Some people catch fish. Others like Tim Riley catch cell phones, rusty nails, 100-year-old drill bits, coins and whatever else is metal and lurking on the bottom of the river.
Christchurch-based Riley and his young sons are magnet fishermen, and they love going out in the evenings after work and school to see what they can pull up from the murky depths of the Avon and Heathcote Rivers.
It was so much fun and so interesting, Riley said he had ordered a magnet 14 times more powerful than the one he was using now to hunt deeper in the silty depths.
He loved how his young boys would happily abandon their laptops in a blink to head off down to the river for a mystery magnet fishing trip.
“It is fun, it’s weirdly addictive. I first saw it on YouTube and it started out as a bit of a laugh with the kids just to get them outside and off their iPads. We just started pulling all sorts out of the river, including junk that shouldn’t be in there,” he said.
The big hope was to find something significant and historical. An old wooden drill bit found under a historic wooden bridge in Hagley Park was the closest they had come to that so far.
Magnet fishing was simple, Riley explained. You got a powerful enough magnet with a string tied to it and threw it into the river to see what it could pull up.
Tim Riley magnet fishing at the Avon River in Christchurch. Photo / Anna Sargent, RNZ
“We started off going fishing fishing over in the Peninsula but some days we’d catch nothing, but here [in the rivers] we always get something,” he said.
One evening he pulled up three phones and got them all working. He even traced a surprised owner and returned the phone.
Finding the phones was an exciting moment for his sons Josh and Conner, aged 12 and 11, Riley said.
“Josh jumped into the river to get the phones because he was getting frustrated with the magnet not being quick enough so he just leapt in,” he said.
The family now brings a canoe with them when venturing out to magnet fish to help cover the water more thoroughly, he said.
He was saddened by the amount of rubbish he found in the rivers.
“There’s lots of junk being chucked in the river. Unfortunately we can’t pick up the cans because they’re aluminium, but while we’re there we just pull out rubbish.”
They were looking at getting a spike to be able to pick up cans as they go.
One of the bigger finds has been a Pak’nSave shopping trolley.
“We were determined to find a scooter, a trolley, and a bike, so we’ve ticked the trolley off. Pak’nSave will get their trolley back so they’ll be pleased.”
Riley believed magnet fishing would grow in popularity.
“Some people walk past and know exactly what we’re doing straight away. Other people are confused, but most people see we’re taking junk out of the river. Magnet fishing seems to be catching on overseas and it probably will here, and maybe it might spur people on to clean the river a bit which would be fantastic,” he said.
So while they are looking for the past, they are looking after the present.
