golden retriever!

A mix of sand, water and waves is notorious for making rings and jewelry vanish.

Last Saturday, Elmhurst, Illinois resident, Joe Reiff, saw his platinum wedding band leave his hand after he threw a Nerf football while standing knee deep in Lake Michigan. The ring tumbled out of sight into the churning shore waters. Despite his immediate rescue efforts and those of his friends, Dan’s marriage-token seemed destined to remain one with nature, forever hidden from the light of day.

After Joe contacted me, we arranged to meet at the beach a couple days later. The waves were unusually high. This added to the recovery challenge since gold and platinum tend to keep settling with the wave and sand movement. After an hour or so, I picked up a faint signal in the headset of my Minelab Excalibur detector. But the more I dug, the weaker the signal became as mounds of sand carried by the waves filled in the hole before I could get my scoop back in. If I was going to catch up with the target, it meant working faster. Sure enough, at the 20-inch marker on my scoop handle, the huge hole became quiet. This meant the object, whatever it was, had to be in my scoop. When I lifted it out of the waves and looked, there was Joe’s ring!

It is not often that our oceans and Great Lakes of North America give up their treasures. But this one was no match for technology and perseverance. Even after 40 plus years of metal detecting, it never ceases to amaze me that any rings are recovered. After all, a ring is a very small bit of metal and these bodies of water, immense!

Thanks, Joe, for giving me the opportunity to recover your ring. And thanks for your generous reward.

If someone you know has lost a ring, give me a call. You never know; even Lake Michigan gives up its treasures sometimes!

I have it on good authority that spinning a child on an inner tube in the water can be great fun, but fatal for wedding rings.

A family outing at the Mauthe Lake Recreation Area, near Kewaskum, WI ended on a terribly disappointing note when Germantown, WI, resident Dan Koslo’s tungsten and gold wedding band disappeared. It happened in the park’s swimming area while playing with his children. The sickening feeling in the pit of one’s stomach whenever this happens is one shared by an estimated 60% of married men who, I’ve learned, will lose their wedding rings at some time or another. That seems like an extreme statistic. But even if it’s only half true, it still amounts to a LOT of wedding rings! And that doesn’t include all the other kinds of rings that are lost.

When Dan reached out to me for help, it was first necessary to obtain permission from Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to use a metal detector in the State Park. DNR Ranger, Megan Sina, kindly assisted with getting a Metal Detector User Permit.

Heavy dark clouds were threatening to dump their rain when I arrived at the beachfront. Dan joined me shortly. I set up a grid pattern using homemade buoys and began systematically scanning the lake bottom in the vicinity of where the ring went missing. The presence of iron in spring-fed Mauthe Lake elicited a cacophony of chirps and barks from my Minelab Excalibur detector, but these were not the sounds I wanted to hear.

At last, a promising clean, bright signal in my headset invited further investigation. Raising my stainless-steel sand scoop up out of the water to the light of day revealed the desired target! A glad reunion commenced just as torrents of rain let loose. It was as though nature was joining us in the happy recovery, applauding it with deafening claps of rain on the lake’s surface. But I couldn’t help but notice a drop of another kind, one that glistened ever so discreetly in a corner of Dan’s eye.

I’ve observed this phenomenon before, pondering how an inanimate object can evoke such deep emotion. I believe the response has to do with memories, with experiences and associations with the object—a shared history. The capacity for such emotional attachment to the inanimate is just one more example of how humankind is uniquely set apart from the animal world. But that is another story.

Thanks Dan, for the privilege of searching for and returning your precious ring. May its story continue (on your hand) and become increasingly precious to you for many, many years to come!

If you, the reader, have lost a ring, don’t give up hope; it may still be right where it was dropped, or should I say, right where you may have spun your children or grandchildren on an inner tube in some lake. Even if your ring was lost many years ago, contact myself or another member of The Ring Finders. Who knows, yours could be the next smile on these happy blog pages!

TESTIMONY
Hello Paul! I want to thank you again for your quick response, experience and confidence in the recovery of my ring at Mauthe Lake! Within the first few minutes of our conversation on the phone I knew you were the person I needed! I am blessed to have found someone so passionate like you in what you do! I wish you could have seen my wife’s expression when i arrived home with my ring! To say you made one very happy bride again would be an understatement! Thank you so very much Paul! I will never forget! — Dan Koslo