This type of fishing doesn't involve hooks, bait or even fish

Fishing off the dock at Morse Reservoir, Angel Carbone felt a tug on her line. Anticipation surging, she reeled in her catch and took a look.

A wristwatch.

She was ecstatic.

“Ahaha!” she exclaimed. “I got a watch ... it's running!”

The silver Casio was, indeed, ticking, and even had the right time.  It wasn’t too rusty or gunky so Carbone said she might post it on her TikTok page to see if anyone claims it.

For magnet fishers like Carbone, tiny hauls like old watches or flashlights can provide big thrills. It’s the pursuit of the unknown, the treasure hunt, that can keep her on a dock or a boat for eight hours straight dropping a heavy-duty magnet into the water and roping it in minutes later.

“All I can think of when I’m on the water is what I’m going to find next,” Carbone, of Noblesville, said.

Award winningThis tiny, historic Indiana town serves up 'the best fried chicken in the world'

Magnet fishing soared when the coronavirus pandemic hit in 2020 and people sought solitary outdoor activities to escape the tedium of lockdowns. Carbone had seen some videos a few years earlier on YouTube, and when a friend gave her a magnet set she was hooked.

“I fell in love right away,” she said. “It is very therapeutic. You fish without killing fish.”

Carbone goes out just about every day the weather is nice enough. She’s fished off bridges, pontoons, kayaks and alongside creeks. Though most hauls snag smaller items such as cellphones and utility tools, she’s reeled in bicycles, chairs and a wrought-iron gate.

Tools of the magnet-fishing trade

On a windy 40-degree morning at Morse recently, waves shook a wooden boat dock as Carbone set down an empty utility bucket and pulled from it a magnet with 2,300 pounds of pull force.

The magnet, a disc slightly bulkier and much heavier than a hockey puck, had a loop attached, with an 80-foot-long polypropylene rope threaded through. Carbone lashed the end of the rope and the bucket around a pole, walked to the edge of the dock and underhanded the magnet into 7-foot-deep water.

When the magnet gets a hit, it reverberates up the rope. Balancing herself on the shaking dock, Carbone slowly yanked in the rope, pulled the catch from the magnet and dropped it into the bucket. On some days she fills a whole bucket, but this day’s booty was mostly small pieces of metal, like nails.

Except for the watch, which was in much better shape than the other four she's found. She said her nearly 9,000 TikTok followers would be interested in seeing it but she might turn it in to a lost and found office at the reservoir. She won't throw it away, though.

“There are certain unwritten rules in magnet fishing, and that's one,” she said.

Carbone saves most of what she finds and recycles some of it. She sells the railroad spikes – a common find – for $1 each to a blacksmith, who cleans and makes knives from them.

Acknowledging the growing interest in the hobby, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources this year has started requiring people who magnet fish on department-owned land to get a free permit, said Max Winchell, a department spokesman.

Magnet fishing is also included in the DNR fishing guide for the first time. The agency noted that “the popularity of magnet fishing has skyrocketed, leading to rising safety concerns.”

DNR said the magnets stir sediment at the bottom of a water body, hurting its quality.

Carbone said magnet fishers clear the waterways of toxic pollutants.

“We are helping to clean up America’s water one magnet at a time on no dime to the government,” she said.

No guns ... so far

Though guns are commonly found in other parts of the country, Carbone said she is happy she hasn’t fished one out yet. She tells her followers to report them to the police.

In Louisiana, a man found a rocket-propelled grenade round and the Army Times reported that three magnet fishermen on a bridge at Fort Stewart in Georgia snared 86 training rockets and some .50 caliber ammunition.

Magnet fishing can be dangerous. A woman in Texas was yanked off a bridge when a speeding boat in a no-wake zone caught her line, according to published reports.

Occasionally, Carbone needs to jump in the water with a diving mask when her magnet gets caught on an object, such as the dock pilings. Once while kayaking in an Anderson lake, her magnet got caught on a drainage grate.

"That was really scary going in there because catfish are really big and you can feel them swimming all around you," Carbone said. "The last thing I wanted was to have my finger bit."

Call IndyStar reporter John Tuohy at 317-444-6418. Email at john.tuohy@indystar.com and follow on Twitter and Facebook.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Magnet fishing: Noblesville woman part of growing Indiana trend