Indiana Tag | The Ring Finders

The Road to Tungsten Was Paved With Ankle Deep Muck and Chest High Weeds

  • from Mishawaka (Indiana, United States)
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On August 21st of 2023, I had a call from a gentleman named Chad. Chas had lost his Tungsten wedding band while playing some water football, in a lake. To make matters worse, he hadn’t realized it until later, so this meant a fairly large search area, where it may have slipped off during a throw, and went in an odd direction. He agreed to my call-out fee and arrangements were made for me to come search on the 24th.

Prior to the trip, I did a bit of research on Tungsten in combination with my CTX 3030 Minelab detector, to see what kind of signals I would be looking for. Armed with that knowledge, I headed to the search site where my skill checks would begin.

The lake itself had some weed-free, sandy areas, but other areas were chest-high and with muck that was easily ankle-deep. Having an Xtreeme sand scoop for this particular job, was a huge benefit, as when I had a signal that I needed to retrieve, that ability for it to sharply cut through weeds was a huge boon. To be honest, I felt like this was a near-impossible find, except that each time I went to retrieve a target, I actually managed to do so on the first or second scoop!

Still though in the back of my mind, was the possibility, that this was a job that was going to beat me, and I would have to report I wasn’t able to find the ring. Not something I wanted to happen, so I was definitely determined. I had planned on spending 6-8 hours grid searching and just sticking with it, but to what always seems like part disbelief, I pulled the ring out of my scoop after only 2 hours.

Chad had gone to work, so I asked his brother-in-law if he was okay with giving me permission to use his photo as a stand-in, which he did, and I am happy to share it. Both gentlemen treated me with nothing but respect, and trust, so I was able to work without someone hovering over my shoulder, which was appreciated.

Truly a ring-finding job that I will be able to brag about for a long time! Hopefully, the next call won’t be far in the future.

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Lost Wedding Ring Found in White River – Canoe County, Daleville, Indiana.

  • from Muncie (Indiana, United States)
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In July, 2020, I received a call from a woman who was seeking help in locating her husband’s wedding ring which he had lost in the White River during a canoeing trip.   The family was from out of town and had rented a canoe at Canoe Country in Daleville, Indiana to spend a nice day traveling down the river.  As they were moving through some rapids towards the end of their trip, the canoe collided with a rock and her husband, in attempt to prevent their canoe from tipping, put his hand into the water and onto the riverbed as a brace.  It worked, but at the expense of his wedding ring.  They beached their canoe and searched visually for an hour or so before the disappearing daylight forced them to call off their search and make the long trip home without his wedding ring.  They quickly realized how difficult it was going to be to get it back as they lived more than an hour away from where it was lost and just finding the time to return was going to be hard enough, let alone actually finding his ring at the the bottom of the river.  They decided they needed to find another option and after a Google search led her to TheRingFinders.com she called me to see if I could possibly help find it.

After hanging up with her I knew this was going to be a challenging search.  They lived more than an hour away and with time constraints they could not meet me at the location.  The only thing I had to go off was a pinned GPS location giving me a general area, which may not even be accurate.  The location was 25 minutes from my house and only accessible by boat or kayak.  The time it would take just to get geared up and get to and from the location would be several hours at least.  The rising water levels from recent rainfall had undoubtedly caused some rocks to disappear under the water making it look a lot different than she remembers and hard to tell which rock they actually hit.  I was going to be looking for a very small object in a large river with just a general idea of where it could be.

Challenge accepted.

I recruited my girlfriend for company and the next day we got loaded up and got on the river. We knew pretty quick it was moving a lot faster and was a lot deeper than she had described the day he lost it, but continued on anyway. After asking her some more questions through text and her sending me a drawing of what I called the “treasure map,” I was pretty sure I was at the right location.  I began my search and quickly found out that the area was layered with tightly packed rocks and my scoop was not at all helpful, forcing me to use my hands to feel for whatever my detector was picking up.  I was only able to find large items that I could feel with my hands, including a few cell phones and even a firearm, but sadly no ring.  The river was also filled with massive groups of kayakers, canoers, and tubers who were having to try to avoid me, as well as the many rocks in that part of the river.  I figured I would not add one more obstacle to their navigating and called it a day.  We postponed the search and for the next hour or so we watched people try, and sometimes hilariously fail, to navigate the rapids.

That night, knowing my scoop was worthless, I decided to make an “underwater viewer” using plexiglass and a leaf blower tube, and a bigger one for my girlfriend using a trash can.  This allowed us to see whatever I was hearing with my detector without having to try to scoop it, or go under the cold water with a mask.

The next day, with our new devices, lower water levels and less traffic, we headed back out.  After about 2 hours of grid searching the river I heard a loud, solid sound blast through my headphones.  I quickly looked through the viewer and saw what my metal detector had found.  It was his ring, three feet deep and wedged between two small rocks at the bottom of the river.   I quickly pulled it out from where it had sat for several days and got out my phone to snap a picture.  I sent her the picture asking if it was her husband’s ring and was met with a very quick reply:  “OMGness!!!! YES!! That’s it!! Thank you!! Tears….both of us!”  I met her the next day in between our two cities and handed her back her husband’s ring, the ring that she put on his finger when they got married, and the ring they both thought was lost forever.  Quite the test for my first search through The Ring Finders, but it was well worth it.

