LEWISTON — The rope was pulled so taut that it seemed to thrum with mystical energy in our hands. There were three of us holding onto it and yet the rope was slowly slipping from our grasp, so heavy was the weight at the end of it. 

“Scott!” magnet fisherman Colt Busch hollered out. “Get behind me and grab on to the rope!” 

Scott did as he was told. Now there were four of us hanging on, but still the battle seemed like a losing one. 

“We’ve got to tie it off,” said Cameron Fox, a fellow from Portland who had proven to be the MacGyver of this group. “Hang on and I’ll pull the truck around.” 

By now, a small crowd had gathered there in the parking lot between the old Bates Mill and the canal that runs alongside it. One passerby was so intrigued by this effort, he tied off the dog he’d been walking and jumped in to help with the rope. 

“What’s down there?” he asked. 

“A safe,” Colt told him. “A very heavy one.” 

“Wow, a safe?” the stranger said. “Very cool.” 

It was a safe, all right. For days, Colt had been telling me about it, speaking in the same awed and determined tones I imagine Captain Ahab used when he got to talking about the monstrous white whale. 

“I already got the door out of the canal,” Colt had told me. “But the safe is still down there and I really want to get it.” 

And he DID get it, using two magnets and a pair of grappling hooks to latch onto the beast. With the help of the rest of us working in tandem, he was able to pull the monstrous thing away from the sucking fingers of the mud at the bottom of the canal. 

When the safe was tugged to the surface of that brownish water, a collective “ahhhh” of wonder rippled through our small group. There it was, by God, just as Colt had said it would be. 

Victory? Captain Ahab nails down Moby Dick once and for all? 

Not so fast, Ishmael. While getting the safe up to the surface of the water might have been a fairly straightforward affair, wrestling it up the steep canal banks and onto solid ground, using only rope, magnets and hooks to do it, would be another affair altogether. 

But more on that in a bit. First, a little bit about the heroes of this story. 

LAWS OF ATTRACTION

Colt, of Lewiston, has been magnet fishing with his friend Cameron for about a year now. He was inspired to take up the obscure hobby after city officials drained the canal, leaving its mucky bottom exposed for all the world to see. 

“There’s a lot of really crazy stuff down there,” Colt said. “A lot of big stuff. To me, that can’t be good for the animals. I saw a battery down there and a lot of electronics.” 

Oh, but batteries and electronics are just small parts of the weird inventory of loot that resides in darkness at the bottom of the canal just waiting for someone to yank it out of there.

Colt and Cameron mainly learned how to magnet fish through a series of YouTube videos. It’s not overly complicated. All you need is a neodymium fishing magnet, either one-sided or two, strong enough to haul the heavy stuff out of the gunk. Both Colt and Cameron use 1,200 pound magnets, roughly the size of hockey pucks, tied to the end of paracord ropes. They also have grappling hooks of various sizes to help latch onto items located by the magnets down there in the wet gloom. 

Colt has mainly been fishing rivers, streams and canals in the Lewiston area and it didn’t take him long to haul an impressive array of loot out of those local waters. 

Bicycles? He’s fished plenty of those out of the rivers and canals. Old bikes, newer bikes, bikes of all shapes and sizes. When he finds them, he cleans them up a little and then parks them nearby in case anyone comes to claim them. 

But for magnet fisherman, bikes are easy pickings. It’s the more unusual stuff that Colt is fishing for. 

Such as? 

“I actually got a $1,600 drone out of there,” Colt said. 

Yep, a drone. Somewhere in recent years, the drone must have either crash landed in the Lewiston canal or been tossed there for reasons unknown. 

“Right away, we assumed it had been stolen,” Colt said. 

They checked the video card, but found no pictures or other information. They cleaned it up and searched for a serial number. 

“I’d love to find the owner and return to him,” Colt said. “It’s not my property. It belongs to someone else.” 

Colt’s daughter Tatiana, 14, keeps a running inventory of the stuff she and her father have pulled out of the rivers and canals. As of one recent weekend, it included 11 bicycles, a scooter, the drone, a radio with a family of crawfish living inside, a fire extinguisher, a pair of scissors estimated to be from the 1920s, various other antique tools likely associated with the mill, a refrigerator engine and a weird array of knicks and knacks. 

