Metal Detecting in Arkansas

1. The rule, in full

Arkansas – Park Directive 3225, Recreational Metal Detecting

Source: Park Directive 3225, obtained by email from the Division of Arkansas State Parks, 23 September 2026. The division also confirmed that there are no Park Operation manuals or directive series available online related to metal detecting. This text exists nowhere public. It is reproduced here in full because there is no link a reader can follow to check it, which is the opposite of the usual problem on these pages and has to be said plainly.

Operative text, in full:

PARK DIRECTIVE 3225
RECREATIONAL METAL DETECTING Metal detecting will be allowed only at public swim beaches located at the following parks: Crowley's Ridge, Daisy, DeGray Lake Resort, Lake Catherine, Lake Charles, Lake Dardanelle, Lake Ouachita, Village Creek, Woolly Hollow
I. The rules and procedures regarding the use of metal detectors are:
A. Metal detecting may occur from the day after Labor Day through the weekend preceding Memorial Day Sunday through Saturday from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.;
B. Metal detectorists must complete a registration form (see attached copy) and have it on their person when metal detecting;
C. Digging implements and hole sizes will be regulated;
D. Items of historical and/or archeological significance will not be removed. Park staff must be contacted immediately upon the discovery of such items;
E. Uncovered "valuables" will be left at the park office until a reasonable time has passed for the original owner to claim the item (30 days per Arkansas Lost and Found laws Excludes coins in circulation). All persons using metal detectors must complete a found property report before leaving a park. If no claim is made within the thirty days, the item may be collected by the finder.
II. Persons using metal detectors shall:
1. Observe all laws, regulations, and procedures;
2. Observe the metal detectors code of ethics (see www.fmdac.com);
3. Never destroy or disturb park facilities, natural features, historical, or archeological resources;
4. Conduct themselves with thoughtfulness, courtesy, and consideration for others by not interfering with other recreational activities or allowing any emitted sound that is audible to other park users;
5. Limit digging implements to ice picks, screwdrivers, and probes not to exceed two (2") inches in width and sand scoops not to exceed six (6") inches in width and eight (8") inches in length, containing perforations no less than one-half (1/2") inch in width, to be used only on sand surfaces;
6. Limit any holes dug to six (6") inches maximum depth, refill holes immediately following searches, and restore surfaces to previous conditions;
7. Properly dispose of all found or recovered trash or litter

Scope: public swim beaches at nine named state parks. The directive's first sentence is the whole of its reach – "Metal detecting will be allowed only at public swim beaches located at the following parks" – and the nine are named in it. It does not reach municipal land, and it does not reach the rest of a state park either: a swim beach at a listed park is the only place it permits.

Status: permit required. Paragraph B requires a registration form to be completed and carried on the person while detecting.

Two things every hobby site gets wrong

1. The registration is free. The $10 figure is wrong. Asked directly, the division stated: "We do not charge for the registration or permit they fill out at the Visitor's Center." Every hobby site in circulation publishes a $10 permit for Arkansas. There is no fee.

2. It is an off-season activity, not a year-round one. Paragraph A runs the season "from the day after Labor Day through the weekend preceding Memorial Day". Detecting is closed for the whole of the summer season at these beaches. No site in circulation states this at all – they publish the hours and omit the season, which leaves a reader planning a July trip to a swim beach where the activity is not allowed.

What circulation does get right: the nine parks, and the 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. window. Both match the directive.

Our reading of paragraph A. The sentence runs the season and the weekdays together with no punctuation between them: "from the day after Labor Day through the weekend preceding Memorial Day Sunday through Saturday from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m." We read it as a season (day after Labor Day to the weekend before Memorial Day), within which all seven days are open, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The alternative reading – that the season ends on a Sunday and the hours run Sunday through Saturday – produces the same practical answer for a visitor, which is why the ambiguity is recorded and not resolved.

What the rules actually require

• Tools, II.5: ice picks, screwdrivers, and probes no more than 2 inches

wide; sand scoops no more than 6 inches wide and 8 inches long, with perforations no less than half an inch, "to be used only on sand surfaces".

• Holes, II.6: 6 inches maximum depth, refilled immediately, surfaces

restored.

• Finds of historical or archaeological significance, I.D: not to be

removed, and park staff contacted immediately on discovery.

• Valuables, I.E: left at the park office for 30 days under Arkansas lost

and found law, with coins in circulation excluded; a found property report must be completed before leaving the park, by every person using a detector. If nobody claims the item within the thirty days, the finder may collect it.

• Code of ethics, II.2: the directive incorporates an outside document, the

metal detectorists' code of ethics at www.fmdac.com. That is a hobby organisation's page, not a state publication, and it can change without the directive changing.

Provenance, stated because it cannot be linked

The text above is as supplied by the Division of Arkansas State Parks by email on 23 September 2026, in answer to a direct request. We have not seen a signed or dated copy of the directive itself, and the text supplied carries no effective date, revision number or attachment (paragraph B refers to an attached registration form, which is not reproduced here). Since the division says nothing in this series is online, there is no public copy to check it against and no URL to cite.

So this entry is exactly as good as the agency's email, and it says so. If the directive is revised, nothing on the public web will show it, and the only currency check available is to ask again.

Why this took three attempts, and what the failed ones established

Worth keeping, because it explains why the aggregator detail was not simply published in March:

• The Code of Arkansas Rules contains no park-use rule at all. Every

chapter the Department of Parks, Heritage, and Tourism has in the official code – Chapter XXIII, Chapter XXIV, Chapter XXV – holds two outdoor recreation grant rules and the commission bylaws. No camping rule, no vehicle rule, no detecting rule. The absence was not a gap in the search.

• Park rules are made as directives, not regulations. Park Directive 3000

(2 February 2015): rules "will be issued as Park Directives for inclusion in the Park Operations Manual", and a summons cites "the specific Park Directive by its number". Directive 3225 is exactly that instrument.

• The site that once published directives is gone. foi.arkansas.com,

which hosted Park Directive PDFs, no longer resolves, and no capture of any of its PD files exists in the Wayback index.

The aggregator detail turned out to be half right, which is the worst case. Nine parks: right. Hours: right. Fee: wrong, and wrong in the direction that costs a reader money they do not owe. Season: missing entirely, and missing in the direction that sends a reader to a beach in July. Copying it in March would have published a $10 fee that does not exist and a year-round permission that does not exist, with the correct parts alongside making the whole look reliable.

No statute reaches municipal land. Arkansas has no codified park-use rules, and nothing located in this pass regulates detecting on city land.

Sources: Park Directive 3225, Division of Arkansas State Parks, by email 23 September 2026; the division's fee statement in the same correspondence; Code of Arkansas Rules, Title 15, Chapters XXIII to XXV, read 22 September 2026; Park Directive 3000 as published on the Arkansas State Parks rules page. Checked 27 September 2026.

2. Cities in Arkansas that publish a rule

Awaiting review. None of the city or county rows publishes until its status is set and its quotation chosen by hand.

3. County rules

Awaiting review. None of the city or county rows publishes until its status is set and its quotation chosen by hand.

4. Cities checked — no published rule

Awaiting review. None of the city or county rows publishes until its status is set and its quotation chosen by hand.