If you have lost an item that you think I might be able to help you find, please do not wait!  Call me today!  (765-215-4705)

Satellite view

Satellite view

Searching the river

Found Ring

Underwater viewer

Underwater viewer 2

Items found during my search

Treasure Map

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Lost gold Mason ring recovered, LaPorte, IN

  • from Granger (Indiana, United States)
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Got a call about a lost Mason’s ring at a yacht club in 10-12ft of water. The person was securing his pontoon to the dock and the ring slipped off onto the abyss. He had worn the ring for the last 40 years and he planned to hand it down to his son in the future.

Joe searched on the internet in hopes of finding someone in the area that may be able to help find his lost ring from the lake bottom.  He quickly found the Ring Finders site, and shortly after was on the phone with me, asking if I could help.

Made the arrangements, grabbed  my dive gear out of storage, did some gear checks and got on the road to LaPorte.
Things were lookin bad right from the get go, really choppy conditions up top, and then who would have thought there would have been hundreds of unfired 22 and 357 rounds scattered everywhere under this boat slip, right in the core search area.
Since I never imagined so many targets in that small area, I didn’t bring my mesh finds bag, so after stuffing my wetsuit with the rounds, I  was about to call it and arrange a future trip to try another recovery technique,  but decided to try just a little longer… Good thing, literally on my last scan with the pinpointer I found the ring.  Joe was a happy camper!

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Lost gold wedding ring found, Big Turkey lake, Lagrange, Indiana

  • from Granger (Indiana, United States)
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Last week I was contacted by Ringfinder, Greg Larabel from Michigan, in response to a craigslist ad that I had posted for SW Michigan lost/found rings/etc. After talking a bit, he asked if I could help with lost men’s wedding band in northern Indiana. I said sure thing, and was given the contact info for the party that lost his ring.

Barry, had lost his ring while working in the water, pulling out old wood pier posts at his lake house. The area was full of weeds and has a very mucky, marly bottom, a good 6 inches of muck. He had pulled out a lot of the weeds and actually took a heavy duty pump and attempted to pump out some of the muck in the area he had lost the gold ring that he has worn for 38 years now!

I was somewhat worried that with all the stepping around, pulling weeds and pumping out the muck that the ring may have been pushed down beyond the reach of my detector. Was also worried that the ring could have fallen down into the 3 ft deep holes left from when he pulled the old wood posts out of the lake bottom.

Well, I gave it a go this morning, set up my camera real quick, started out finding a few fishing sinkers, a couple ring looking pieces of cut-0ff aluminum pipe and an old beer can. After about 8 minutes, I had now covered about 85% of the search area and was thinking to myself “I need to hear something good here real soon….!”

Got a nice sounding tone, took a scoop of muck, broke it up with my fingers and gave it a good sloshing. Could hear something clunking around in the bottom of the scoop. Looked in the scoop and could see something nice and yellow in the bottom. There it was! Gave a quick thumbs up and headed to the pier to reunite the ring with it’s owner.

Thanks again Gregg,

Here is the email from Barry to Ringfinder Gregg:

Gregg,
As you may have heard through Ryan, he did find my ring. It took him less than 10-15 minutes. Unbelievable! He did a great job despite what he said were challenges with lead sinkers, a nearby metal dock, and miscellaneous metal parts from long ago. It was in the area I had already searched. I was absolutely ecstatic and couldn’t believe it. I didn’t know how to thank him. There are no words to convey my feelings. The ring had been on my finger for 38 years. When I lost it, it felt like a part of me was missing. I had trouble sleeping for two weeks.

I have not told my wife yet as I plan to take her out to a special dinner and surprise her with it.

Ryan, I cannot express my gratitude enough and I trust the compensation was just. I hope your feeling of helping people is truly rewarding.

Thank you! And thanks to TheRingFinders.com for leading me to both of you.
Barry Smith

 

Also got the hunt and find on video….

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Lost gold ring found at Warren Dunes State Park, Berrien County, Michigan

  • from Granger (Indiana, United States)
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Missy, friends and family were enjoying the nice day at the beach. When it was time to cool off in the water, she took her promise ring off and left it on her beach towel so she wouldn’t lose it in the water. Meanwhile, someone had lifted the towel to rid it of sand, sending the ring flying into the soft sand where it was quickly buried and lost.

As they were getting ready to leave, they noticed me out in the water with what they thought might be a metal detector. They asked if I could help them find the lost promise ring, missy described it in detail and I said I’d be happy to help. After a couple minutes searching, finding a few coins and bottle caps, I heard a very nice sounding target signal. I scooped up the target and there it was, the missing gold ring.  Big smiles all around!

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