Outdoor Hobby Regulations · Verified from Official Sources

Know Where Your Hobby Is Legal

Site-specific rules and permits for metal detecting, foraging, rockhounding, fossil hunting, and more. Verified from official sources. Updated for 2026.

Explore Metal Detecting Browse Florida Sites

31+

Locations covered

Hobbies

100%

Official sources

Most Searched Permissions

Quick access to the most commonly needed hobby rules and locations

Prohibited

Glass Beach

California, Mendocino·Beachcombing

Glass Beach is a former city dump turned tourist landmark — and taking the sea glass home is technically prohibited under California's state park rockhounding rule, even though enforcement is close to nonexistent. Fifty-plus years of visitors pocketing pieces is also why the colorful glass is visibly running out.

Removing sea glass, rocks, or any natural material from Glass Beach is prohibited under California's state park rockhounding rule (14 CCR § 4611) — the Sonoma-Mendocino Coast District superintendent has publicly stated the glass 'should not be removed' and doing so 'could' result in a citation
Enforcement is minimal in practice — no rangers are posted to check pockets — but the prohibition is the actual rule, not a myth, regardless of what a local business owner or fellow visitor might tell you

Allowed

Sanibel Island

Florida, Lee·Beachcombing

Empty shells are unlimited on Sanibel with no permit. Anything still occupied — sand dollars and sea stars included — is barred by city ordinance and state rule.

Empty shells, driftwood and sea glass: no permit, no bag limit, no closed season on City of Sanibel public beaches
Live shellfish are prohibited under Sanibel City Code § 74-183, which defines them as any living mollusk (Phylum Mollusca) or echinoderm (Phylum Echinodermata) — sand dollars, sea stars and sea urchins are covered, not just shells

Allowed

Huron-Manistee National Forests

Michigan, Wexford·Foraging

No permit is needed to pick morels for your own table in the Huron-Manistee National Forests. Selling isn't covered, and warbler areas close May 1–July 15.

The forest's own permits page lists gathering edible material "(morels, etc.) for your own consumption" as an activity that needs no permit
No per-person quantity limit is published for the Huron-Manistee — unlike the Pacific Northwest forests covered elsewhere on this site, there is no 1-gallon figure to hide behind, so keep the harvest to what you will eat

Allowed

Monongahela National Forest

West Virginia, Pocahontas·Foraging

Digging ramps needs no permit on the Monongahela, but personal use stops at two gallons per person — roughly 180 plants. Selling any of them is prohibited.

No permit for personal use. The forest's own permits page puts gathering a reasonable amount of edible material — mushrooms, ramps and the like — for your own consumption among the activities that require no paperwork.
Personal use has a hard ceiling: two gallons per person in possession at any one time, which the Forest Service puts at roughly 180 whole plants, roots and leaves included. That is about what fills a plastic grocery bag.

Allowed

Peace River

Florida, Desoto·Fossil Hunting

Shark teeth need no permit on the Peace River; bone needs Florida's $5 fossil permit. FDEP says state lands from Bartow to Wauchula are closed to collecting.

Fossil shark and ray teeth, invertebrate fossils and fossil plants may be collected and kept with or without a permit (Florida Museum of Natural History)
Vertebrate fossils — bone, horse and mammoth teeth, turtle shell, dugong rib — from the river bottom require a Florida Fossil Permit; the fee is capped at $5 by Fla. Stat. § 1004.576

Allowed

Venice Beach

Florida, Sarasota·Fossil Hunting

Fossil shark teeth need no permit at Venice Beach. But the ordinance that allows them exempts material that washes up, not material you dig out.

Shark and stingray teeth, invertebrate fossils and fossil plants are exempt from the Florida Fossil Permit and may be kept for personal use
Vertebrate bone — whale, dugong, horse, tapir, Ice Age mammal — collected from state land requires a Florida Fossil Permit from the Florida Museum of Natural History, capped by statute at $5

Browse by Hobby

Permits, land access rules, and legal site guides organized by outdoor activity

Metal Detecting

Where you can legally detect

Explore

Foraging

Wild edibles & legal harvest rules

Explore

Rockhounding

Legal sites for rocks, gems & minerals

Explore

Fossil Hunting

Where fossil collection is allowed

Explore

Sea Glass & Beachcombing

Beach collection rules

Explore

Gold Panning

Recreational prospecting rules

Explore

Magnet Fishing

Legal waterways & safety rules

Explore

Recently Added Sites

Latest location guides published in 2026

Browse California

Allowed

Sunset Beach & Higbee Beach (Cape May Diamonds)

New Jersey, Cape May·Beachcombing

Collecting Cape May diamonds is allowed at privately owned Sunset Beach with no permit. At Higbee Beach, a state WMA, taking stones is illegal.

