# Is ‘mud treading’ commonplace in the USA?



## waiting for codd (Feb 11, 2022)

Hi everybody. 
Here in Australia we frequently do something called mud-treading. Which as the name suggests involves jumping into rivers, creeks and even the ocean and stabbing at the mud with a long specially built probe to try and find bottles. Many great things can be found this way and most diggers over here will have some experience in doing it. Of course this has been going on since the 1970s and most of the bottles have dried up nowadays.

My question to you is is this a thing over there? I have never really heard of it happening as frequently as it does here. And most importantly would it be worth a go in the rivers/creeks around Morgantown when we are over there later in the year?


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## hemihampton (Feb 11, 2022)

Think they call it Mud Larking in the USA.  Leon.

Here's a Interesting you tube Video.


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## willong (Feb 11, 2022)

I am not a big joiner or a particularly social person. The closest I have ever come to joining a bottle club or group is my participation on this forum. That disclosure should serve to classify my observation as one based on very limited contact with other bottle diggers.

I have only dug with two other persons, and that was decades ago. I know that one of those guys did "mud-treading" in a marsh on the outskirts of Port Townsend, WA. The other former bottle hunting buddy was a scuba diver and had much better means of searching underwater in much better prospects--he retrieved bottles from the deep, clear and cold waters of Lake Crescent for one example. Dale told me that early residents used to row out into the lake and dump their household trash over the side in burlap sacks. His finds were often encountered in heaps on the bottom which still retained remnants of the bags.





*The photo above is of another, much more recent (2004) discovery in Lake Crescent. It is the 1927 Chevrolet of Blanch and Russell Warren. The couple disappeared 75 years previously on July 3, 1929 while driving home from Port Angeles with a new washing machine.*

A former coworker that I discussed bottles with in the 2000's used to trod the tidal mudflats adjacent Tacoma, WA decades before I met him. He claimed to have done quite well--as his digging era was the 1970's, I tend to believe him. The previous examples of my friends were also in the early 1970's as was my own bottle digging. I however, concentrated on rural and forested locales, as I enjoyed the exploration outings nearly as much as the bottle digging itself. Moreover, I was not inclined to knock on doors seeking permission to probe for privies or hunt bottles in highly visible urban areas.

I would certainly be willing to trod in secluded streams, muddy or not, if likely prospects existed in my vicinity; but with few exceptions, streams of that nature don't exist in my region except for the tidal terminal ends of ones flowing through urban areas.


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## willong (Feb 11, 2022)

waiting for codd said:


> And most importantly would it be worth a go in the rivers/creeks around Morgantown when we are over there later in the year?


You might want to specify which "Morgantown" in order to solicit more germane responses. At least four states in the eastern part of the country have a Morgantown within their boundaries.

There are quite a number of YouTube video channels whose content features creek walking for antique bottles and other relics. Those searches are more generally done visually in clearer water streams where bottom contour, and thus the distribution of relics, changes with rain events and floods. One in the south (Alabama) who regularly posts creek walks is *Adventure Archeology*. Most of what that young man finds are soda bottles of newer origin than the era which most interests me, but he does occasionally find handmade, blown in mold bottles. If you are talking about Pennsylvania, West Virginia, North Carolina or Morgantown, Kentucky, many of the inland streams will be similar to some of those featured in the Adventure Archeology videos. I mention that channel because it offers some valid tips on reading the streams.


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## waiting for codd (Feb 11, 2022)

willong said:


> You might want to specify which "Morgantown" in order to solicit more germane responses. At least four states in the eastern part of the country have a Morgantown within their boundaries.
> 
> There are quite a number of YouTube video channels whose content features creek walking for antique bottles and other relics. Those searches are more generally done visually in clearer water streams where bottom contour, and thus the distribution of relics, changes with rain events and floods. One in the south (Alabama) who regularly posts creek walks is *Adventure Archeology*. Most of what that young man finds are soda bottles of newer origin than the era which most interests me, but he does occasionally find handmade, blown in mold bottles. If you are talking about Pennsylvania, West Virginia, North Carolina or Morgantown, Kentucky, many of the inland streams will be similar to some of those featured in the Adventure Archeology videos. I mention that channel because it offers some valid tips on reading the streams.


