Metal Detecting on Georgia's Middle & South Georgia
16 locations · 6 limited · 10 prohibited
Rules last verified: · Georgia statewide rules
Middle and south Georgia are lakes, farmland and history. The big Corps of Engineers reservoirs — West Point, Walter F. George / Lake Eufaula and Lake Seminole — allow detecting only on designated day-use beaches (West Point even publishes a metal-detector brochure with the open areas and tool limits). The Georgia Power and Crisp County utility lakes — Sinclair, Oconee and Blackshear — publish no detecting rule at all, so ask the lake office first and treat the shoreline lots as private. The state parks (Providence Canyon, Georgia Veterans, High Falls, Reed Bingham, Laura S. Walker) ban detecting, and the marquee sites are firmly off-limits: Ocmulgee Mounds, Andersonville, Jarrell Plantation, and the Okefenokee Swamp — a national wildlife refuge where even Stephen C. Foster State Park, inside the refuge, is doubly banned. This is old cotton-country ground, so most of the good hunting is on private farmland with the owner's permission.
Beaches and parks on the South Georgia
- 🟠 West Point Lake (USACE) Limited · Troup County
Corps rules allow detecting only in designated 'open' day-use areas (ball fields, playgrounds, swim beaches within the swim lines); hand too… - 🟠 Walter F. George Lake / Lake Eufaula (USACE) Limited · Clay County
Corps rule 36 CFR 327.14: metal detecting is allowed on designated beaches or previously disturbed areas unless the District Commander restr… - 🔴 Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park Prohibited · Bibb County
Federal NPS land — possessing or using a metal detector is prohibited (36 CFR 2.1(a)(7)); this is a protected ancient Native American mound … - 🔴 Andersonville National Historic Site Prohibited · Sumter County
Federal NPS land — possessing or using a metal detector is prohibited (36 CFR 2.1(a)(7)). A Civil War prison site and active national cemete… - 🔴 Providence Canyon State Park Prohibited · Stewart County
Georgia State Parks rules prohibit metal detecting and even possessing metal-detecting equipment; damaging or removing rocks and natural res… - 🔴 Georgia Veterans State Park Prohibited · Crisp County
Georgia State Parks rules prohibit metal detecting and even possessing metal-detecting equipment on this Lake Blackshear park land (OCGA 12-… - 🔴 High Falls State Park Prohibited · Monroe County
Georgia State Parks rules prohibit metal detecting and even possessing metal-detecting equipment; damaging natural or historic resources is … - 🔴 Stephen C. Foster State Park Prohibited · Charlton County
Georgia State Parks rules prohibit metal detecting and even possessing metal-detecting equipment (OCGA 12-3-10(n), 12-3-52). On top of that,… - 🔴 Laura S. Walker State Park Prohibited · Ware County
Georgia State Parks rules prohibit metal detecting and even possessing metal-detecting equipment on park land (OCGA 12-3-10(n), 12-3-52). Th… - 🔴 Reed Bingham State Park Prohibited · Cook/Colquitt County
Georgia State Parks rules prohibit metal detecting and even possessing metal-detecting equipment; damaging or removing natural features is a… - 🔴 Jarrell Plantation State Historic Site Prohibited · Jones County
Georgia State Parks & Historic Sites rules prohibit metal detecting and even possessing metal-detecting equipment; as a preserved 19th-c… - 🔴 Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge Prohibited · Charlton/Ware County
The refuge's own Rules & Policies state, "We prohibit the use or possession of metal detectors or similar devices," and separately bar d… - 🟠 Lake Seminole (USACE) Limited · Decatur/Seminole County
Corps rule 36 CFR 327.14 allows metal detecting only on designated beaches or previously disturbed areas unless the District Commander restr… - 🟠 Lake Blackshear (Crisp County Power Commission) Limited · Crisp County
Lake Blackshear is owned and managed by the Crisp County Power Commission, not the state, so the state-land detecting ban does not apply; th… - 🟠 Lake Sinclair (Georgia Power) Limited · Baldwin/Putnam County
Lake Sinclair is a Georgia Power reservoir on private utility land (not state land), so the state-land ban does not apply; Georgia Power's l… - 🟠 Lake Oconee (Georgia Power) Limited · Greene/Morgan County
Lake Oconee is a Georgia Power reservoir on private utility land (not state land), so the state-land ban does not apply; Georgia Power's lak…
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Other Georgia regions
Atlantic Coast · Metro Atlanta · North Georgia
See also: Georgia metal detecting laws · federal rules