Sunset Beach is privately owned by the Hume family (Sunset Beach Gift Shops), who openly welcome diamond hunting. No permit, fee or bag limit applies to hand-picking loose quartz pebbles
Higbee Beach is a state Wildlife Management Area. N.J.S.A. 23:7-9 bars removing minerals or other state property from Division of Fish & Wildlife land, even though travel guides still send collectors there

Allowed

Agate Beach

Oregon, Lincoln·Beachcombing

Loose agates, jasper, and shells are legal to pocket at Agate Beach under Oregon's Beach Bill — up to a gallon a day. Cross into Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area just south, though, and the rule flips entirely: nothing leaves, not even a pebble.

Under Oregon's Beach Bill (ORS 390.610 et seq.) and OAR 736-021-0090, loose surface material — agates, jasper, petrified wood, shells — may be collected for personal use up to one gallon per person per day and three gallons per person per calendar year
Digging into bedrock, cliffs, seawalls, or excavating sand and soil to search for buried material is prohibited under the same rule — only material already loose on the surface qualifies

Allowed

Bandon Beach

Oregon, Coos·Beachcombing

Loose agates, sea glass, and driftwood are legal to collect at Bandon Beach under Oregon's Beach Bill. Face Rock and every other sea stack offshore are permanently off-limits — federal refuge land you can look at but never touch.

Loose surface material — agates, jasper, sea glass, shells, driftwood — may be collected for personal use under Oregon's Beach Bill (OAR 736-021-0090): up to one gallon per person per day, three gallons per person per calendar year, no digging
Every offshore rock, reef, and sea stack visible from Bandon Beach — including Face Rock itself, Table Rock, Cathedral Rock, Elephant Rock, and the Coquille Point rocks — is part of Oregon Islands National Wildlife Refuge and permanently closed to public entry or climbing, regardless of tide

Prohibited

Birch Bay State Park

Washington, Whatcom·Beachcombing

Beachcombing for souvenirs is more restricted at Birch Bay State Park than most tourism guides suggest. Washington's own park rules prohibit removing driftwood and wood debris beyond a designated firewood-permit process, and the state's general natural-resource rule treats rocks and shells the same way — a real correction to the common 'gather shells as you go' assumption.

Washington State Parks' own park rules prohibit collecting firewood or wood debris — driftwood included — anywhere in the park area, except in pre-approved sites during a specific window under a paid wood-debris permit issued by the park manager (WAC 352-32-290)
A broader state rule (WAC 352-28-010) restricts cutting or removal of natural resources on state park land to what's part of an approved resource conservation plan, with only narrow, specifically named exceptions (seaweed harvest, certain edible-plant gathering, specimen collection under protocol) — no comparable exception for shells or beach rocks was found published for Birch Bay specifically

Prohibited

Kalaloch Beach

Washington, Jefferson·Beachcombing

Beachcombing is prohibited at Kalaloch — the same 36 CFR 2.1 blanket ban that covers every Olympic National Park beach. Visitors regularly assume the beach's razor clam digging means collecting is allowed too; it's a completely separate, currently-closed state fishery that has nothing to do with the natural-object ban.

No rock, shell, driftwood, sea glass, or any other natural object may be removed from Kalaloch Beach — prohibited under 36 CFR § 2.1(a)(1), the same park-wide rule that covers every Olympic National Park beach
Razor clam digging happens on a defined stretch of this same beach (South Beach Campground to Brown's Point) under a completely separate WDFW/tribal-comanaged food fishery — it does not create any exception to the natural-object collecting ban

Prohibited

Ruby Beach

Washington, Jefferson·Beachcombing

Beachcombing is prohibited at Ruby Beach — every rock, shell, and piece of driftwood is protected under 36 CFR 2.1 inside Olympic National Park. The one exception most visitors never hear about: you can burn driftwood found on-site in a permitted beach campfire, you just can't carry any of it home.

No rocks, shells, driftwood, sea glass, or any other natural object may be removed from Ruby Beach — prohibited under 36 CFR § 2.1(a)(1)
Living tide pool organisms (sea stars, anemones, crabs) may not be collected, handled roughly, or removed under the same regulation