Morgantown West Virginia.
 I don’t know what the mud is like over there here it tends to be deep and bottles wont move since they were discarded.

From what I’ve been told there is a difference between mud-larking and mud-treading the main difference being mud treading involves finding bottles you cannot see by feel either by stepping on them in the mud or with your specially built probe.


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## willong (Feb 11, 2022)

hemihampton said:


> Here's a Interesting you tube Video.


Geez!  I almost wish you hadn't posted that link  as it makes me envious. I still wouldn't move to NJ, but I never had a single day of finds like that, let alone in modern times! Just goes to show how populous and for how long the area has been occupied (and for how long people have been trashing rivers).


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## willong (Feb 11, 2022)

waiting for codd said:


> From what I’ve been told there is a difference between mud-larking and mud-treading the main difference being mud treading involves finding bottles you cannot see by feel either by stepping on them in the mud or with your specially built probe.


Yeah, I never even heard either terminology until "mud larking" videos from the UK began showing up on YouTube. The friend whom I mentioned hunting that marsh at Port Townsend would have done something closer to your mud-treading. In fact, I think he did say that he felt some underfoot, though I seem to recall that he retrieved them, and found most, with a potato rake as the water was deep enough that he wore chest waders.

If you haven't yet watched the video that hemihampton linked, I think you'll find it interesting. The guy scored many bottles, a fair portion of which were BIM. Even before he mentioned the tide, I noticed barnacles. Morgantown, WV however, is in a hilly landlocked region a long distance from saltwater. It is well supplied with streams and rivers, any of which could be silted in stretches or pockets I reckon. But I will be surprised if you find any significant opportunity for the mud-treading you are familiar with. Good luck though--let us know how it goes.


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## willong (Feb 11, 2022)

Take a look at Morgantown, WV on Google Earth satellite view. The Monongahela River does not reveal any mudflats in the portion that viewed. It does run pretty flat though, traveling a long distance on the 1902 topographic map before it crosses a contour line.


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## hemihampton (Feb 12, 2022)

I think the mud treading you describe would be more like in a swampy Marsh or Pond. The kind of deep mud that goes up to your knees & the Suction won't let you move or get out. I've done that before & even had to Rescue a guy that got Stuck, Saved his life possibly. LEON.


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## hemihampton (Feb 12, 2022)

I know a guy in here Taylor (RIBOTTLES) has dug in what he calls Salt Marshs which I assume is like your Mud Treading. Link below. Leon.





__





						Summer Marsh Dig pt. 1
					

The salt marshes have been calling my name this year, but Saturday was the first time I was able to finally get out and play in the mud.  Fellow forum member Andy (what is your screen name lol) joined me.  We found enough stuff to make it a fun outing, despite having the neighbors yell at us and...



					www.antique-bottles.net


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## MountainMan304 (Apr 26, 2022)

waiting for codd said:


> Morgantown West Virginia.
> I don’t know what the mud is like over there here it tends to be deep and bottles wont move since they were discarded.
> 
> From what I’ve been told there is a difference between mud-larking and mud-treading the main difference being mud treading involves finding bottles you cannot see by feel either by stepping on them in the mud or with your specially built probe.


Sorry, I'm late to this discussion but I can speak on the depth/clarity of the Monongahela River as someone who has visited friends at WVU quite a bit. First, the river is at an average depth of 20 feet, so not quite walkable. It's also very, very muddy as most rivers in WV are, so diving would be ill-advised. In all honesty, it's dirty too (at least downstream of WVU and Morgantown). I'd try to find a shallower river or creek that's a tributary of the Monongahela. Unfortunately, another fact of WV is that most rivers and streams are either muddy or their currents are so strong that it can be dangerous to walk them (e.g., the New River), some can be polluted with mining-related chemicals, or _very _susceptible to flash flooding; a fast and hard rain could easily mean death in some places (see the flooding in Greenbrier 2016--the deadliest flash flooding in US history and one of the worst floods in general in WV history).


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