FINDMAG 1000LB Double Sided Kit — Worth $24?

My nephew asked me about magnet fishing after seeing a video where some guy pulled a whole bicycle out of a canal. Classic entry point. I've been doing this long enough to know that buying a kid a $70 starter kit before they've ever stood on a bridge with a rope in their hands is a great way to end up with a $70 paperweight in the garage.

So I grabbed the FINDMAG kit. Twenty-four bucks. I figured if he hated it after one afternoon, losing that much money wouldn't sting.

He didn't hate it.

We took it out to a small footbridge over a slow-moving stretch of river about twenty minutes outside of town — nothing glamorous, just murky water and a decent amount of foot traffic over the years, which usually means something interesting is down there. First drop, he pulled up a corroded bolt the size of my thumb and acted like he'd found a cannonball. Honestly? That energy is exactly why I got into this. The magnet grabbed it no problem, the rope held, and nothing snapped or jammed or fell apart on the first use — which is genuinely the bar I set for budget gear.

The double-sided design is a nice touch at this price. You get coverage pulling up and dragging along the bottom, which matters more than people realize when you're fishing a muddy riverbed where stuff gets buried. I've used single-sided magnets that cost three times this and missed things just because of geometry. So credit where it's due — whoever spec'd this kit made a decent call there.

Now. The rope. It's fine. It's not great. It's the kind of rope where you look at it and think I'll probably replace this eventually — nothing fraying or obviously wrong with it, just a vague sense that it wouldn't be my first choice if I were buying rope separately. For a first-timer using it in calm water off a low bridge? Totally adequate. For anyone doing serious pulls in fast current or fishing deeper spots with a lot of tension? I'd swap it out before you go.

The gloves included are thin. Bring your own if you care about your hands.

What I keep coming back to, though, is the math. If this kit spends one afternoon in the back of a car and never gets used again, nobody's upset. If it turns into a regular thing — if the kid who opened this box is out there every weekend by spring — then they'll outgrow it naturally and know exactly what they actually want to upgrade. That's not a bad outcome for $24.

There's something sitting at the bottom of that river we fished that I'm pretty sure has been there since the late '80s at least. We didn't get it. But we'll go back.