Some folks in southern Wisconsin find themselves facing a magnetic attraction to the region's hidden heavy metal scene.

They have taken up what's known as magnet fishing, a hobby that — measured in terms of social media — is all the rage in Europe but is just now becoming a pastime in the American Midwest.

The hobby consists of attaching a powerful magnet to a rope, then tossing the magnet into a waterway. Once the magnet hits bottom, you drag it until it locks onto something metal. Then you haul the item to the surface.

Sometimes the result is treasure, most of the time it's junk, and sometimes what you haul to the surface is just plain weird.

"It’s one of those hobbies where it’s kind of silly and it takes a lot of time and it’s kind of stinky and the water’s gross and you have to wear gloves and my wife’s always like, ‘Ugh, where are you going?' " said Jim Walters, a magnet fishing hobbyist from West Bend.

Walters operates a Facebook page, Magnet Fishing Wisco, for magnet fishing enthusiasts in the region.

"It’s getting some recognition out there a little bit, but really no one knows what it is," Walters said. "It’s kind of a new thing here (in the U.S.)."

He says he decided to try magnet fishing after stumbling onto videos about the hobby on YouTube.

Walters said it was a situation of ending up going down a "YouTube rabbit hole."

"I ended up about five hours later just like, 'wow.' "

He's been magnet fishing for four or five years now, he said.

"The fun thing about a magnet is it’s just like fishing," Walters said. "Something will hit. It will go ‘clink.’ It will give you a feeling on the rope. 'I’ve got something.'

"You can kind of tell by the sound and the feel how big the item is."

The process combines an outdoor activity with suspense, history, a little bit of exercise, sometimes crime and the satisfaction of knowing you're helping clean up the environment by ridding the region's waterways of metal junk.

Just make sure your tetanus shot is up to date.

The magnets

The fishing magnets are rated by pounds of lift or pulling force. For magnet fishing, a suggested range is 300 pounds of lift to 1,200 pounds of lift.

That's not how much the magnet weighs but is an estimate of its "sticking" power.

"It’s a powerful magnet that looks a little like a hockey puck," Walters said.

The higher the lift rating, the more the magnet costs.

A magnet with 1,200 pounds of pulling force is listed for $64.95 on Amazon.

A magnet fishing kit with a 1,200 pound magnet, rope and a carrying case, is $106.79, with $3.95 shipping on eBay.

You don't need the most powerful magnets to get started magnet fishing, Walters said.

"If you’re putting a (magnet fishing) rig together, it’s your own invention," Walters said.

But be careful using the magnets.

"These magnets are pretty strong," Walters said. "You have to watch your fingers and watch the side of the car."

The magnets are labeled with "Caution: Pinching Hazard."

Walters says he transports the magnets in a large plastic bucket with something such as a towel or a piece of foam in it to block the force of the magnet from coming in contact with a vehicle's metal.

You also have to be careful to keep the magnet from latching onto a metal bridge or pier support. If that happens, it's a battle to retrieve the magnet. (In one YouTube video, magnet fishermen had to hook their rope to a trailer hitch on their car and then used the car to pull the magnet free.)

"It takes a little practice to make sure the current doesn’t take your magnet in a direction you don’t want it to," said Trisha Timm, a magnet fishing hobbyist who lives in Saukville.

For Timm and her family, magnet fishing is an extension of their outdoor pursuits. The family has a Facebook page dedicated to outdoor activities, including magnet fishing videos.

"We’re fishermen also and we get (our lines) caught on this stuff all the time," Timm said of underwater metal junk. "The fact that we can get it out for not only ourselves but for other fishermen as well, that’s one of the biggest things.”

She gets a lot of curious questions while out magnet fishing.

"A lot of people walking by are so interested," she said. "They say, 'what are you guys doing?' And we say, 'magnet fishing.'"

So far the Timm family has pulled a lot of metal garbage out of area waterways, including a 75-pound unidentified hunk of metal pulled from the Milwaukee River near Grafton.

"We pulled a bike out of the water," Timm said. "It wasn’t in there for long.

"There was still air in the tires."

The gear

Walters has devised a uniform of sorts that he wears when magnet fishing. "It’s a pretty obnoxious outfit," he said.

Here's what it consists of:

Waders, for obvious reasons. "You're going to get wet," Walters said.

Protective gear. "I always have something on my shins and my ankles," Walters said. "You really never know" what is under the water or whether it could poke or stick you as you toss and retrieve your magnets.

Gloves. He uses a type of fishing glove.

Safety glasses and a hat.

"Who knows what’s in there?" Walters added. "I’ve heard of guys west of here finding what were traveling meth labs. They found a couple of those that were dumped in rivers toward the LaCrosse area. Awful. Just awful."

The payoff

Walters was magnet fishing in the northern portions of the Milwaukee River.

