Father and son ‘fish’ road signs from pond with magnet
A FATHER and his five-year-old son have landed a surprising haul after going magnet fishing in the pond at Saumarez Park.
Ross Le Brun and son Otis took up the hobby recently after discovering it on the internet.
And in only half an hour’s ‘fishing’ they managed to find three road signs, a scaffolding tube and a big tent spike.
Mr Le Brun said he and Otis had watched a few videos of other people in the world trying magnet fishing and decided to give it a go.
‘There’s a whole Facebook page devoted to it and we got lots of advice about where to go to get the magnet. It’s specifically designed for fishing, it’s quite a big, flat, round magnet and can hold up to 60kg, that's over nine stone, in weight,’ he said.
‘We know we are only going to find junk. I just thought it was a slightly interesting thing for me to do with the kids.
‘Otis loves it. It helps the wildlife too as we are removing corroding metal from the pond.’
The objects the duo found were all in the middle of the large ornamental pond.
‘We had to wait for the ducks to clear, they thought we were going to throw in bread, but once they’d gone we threw it in and within 30 minutes we had collected this little haul,' said Mr Le Brun.
‘Someone must have thrown it hard to get it that far. There is probably a lot more down there.’
Mr Le Brun obtained permission from Agriculture, Countryside and Land Management Services to go magnet fishing in the pond, a first, said an ACLMS spokesman.
‘It is unclear as to exactly how the items recovered by Mr Le Brun ended up in the pond, but it was likely to have been deliberate dumping. Unfortunately a small minority regard the pond as an opportunity to dump items discarded there.
'We are grateful to Mr Le Brun for his time and assistance in the removal of these foreign objects.’
Mr Le Brun and Otis have been looking for other places to try out their new hobby.
‘We’ve tried Beaucette Marina but found nothing there. Most of the quarries on the island are too deep. If anyone has any ponds they are happy for us to magnet fish in, Otis would be happy to visit.’
. Mr Le Brun has posted his catch on his YouTube channel, Otis of Guernsey.
