When Duane Smith brought his 11-year old grandson fishing at a South Miami-Dade canal, he certainly was in for the shock of his life when they reeled in their rod. That’s because Smith, who was fishing with a magnet, ended up reeling in two Barrett .50 Cal rifle lower receivers.
Smith decided to bring his grandson magnet fishing after watching a YouTube video about the hobby.
Magnet fishing is exactly what it sounds like: Instead of using bait to catch fish, a magnet is attached to a fishing line, or more commonly a rope, and used to catch metal objects at the bottom of bodies of water.
They went out to the C-102 canal in Princeton expecting to likely collect little more than metal scraps, which they did. But they had no way of guessing that the two rifle lower receivers would come out of the water.
“We ended up with two pounds of scrap metal and 40 pounds of gun,” Smith told The Miami Herald.
“The Barretts had so much mass,” Smith continued. “The magnet went straight to them.”
Smith was concerned about the find, as the two rifles had their serial numbers filed off.
“Whoever did this is not your run-of-the-mill criminal,” said Smith, a 61-year-old former Army infantry officer.
He reported the find to the police, who stated that it would take some time to figure out of the weapons were used in a crime.
“Judging by the photo, those have been there for a while. That said, it will take some time for the weapons to end up at our forensics lab. Once there, they will be processed,” Police Detective Christopher Thomas said.
Smith doesn’t believe the rifles were in the water long. He stated that they were wrapped in plastic, and that it only took around 30 minutes for him to scrape most of the corrosion off of the rifle receivers.
“It looked like it was something that someone would want to come back for.”
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