Tatiana is a girl who doesn’t mind getting muddy. She loves to fish along with her dad, and when you speak to her you know at once the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. 

“There’s a safe down there, you know,” Tatiana told me, when we were introduced on a gray Saturday afternoon in the mill parking lot. “It’s down there and we’re going to get it.” 

Colt’s other daughter, Rachel, hasn’t yet caught the magnet fishing bug, although she comes along on the adventures to watch. 

Likewise, in Portland, Cameron sees magnet fishing as a family affair. On that Saturday afternoon, he came to Lewiston to fish the canals with his 6-year-old daughter, Bayleigh, and 4-year-old nephew, Brycen. 

“We find some neat stuff,” Cameron told me, “but it’s not just about that. My daughter likes cleaning up trash. She likes to clean up the world, so we found that this is something we can do together. That’s important to me.” 

It’s a sweet philosophy, but when push comes to shove, Cameron is a fisherman at heart, and the thrill of unknown finds keeps him hungry for the sport. 

“You never know,” he said, “what you’re going to find.” 

STUCK ON MAGNET FISHING

Where did this weird pastime come from? The prevailing theory is that it was more or less invented by sportsman who had lost keys or guns in the water and needed an innovative method to fish them out. 

It seems magnet fishing is particularly popular in the United Kingdom, where there exists an added danger to the sport: Because so much of the nation was ravaged by war during the middle part of the last century, many magnet fishermen have pulled out of the water items they would rather leave alone. We’re talking hand grenades, unexploded ordinance, various guns with rounds still in them. 

Colt and Cameron haven’t found any guns or explosives yet, although a few pistols associated with Lewiston crimes of have been known to be tossed into the canals. 

They find pots and pans all over the place. Bicycles seem to be polluting every body of water they come across, and there are the odd finds like the drone. 

So, how does it work? 

Magnet fishing isn’t unlike regular fishing, when you get right down to it. You cast your line into the water and wait for something to happen. 

“When your rope gets tight and hard to pull on,” Cold explained, “you know you’ve got something. If it’s been down there a while, you’ll see bubbles and oil coming up.” 

In fact, magnet fishing FEELS a lot like regular fishing. Tossing your magnet into the water comes with the same thrilling uncertainty of tossing in hook, bait and bobber. 

The language of magnet fishing is much the same, as well. 

On an iron bridge that spans the canal, Colt has tossed his line in on one side, Cameron on the other. 

“You getting anything?” Colt hollers over. 

“Nothing yet,” Cameron hollers back. “You?” 

A few seconds of silence pass. Then the rope in Cameron’s hands goes suddenly taught as the magnet on the end of his line latches on. 

“I got something over here,” he calls out. 

That turned out to be a false alarm. But as everyone was getting over the disappointment of that, Colt cried out from the other side of the bridge. 

“Whoa,” he said. “I got something.” 

And he DID have something, that much was clear. The rope had gone tight in his hands and Colt was having trouble pulling it in. 

As it is with regular fishing, one can’t simply yank on his line once he gets a nibble. That’s a sure way to lose a fish OR a hunk of metal — although the magnets are powerful, few items are shaped in such a way to allow the magnet to get a full bit of it. One-sided magnets, as it turns out, have greater pulling power. 

Unable to steer the unknown object toward the bridge, Cold hops over the rail and makes his way to the edge of the canal. Here, he stands at the top of the steep, rock wall roughly eight feet over the surface of the water. 

“He’s crazy,” Tatiana says with a hint of awe and pride. “He always gets right out on the edge like that.” 

There are a few tense moments as Colt battles with whatever it is his magnet has grabbed onto, teetering precariously over the edge to get a better angle on it. After a few minutes of man-versus-junk drama, though, he hauls his catch onto the land. 

“Hey, look at that!” he yells out. “It’s a mailbox!” 

A Sun Journal delivery box, to be precise, still attached to its rusty metal pole. 

This catch causes a brief stir of excitement among the group. A woman passing through the parking lot wanders over to see what the buzz is about. 

