Update on Club Picnic!

The WCHRRA Annual Picnic was held on Sept 12th, we had 47 people show up and participate in the fesitivities. We had President's special seeded holey tokens planted in the park area which were worth a silver coin for the finder.

The Grillmaster out did himself again this year. we feasted on a good variety of hot dogs and sausages, deer kabobs, chicken, and a great spread of homemade goodies.

The seeded hunt was a hoot. We have 47 participants who hunted for over 600 coins and other prizes.

Thank you all for coming and spending a day.

The WCHRRA 2023 Christmas Party & December Meeting will be held on December 19th, 2023.

The festivities will start at 6:30 with dinner served around 7:00. Please bring a dessert dish to pass around.
Yes, there will be a short meeting to do the end of the year stuff.

From the desk of the Editor:

News Flash: Ticks Gone Wild! UPDATE 5/30/2019

Just read an article that this year with all of the rain and when warmer temperatures finally get here the tick populations in the Midwest are going to explode! the breeding conditions are ripe and we all need to pay attention to those pesky blood suckers. They like to hide and wait for a free ride to a lunch date with anyone man or beast to walk by. Tall grasses, shrubs, weeds, trees, etc. are there favorite hiding spot. Lyme's disease is not a pleasant thing to experience. Although some people do not show any or minor symptoms, the disease can flare up months or even years later. Those folks who get bit and have a more severe reaction may be on medication for a long time.

  • Fever, chills, headache, fatigue, muscle and joint aches, and swollen lymph nodes.
  • Erythema migrans (EM) rash: Occurs in approximately 70 to 80 percent of infected persons. Begins at the site of a tick bite after a delay of 3 to 30 days (average is about 7 days)

If you see any of the above contact your doctor. Don't ignore them. Things may get worse.

The incidents of Lyme's disease are still on the rise in many states. We have a couple of members who have Lyme's disease and are dealing with the symptoms. Please read the CDC article and take precautions when the warmer weather shows up.

There have been cases of Lyme's disease reported in Illinois already. It also has been reported that the disease is spreading further each year. 

We need to be careful when we go out into the woods and grassy areas where these little pests are hiding looking for a free lunch.

Below is an interesting document from the CDC on ticks. Please download and read it. It shows the symptoms of the diseases that ticks carry.

Tick Borne Diseases.pdf

WCHRRA club members in addition to hunting for the goodies also clean up the environment by pulling out trash found during their hunts. This effort of packing out the trash found is part of the code of ethics we adhere to. This effort helps the detectorist out by cleaning out the junk buried and possibly revealing good masked targets.
In addition some of the trash is valuable in its own right. Copper, brass, aluminum, lead and other metals are worth a few dollars from the recycling centers. Some locations we hunt in have trash that maybe harmful, like used hypodermic needles, and other types of drug paraphenalia. This we dispose of in waste containers in the parks or beaches. Other objects found can be classified as relics. Detectorist hunt on permission granted land often find things like buried fence posts, old plow points, spikes, that can ruin a farmers equipment when they are working their land. We pride ourselves on being good stewards of the land.

Below are some pictures of the typical trash removed from various hunt sites. We have carried out over 170 lbs of trash from just the club hunts in one year alone! The trash pictured below consists of broken glass, aluminum cans, wire, steel objects, iron debris, lead from fishing tackle and various other junk. Much of the trash pictured below is recyclable.

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 These events are only for members in good standing.

For further information please log in to the Members only section, Members Only Events page or send an email to info@wchrra.org for more information.