The Cadiz Police Department was called to investigate a second grenade found by a magnet fisherman in the Little River Sunday afternoon.
Major Tyler Thomas said the same person who found a 40mm grenade on December 4, found another one in nearly the same spot while fishing off the South Road Bridge.
Thomas said the road was closed while the Fort Campbell Bomb Squad was called to the scene to investigate. Unlike two weeks ago when the grenade was detonated on site, the bomb squad determined the latest grenade was stable enough to be transported to Fort Campbell for detonation.
Thomas said the roadway was reopened shortly after the bomb squad removed the grenade that is popularly used in grenade launchers.
While it’s not uncommon for magnet fishermen to find discarded munitions, this marks two in three weeks in the same location. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which oversees the operation of the Little River and Lake Barkley, had a similar situation happen near the former Fort Devens in Massachusetts last year and ordered a magnet fishing ban on the Nashua River so that other discarded munitions would not be located by people not trained in the proper handling of explosives.
It’s not immediately known if the Nashville office of the Corps of Engineers is aware of the two incidents this month in Cadiz.
Magnet fishing became more popular during the COVID-19 pandemic and is legal in all 50 states except on private property. In August, some magnet fishers found 86 rockets, a tank tracer round, and ammo belts in a river on Fort Stewart, Georgia. They were cited into court by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources for fishing on federal property without a permit.