“We just pulled an old mailbox out of the canal,” someone tells her. 

“How’d you do that?” 

“With magnets!” 

A few minutes later, Colt pulls a very old screwdriver out of the canal. This causes another huddle and a ripple of excitement as we all muse over it. How long had that tool lived in darkness down there in the mud? How did it get there and whose were the last hands to hold it? 

The Bates Mill itself has been around for nearly 200 years. How many of the old mill’s tools and trinkets made their way to the canal over that spam is anybody’s guess. What Colt held in his gloved hands now seemed alive with its own personal history, although that history was lost to us. 

CAPTAIN AHAB BACK AT WORK

For this small band of magnet fishermen, that was enough demonstration. They had shown off what magnet fishing is about and now it was time to turn back to what we all knew was the job at hand. 

“The safe,” Colt said, staring pensively down into the canal. “It’s right there, I know it is.” 

He knew the safe was there, Colt did, because a short while ago, he had wrestled its door up out of the canal.  

“I’d say the door weighs close to 100 pounds,” he said. “It hurt my shoulders pulling it up.” 

But that was lightweight stuff, really. The safe itself was expected to weigh in at closer to 1,000 pounds. That’s half of a ton of thick metal with its cavity full of water, which only adds to the weight. 

I won’t lie to you. I had my doubts about Colt’s white whale and about whether I would ever clap eyes onto it myself. 

Colt flung his magnet into the part of the canal where he suspected the safe was waiting. Almost immediately, there was the tightening of the line and all of the signs that he had latched onto something big. 

Cameron, knowing that the real adventure was afoot, hustled over from the other side of the bridge. He flung his magnet into the water, beyond the area where Colt’s had latched on. By slowly drugging his magnet toward him, Cameron was able to reach the right spot and at once, his line went taut, too. 

“Are you on it?” Colt asked. 

“I am.” 

A grappling hook went in next and soon that hook had found purchase on what was believed to be the safe at the bottom of the canal. Now there were three lines attached to it, and slowly, Colt and Cameron began the careful process of bringing it up. 

It wasn’t a quick affair. Magnets, pulled from bad angles, would detach from the metal down below. The grappling hook on several occasions lost its tentative grip and slipped free. The process had to be started over and over again and, as with real fishing, there were muttered curses and whispered profanities. 

Colt changed his position so that he was pulling from the very edge of the bridge, while Cameron stayed put near the center of it. Slowly they pulled, and tugged and teased whatever it was they had fastened onto. 

“Here it comes,” Colt mumbled, low and cautious. “Here it comes. See the bubbles?” 

Sure enough, as the treasure was dislodged from the muck at the bottom of the canal, a protest of bubbles rose to the surface. 

“Here we go,” Cameron said, pulling and tugging two ropes now instead of just the one. “Here it comes . . .” 

Slowly, against its will, the object rose to the surface of the water, exposed to the sunlight for the first time in God knows how long. Years? Decades? A century? 

The object came into full view and now the collective gasp was even more enthralled. 

“I knew it!” Colt exclaimed. 

“It’s the safe!” cried Tatiana. 

And it was: the chimerical safe in all of is rusty, mud-caked glory. A bulky old safe, big and square and minus its door, floating there on the surface of the canal like some grand fish that had fought hard but lost. 

There were celebrations (and I don’t mind admitting that I was in a grinning, high-fiving mood myself at that moment), but Cameron didn’t indulge in them long. He was busy producing a second grappling hook to fling into the water. Within seconds, it latched on, however feebly, to the side of the safe. 

The safe was now secured pretty tightly, but would that be enough? The problems of physics became clear at once. The safe couldn’t simply be pulled up to the bridge because it would be caught up at the bottom of it and possibly knocked back into the canal. 

It could be wrestled over to the edge of the canal, perhaps, but then there was that eight foot rock wall with which to contend. There was also a large pipe jutting out over the canal that would have to be considered. And a fence. And a half-dozen other obstacles that seemed suddenly bent on ensuring that the safe lived the rest of its life at the bottom of the canal. 

