Magnet Catches Gun In Herring River

 HARWICH – Nate Demontigny has found some pretty strange items in Massachusetts waters in the two years he has been fishing with a magnet. 

“But I’ve never seen anything like this on the Cape,” Demontigny said of the gun he pulled over the rail of the Herring River Bridge along Route 28 in West Harwich. “I’ve been to that bridge 100 times.”

Demontigny said he was not sure what he had caught on July 21 while fishing off the bridge with a five-pound magnet with a 3,500 pound pull force. After he dropped it on the ground and removed the crustation, he saw what looked like a World War II Luger.

He immediately called the Harwich Police Department to inform them that he had landed a gun. Demontigny said he does not have a firearms identification card, so he cannot be in the possession of a gun. An officer was sent to retrieve the weapon.

The gun was sent to the Barnstable County Sheriff’s Department’s criminal identification department, said Harwich Police Lt. Aram Goshgarian. The weapon was a semi-automatic revolver and it looks like a Luger, but it had been in the water a long time and is in bad shape.

“I wouldn’t say it is an antique, but it was in the water a long time,” Goshgarian said.

 Goshgarian said the criminal identification department will examine the gun to see if a serial number or other means of identifying the gun can be found. He said members of the department will get any information they can from the gun and then reach out to police detectives in the departments on the Cape to see if the information is relevant to any ongoing investigations.

“How the gun got there, who knows,” said Goshgarian. “It’s odd to be off the bridge, but it’s an easy place to dispose of it.”  

Demontigny lives in Yarmouth and has been magnet fishing throughout the state. 

He has a YouTube channel — YouTuble.com/@capecodmagnetcrew — which, he said, has 5,000 subscribers and three million views.  

 “We’re on a mission to clean up and recycle whatever forgotten scraps, mystery debris, or sunken treasures (OK, mostly junk) we can find,” he says on his website. “Got a spot in mind that could use some serious TLC? Let us know! We’re always up for a new cleanup adventure — think of us as Cape Cod’s unofficial underwater treasure hunters, but instead of gold, we’re after rusty metal.”

 He said he has found about a dozen guns over the past two years, some in great shape and others corroded. He said he was with a fisher group when they pulled explosives from the Charles River in Needham and a week later landed a bazooka round from the river. 

 “Every single time I find a gun, I call the police immediately,” Demontigny said. “Without a firearms identification card, they can’t give it back to me.”

 He said one of the guns he found was wrapped in a towel and in really good shape. Another is part of an active investigation in Newton. Among other items he has pulled from the water is a 1960s parking meter from a river in Waltham.

 Montingny said he loves being a magnet fisher because he likes being outside, anywhere, and cleaning up local waters.

“It’s really a fun hobby even though you come home covered in grime,” Demontigny said.