Indiana
The car is locked, and the keys are somewhere in the sand, the lake or the grass
The Lake Michigan dunes, Lake James and Wawasee, Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, Monroe Lake, Brown County and the Ohio River
You walk back from the beach at Indiana Dunes State Park, reach the car and find an empty pocket. Or the pontoon is back at its dock on Lake James, or the tent is packed after race weekend at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and nobody has the fob. Lost car keys, or a lost key fob, stop the whole day.
Ring Seekers is a lost ring and jewelry recovery service that connects people who lost a ring, wedding band, watch, keys or phone in Indiana with a metal detectorist who can search there. Tell us what happened and where. We find a detectorist who can reach the place, brief them with your map and photos, and tell you honestly if the odds are poor.
It does not have to be keys. The same kind of search covers a wedding band, an engagement ring, an Oura ring, earrings, necklaces, bracelets, an Apple Watch, metal-framed glasses and a hearing aid.
Walk the day backwards, from the car door to the water
Begin at the last moment you are sure the keys were in your hand. If that was locking the car, the parking space is one end of your line. Your towel, picnic table or boat slip is the other.
Photograph both ends with something fixed in the frame, a shelter, a ramp sign or a light pole, and drop a pin at each. Ask at the gatehouse, the marina or the park office whether keys were handed in.
Note the time and its zone. The Indiana DNR lists Indiana Dunes State Park on Central Time and Potato Creek, near South Bend, on Eastern, so a bare 3 pm can be read two ways.
Send the pins, the photos and a picture of the keys or a matching fob on WhatsApp.
Areas and towns we cover in Indiana
- Indiana Dunes, Michigan City and South Bend
- Indiana Dunes National Park beaches
- Indianapolis and central Indiana
- Fort Wayne
- Angola and Lake James
- Lake Wawasee
- Culver and Lake Maxinkuckee
- Bloomington and Monroe Lake
- Nashville and Brown County State Park
- Patoka Lake
- French Lick and Jasper
- Madison and Clifty Falls State Park
- Carmel, Fishers and Noblesville
- Chesterton, Gary and Whiting
Working down the map of Indiana, lakeshore first
Follow the link in the first two cards for more on the lakeshore and on Indianapolis.
Whiting to Michigan City, then inland along the St. Joseph River
This stretch has 15 miles (about 24 km) of shoreline on Indiana Dunes Tourism's count. The state park at Chesterton has more than three miles (about 5 km) of beach with large dunes behind it, and Washington Park in Michigan City marks its beach paths by colour. Indiana Dunes National Park adds a string of beach lots, from West Beach, the one with lifeguards and a bathhouse, through Portage Lakefront, Porter, Kemil and Dunbar to Lake View and Central Avenue. Inland are South Bend's riverfront and the two lakes at Notre Dame. The full page is Indiana Dunes, Michigan City and South Bend.
Reservoir beaches around Indianapolis and the Speedway camping lots
Eagle Creek Park has a swim area its foundation gives as 200 feet (about 60 metres) long. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway lists tent camping for the Indy 500 in named lots, so for keys lost over race weekend the lot and your pitch come first. A lost ring on a lawn has a step-by-step guide on Indianapolis and central Indiana.
Lake James at Pokagon, Wawasee and Maxinkuckee
Pokagon State Park is near Angola in Steuben County, and the Indiana DNR describes it as framed by Lake James and Snow Lake. It has a swimming beach, rents pontoons, and in winter runs a quarter-mile (about 400 metre) refrigerated toboggan run. The Lilly Center for Lakes and Streams at Grace College lists Lake Wawasee at 3,006 acres (about 1,215 hectares), with a bottom of gravel, muck and sand. At Culver, the town park overlooks Lake Maxinkuckee, and the town lists a beach season from Memorial weekend through mid August.
Three rivers and the city parks of Fort Wayne
Fort Wayne sits at the junction of the St. Marys, St. Joseph and Maumee rivers, as the National Weather Service describes it. Promenade Park, downtown on the riverfront, has a treetop canopy trail and an accessible playground. Lakeside Park has its rose gardens, Foster Park its spring flowers. Send the park's name and the nearest playground, shelter or bridge.
Three beaches on Monroe Lake and the ridges of Brown County
Monroe Lake, outside Bloomington, covers 10,750 acres (about 4,350 hectares) on the DNR's figures. Visit Bloomington lists its public beaches at Paynetown, Fairfax and Hardin Ridge. Brown County State Park, at Nashville, is nearly 16,000 acres (about 6,500 hectares) of narrow ridges and ravines, with 70 miles (about 113 km) of horse trails.