And the safe was unimaginably heavy. Even with four of us hanging onto the ropes, you could feel it trying to pull away from us like a  living monster. The canal water added some buoyancy, but when we pulled the safe even a few inches away from the surface, we were greeted with its full heft and the ropes thrummed in our hands with the energy of this battle. 

“Don’t wrap the rope around your hands,” Cameron warned us. “If that safe goes back into the water, it’ll take you with it.” 

Several times, a grappling hook snapped free of the safe and our hold on it was diminished. The magnet held on and the second hook stayed affixed, but lose one or the other and surely the safe would tumble back into the water. 

We held on tight as Cameron raced to the other side of the parking lot to get his truck. He wheeled into position and then tied the ropes to the tow hooks. That brought us moments of rest and a huddle was arranged to discuss the next plan of action. 

“I’ll try to pull it up with the truck,” Cameron said. 

It was agreed. And so, sitting in the driver’s seat, Cameron moved the truck back inch by inch, the ropes and hooks and magnets tugging at the safe and urging it up higher out of the water. 

“It’s coming up!” somebody yelled. 

The safe was slowly climbing up the grassy bank on the ends of ropes now pulled unimaginably taught between the weight of the safe and the power of Cameron’s truck. 

“It’s coming!” someone else said. 

The excitement was huge. It wasn’t just that a wondrous treasure was being hauled up out of the canal. It was also about the strategy, desire and muscle that had gone into making it happen. 

“Here it comes!” 

I rushed toward the center of the iron bridge, hoping to get a better angle on this feat of physics. I was almost there, too, where there came a sharp popping sound as one of the ropes snapped. This was followed by a clunk and clank and then — a most sorrowful sound, indeed — a hefty splash from below as the elusive safe escaped its bonds and returned to its place on the gloomy canal floor. 

Gone was the treasure of Colt’s lusty dreams along with one of his grappling hooks.

Groans all around. Gasps of surprise and sputters of disappointment. Across the Bates Mill parking lot, ropes lay flaccid and defeated against the pavement. They were not strong enough for this fight. Once again, Moby Dick had proved too crafty and resilient for its pursuer. 

Or something. What followed was a morose assessment of our failure, but also solemn vows that efforts will be renewed in the near future and with God as Colt’s witness, he will return for that safe! 

While I would have liked a closer look at the elusive prey, all things considered the end result is just fine by me. I don’t need to see the thing up close or caress its water-eaten sides with my fingers. It already achieved its purpose of filling a handful of us with the excitement and allure of magnet fishing. In that regard, for Colt Busch, it’s a mission accomplished moment. 

And Colt IS evangelical when it comes to his new hobby. He and Cameron run a Facebook page dedicated to all things magnet fishing, a page that features photos of their many enigmatic finds. 

Colt, who is retired, has been back to the canal a few times since our big showdown with the safe. He’s pulled some other stuff out of there — a trailer hitch, for starters — but he hasn’t renewed the battle yet with the big fish that so eludes him.

Cameron, meanwhile, works construction and is away for a while. But he’s thinking about that safe, oh yes. He’s thinking about what it will take to pull the monstrous thing to shore once and for all.

“We’ll need chains instead of rope. And I’m thinking a pulley or a come-along, something like that. It will come to me,” he said. “We’ll get that safe out of there.”

The safe will be waiting, at any rate. That’s one advantage magnet fishing has over fishing of the more common variety. Your prey can’t just up and swim away.

Where did the safe come from? How long has it been at the bottom of the canal and why did somebody put it there?

Unknown, all of it. There is almost certainly nothing valuable inside, what with its door missing and all. But for those who seek it, the
mysteries of the safe are what give it value. Wrestle it onto solid ground and likely some clues will emerge. Returned to the sun-bright
world from which it came, perhaps that old hunk of metal will have a compelling story to tell.

For Colt, there was at least the satisfaction of having verified that the safe is down there — and of bringing it into the sunlight for all the world to see, if only for a few frantic minutes.

“I’m sorry we lost it,” he said. “But I’ll sleep good tonight.”

A few days later, Colt returned to the canal with his magnets, hooks and ropes. Through some patient and targeted trawling, he was able to fish his lost grappling hook off the canal floor.

But the safe remains there still.