He tossed a magnet out into the middle of the river.

"I felt something and it felt pretty solid. Rectangular shape... really heavy," he said.

He hauled it out of the river and what he had was a heavy, muck-encased rectangular piece of cast iron. "I thought, 'this is cool,'" he said.

OK. How do you clean it up?

"I got on the YouTube again and realized I had to get a kiddie pool and four bottles of Coca-Cola and let this thing sit for two weeks in my garage," Walters said. "It was submerged in this disgusting, surgary, nasty, murky mess for two weeks."

The cola bath and some scrubbing resulted in the removal of the muck, allowing Walters to identify it as a bridge plaque made by the Lassig Bridge and Steel Co., in Chicago. It was stamped with a date from 1900.

"I cleaned it up and lacquered it and it looked pretty slick," Walters said. It ended up sitting in his garage.

One day, he had a rummage sale. The sign was still sitting in the garage but was off to the side, away from the rummage merchandise that was for sale.

A guy at the rummage sale spotted the sign.

"It ended up he was an architectural antique dealer from Chicago," Walters said. "He peeled off $500 bucks right there ..." for the bridge plaque. "He already had a buyer in mind."

Somebody has to clean all this stuff up

Europe has had issues with magnet fisherman pulling junk up out of rivers and lakes and then leaving big piles of useless waste metal and muck along the shoreline.

Walters and Timm say that is unacceptable to them and that it defeats the purpose of cleaning up the waterways, which is part of the mission of magnet fishing.

"That’s kind of the big thing," Walters said. "You’re cleaning up the metal trash that has been sitting" sometimes for generations, at the bottom of rivers and lakes.

All the junk they pull up to the surface, "We’re just scrapping it and getting it out of the water," Timm said. "It will go to the scrapyard and it will be disposed of correctly."

"You’re doing what you can for the planet," she added. "That’s the most important thing."

Walters and Timm say they go to great effort to make sure their hobby doesn't run afoul of the law.

"I’ve called and I’ve talked to wardens and law enforcement as well," Walters said. "They get a kick out of it for the most part, as long as you’re not trespassing."

There are ample opportunities for magnet fishing in the state.

"There’s a lot of public access to water in Wisconsin," Walters said.

With magnet fishing, there is no license required.

The state Department of Natural Resources has no problem with magnet fishing.

"We think it's absolutely wonderful that people want to go out and help clean up our waterways and remove garbage or debris, junk," said Robert Rosenberger, deputy bureau director for the DNR waterways program. "Getting that out of a river is great."

In the meantime, Walters says he will keep on magnet fishing.

"When I find a new hobby, I go a little nuts," he said.

What's in the water

Walters and Timm tend to find all sorts of things when they are out magnet fishing. Some of what they find has become fairly routine, but some of it isn't.

Upper torso of a mannequin. "Strangest thing I’ve ever found. It had a steel rod running through the center of it and the magnet locked onto that," Walters said. "As I’m bringing it up, I’m seeing a torso and it was definitely a 'What in the heck just happened?' moment because you’re seeing this and it doesn't make sense. You’re seeing this upper torso coming out of the water."

Gumballs. "I found a gumball machine that someone had stolen and chucked in the river," Walters said. "The gumballs were still intact."

Japanese paratrooper. "I pulled up this little Japanese WWII soldier figurine," Walters said. "It was a Japanese paratrooper. 3½ inches tall."

Guns. Walters has pulled a couple of handguns out of area waterways. Both were turned over to law enforcement and the guns had not been reported missing or stolen. "How did it end up here?" Walters said. "Was it grandma who didn’t like grandpa’s gun and tossed it into the river?"

An ironing trivet. A trivet is a piece of metal on which hot dishes or other hot things are placed. The trivet from the river was shaped like an iron for ironing clothing, Timm said. Did she know what it was when she pulled it up? "Absolutely no clue," she said.

Fishing gear. Just about anything a fisherman would drop in the water, Walters has pulled up to the surface. That includes knives, pliers, hooks and Leatherman multitools.

Railroad spikes. Especially around railroad bridges, the spikes that are used to hold the rails in place are plentiful in waterways, Walters said. He estimates he has fished about 400 railroad spikes out of waterways in southern Wisconsin.

Bicycles. Lots of them. "I’ve pulled a lot of bikes out of (the water)," Walters said. "I just pulled one up Tuesday." Some are fairly new, some are really old. Chances are, they are crusted with unimaginable muck. “You have to be ready for that big, nasty bicycle,” Walters said.

Anything else of note?

"I found an old toolbox that was completely full of Craftsman tools that were in beautiful condition," Walters said.

Lainey Seyler of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.

Contact Joe Taschler at (414) 224-2554 or jtaschler@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JoeTaschler or Facebook at facebook.com/joe.taschler.1.