South to Patoka Lake and Clifty Falls on the Ohio River
Patoka Lake lies just south of French Lick and West Baden and just east of Jasper, the DNR says, with a swimming beach, ten launch ramps and marinas. Clifty Falls State Park, near Madison, overlooks the Ohio River, and its trails run from easy to very rugged. Tell us which falls you were near, or which stretch of the rocky creek bed in Clifty Canyon.
Between your first WhatsApp and a detectorist on the spot
The whole story, told once, on WhatsApp
The person who reads your first message is the one who asks the questions, looks for the detectorist and stays with your case.
Nobody asks you for the parking space twice
The parking-space pin, the dock pin, your photos and the picture of the keys are passed to whoever takes the search.
A marked dune path is one answer, 81 feet of water is another
Keys dropped along a path between a parking lot and a beach give a search a line to follow. Keys that went over the side above the deepest part of Wawasee, which the Lilly Center records as 81 feet (about 25 metres), are a long shot, and you would hear that from us before anything is arranged.
Dune sand, turf, lake bed and snow
A search in mown turf in Carmel is one job, and metal detecting Indiana dune sand is another. So is a lake bed of gravel and muck, or the snow beside a toboggan run. We ask which you were on before we look for anyone.
Before you agree to anything
We explain the costs before any search is booked.
Why we ask for a fixed landmark and the date
On the dunes shore the weather moves the waterline
On Lake Michigan it is the weather that shifts the water's edge. A seiche, in NOAA's words an oscillating wave, can stand several feet (a metre or so) high. The edge in your photo may have shifted by the day of a search, so measure from a walkway, a pier or a pavilion.
Monroe and Patoka each have a daily level report
For Monroe Lake and Patoka Lake, the DNR links to a daily lake level report from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. For a loss at the water's edge on either, send the date and a photo with a ramp, a sign or a tree in it.
Fort Wayne sees snow weeks before Indianapolis
Expect about 34 inches (about 85 cm) of snow in a typical year at Fort Wayne, according to the National Weather Service, from around early November to mid April on average. Around Indianapolis the first measurable snow comes, on average, in late November.
If your day in Indiana ended like one of these
My car keys came out of my pocket on the dunes at Indiana Dunes State Park, somewhere between the top and the beach, and the light is going. What is worth doing this evening?
Photograph the slope you went up and the place you reached the beach, pin both, and ask the park staff whether keys were handed in. Loose sand could close over a bunch of keys, so please do not rake through the slope.
My key fob was in my swim shorts when I jumped off our rental pontoon on Lake James. We were anchored in about five feet of water. Can anyone look for it there?
Yes, we can look for someone. Five feet (1.5 metres) of water at a known anchoring spot is a far better case than open water. Tell us what you could see on shore in two directions.
My truck keys went missing in our camping lot at the Speedway over the 500. We got home on the spare. Does it help or hurt that the lot is empty now?
It helps. An empty lot is easier to search than a full one. The Speedway names its camping lots, so tell us which one, where your pitch was and what stood behind it.
My husband wants to find a metal detector rental and sweep the beach at Paynetown on Monroe Lake himself for our keys. Reasonable?
On the dry sand, yes. Renting can suit a fresh loss on dry sand or a lawn. A detectorist makes more sense for wet sand, the water, a large area or a small item.
My mother lost a hearing aid at the Pokagon toboggan run, somewhere between the run and the car. Is something that tiny a no?
Not a no, but a hard one. A short, certain stretch helps most: the last place she knows she had it, and the place she first noticed it was gone.
I rode out of the horsemen's campground at Brown County State Park and came back without my gold chain. Is 70 miles of horse trail too much ground?
The whole seventy miles (about 113 km) would be. One campsite, or the one place you got off the horse, is not. Send the places where you mounted, dismounted and last touched the chain.
My engagement ring flew off as I shook out a blanket at Foster Park in Fort Wayne. I searched metal detectorist near me and have no idea who to pick. Who do I write to?
Write to us. Mark the spot and photograph it from two sides, then tell us where the blanket was in relation to a path or a tree and which way you shook it. We look for one suitable person and pass all of that on.
Indiana
Two pins, and a photo of the spare
Where the car was and where you spent the day.
Car keys at a lake ramp, a lost ring on a Fort Wayne lawn and a phone under a dock all start with the same message. Put the pins, the photos, the day and the time in one WhatsApp message, and the reply will say plainly how the chances look.