A magnet fisher has listed an AK-47 that she reeled in at a beauty spot as being among her most unusual finds of last year.
Sophie Doyle has also found a British Sterling submachine gun and a large 18-pound artillery shell on outings where she has a protocol in place for alerting the police.
One of the vlogger’s more mundane catches was a PlayStation 4 complete with two controllers still retaining their colour, an example of the random nature of her hobby.
Sophie, who runs the Magnetic Pull Facebook group, first found the AK’s detached muzzle brake, which stabilises the weapon when it is fired, at Red Bank Lodges in Bury, Greater Manchester.
Her team of ‘dippers’ also retrieved the duct-taped, double barrels of a shotgun on the outing in April, with Sophie describing the sawn-off AK part as ‘quite a shocker’ on the channel. The team returned to the fishing lodges the following month and reeled in the assault rifle.
‘I could tell straight away what it was,’ Sophie said.
‘I phoned the police and spoke to a call handler who was stunned when I explained the situation to her.
‘It was a humorous exchange about a very serious matter.
‘The firearms team was dispatched and on arrival they confirmed it was an AK and took it away for safe disposal. They were very pleased and asked if I’d found the magazine to go with it. Unfortunately I hadn’t.
‘Greater Manchester Police were quite impressed with our work.
‘It’s always a pleasure to assist the police with their safety campaigns when they contact me for support.’
Sophie, 30, from Bolton, has been left to guess at why a Soviet-developed assault rifle should end up in the water at a sedate fishing spot.
‘The AK could have been discarded if it was linked to criminal activity,’ she said. ‘It also could have been brought back as a war souvenir by military personnel, which was often the case.
‘It’s possible that they realised they could get in trouble for possessing such an item and wanted to dispose of it without getting into trouble.
‘However the police do allow people to surrender weapons without any repercussions at any local station.’
The hobbyists found the WWII-era British Sterling submachine gun and the inert 18-pound artillery shell on visits to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal in Lancashire over the past year.
‘When I pulled the Sterling submachine gun out of the canal I was in utter shock and disbelief,’ Sophie said.
‘This is quite a rare find in the waterways. I felt stunned and pleased to have found such a piece of history.’
In April, Sophie told Metro.co.uk how the group had reeled in hundreds of pieces of ammunition, thought to date back to the British Civil Wars, from a canal in Cheshire.
The long list of strange artefacts dredged up by the dippers over the past two years also includes hundreds of mysterious pictures of a newlywed couple. One of the images appears to have been taken outside the Golden Temple in Amritsar, India.
The hobbyist has also reeled in evidence in a police cold case, a rusty Victorian safe which took a winch and team effort to remove and a statue of the Hindu Goddess of Death, Time and Doomsday.
Other finds have resulted in the dippers enacting a protocol for possible explosives, which includes cordoning off the scene and calling police.
After they hauled in a WWI French fragmentation grenade from a canal in Burnley in 2022, Greater Manchester Police moved in and blocked off the nearby road while officers checked the device was harmless.
Ironing boards and bits of scrap metal have been among Sophie’s more mundane finds since she took up the hobby six years ago.
A PlayStation 4 and controllers was reeled in from Manchester city centre canal by the magnet fishers last summer, with Sophie asking whether it was a ‘rage quit or stolen’ on her socials.
The team uses powerful magnets attached to ropes and sometimes grappling hooks on their weekly Sunday outings.
They regularly link up with other dippers at organised events around the country and they share their adventures on Facebook and YouTube.
Those who follow the pastime point out that the removal of scrap, including through links with council and private recycling services, helps preserve and enhance the waterways.
‘Magnet fishing means the world to me,’ Sophie said.
‘It’s a fascinating, sociable and worthwhile hobby with such a lot of history waiting to be discovered under the water.
‘I meet up with my friends for a full day of magnet fishing every Sunday and we have such a good time and a laugh together.
‘Magnet fishing is fantastic for your physical and mental health, with the hobby taking teamwork for the heavier finds such as Victorian safes and stolen motorbikes. There’s always the thrill of never knowing what you will find on every single cast.
‘There’s also an environmental side and I work in partnership with local councils, so the rubbish can be disposed of appropriately.’
The YouTuber is looking ahead to sharing her exploits more widely in the year to come via her social media accounts, which she set up in 2020.
More Trending
‘In 2024 I’m looking forward to spending time with my family and friends and sharing my finds by growing my social media, where I often go live on location,’ she said.
‘I’m sure there will be many more curious and historic finds to come.’
MORE: Magnet fishers reel in ‘record find of more than 300 cannon balls’ from one canal
MORE: Magnet fisher pulls haul of mystery wedding pictures and statues from canal
MORE: Mysterious row of seats washed up on beach sends speculation wild
Do you have a story you would like to share? Contact josh.layton@metro.co.uk
