All the real treasure stories that we’ve been on or been lucky to hear of or be a part of all has that same theme right?
Pretty much ill-gotten gains chased by the authorities, a need to safeguard it and then leave and never come back.
That’s right, and that’s the Genesis of almost every treasure.
A lot of them, I was thinking, what we were looking for this year varied, but there were a couple direct searches for gold which is always exciting.
And it was kind of fun to kick things off basically with a search for

gold with Captain Joe.
Oh yeah, that story was really interesting because I had never heard of it.
Had you heard of this?
Yeah, before?
No, Ari, I certainly had not.
Right, that’s really fun to learn these things.
As Captain Avery was quite a character.
Yes, this is Captain Joe’s house.
Alright, I think I see our crew.
Yeah, there’s our crew.

When Marty was contacted early last year by Joe Ziga, a retired boat captain from Tampa, Florida, and given the opportunity to help recover more than a billion dollars in buried gold, it was an

offer that he and Maddie Blake could not refuse.
The document that I have tells a little story about Captain Louis Ori who went to the swell the Stash’s treasure.
Yeah, according to their research, Captain Joe and his friend Michael Gattuso believe that the treasure had been buried on a nearby beach in 1817 by Captain Louis Ari, originally from Paris, France.
Captain Ori helped lead numerous Central American revolutions against the Spanish before becoming one of the most successful privateers in the early 19th

century, establishing a base of operations near Tampa, Florida.
However, when the United States outlawed privateering, Ari was forced to flee but not before reportedly burying 11 separate caches of gold on a beach near an ancient well.
You guys can start hammering away.
Alright, after recruiting archaeologist Dr. Aaron Taylor who secured a permit for the search to proceed—
I hear him, I’m actually going to signal right here—I think we have a well.
Gentleman Joe and his team locate the old well and then obtain metal detection readings

that indicated 11 different caches of gold were possibly buried on the beach just as Joe believed.
It’s definitely someone here, shall we be in?
Yes.
The team found several promising clues and artifacts potentially dating to the early 19th century.
Whoa, whoa, whoa [Music] whoa.
I don’t know what that is.
You guys got something that doesn’t look naturally made?
It looks like the bottom of a pad or something.
It’s a chart.
It’s something First Nations would have used.
However, like many treasure hunters have experienced

on Oak Island, each time the team’s digs approach the target depths, ocean water rushed in thwarting the chances for a major discovery.
Do you still believe the treasure’s here?
Yes, I do.
You do?
Yes, I do.
There’s just too much out there that points to it.
Yeah, if we were allowed to have a small backhoe in there, we would have gotten to that cache.
I don’t think this is the end of Captain Joe Ziga.
This is only the beginning.
It will continue on.
It’s frustrating, exciting, exhilarating but also frustrating

because we kept getting that gold hit.
Yeah, well there’s similarities to the sand and the water we’re coming in.
No flood tunnel this time but, you know, come on, we’re digging, right?
The beach was just like right there, right?
And um, so the water deeper we got the more, you know, not only just us but Dan and Dunfield—I mean Dunfield lost the big dig because of that similar hit.
Cave-in pit was abandoned because of that.
The South Shore pit was abandoned because of that.
And those were real clues.
Those were

presented real opportunities to do what you were trying to do, right?
Locate something to be retrieved, right?
So yes, it’s happened here many times.
You couldn’t help but think of Oak Island watching that sand collapse in and itself in the water.
It came up as we’re getting gold signatures.
Impossible not to think of Oak Island.
It was exciting, you know, it’d be nice to have pulled out a nice little chest full of gold coins.
And he had done his research, the story seemed plausible.
And then of course the thing you admire so

much Rick about all the trip treasure hunters is that you say to Captain George, “Are you done?”
“Hell no, no no no no no, I’m coming back, I’m gonna get—”
He’s supposedly trying to get different permits.
Yes, he’s trying to research the title.
He wants to get in there with equipment.
According to his own admission when we talked to him last, it really validated him with state archaeologists and the local authorities there to continue his search because he found something of great educational historical value in that area.
And that’s

awesome and was done properly because we furnished Dr. Taylor’s expertise.
And anyway, it was a real interesting story and a real interesting hunt and it was fun, wasn’t it?
It was fun, it was fun to get a little dirty and do some work.
And then speaking of gold hits, then you went on an adventure
uh, without us.
Without us.
Yeah, but actually came up with some of the shiny stuff, right?
This was my top pocket find, you’re ever with you?
I do.
I mean this is a small piece of gold but I can’t tell you, I can see it from here

what it means to me and what it meant to me in the moment.
And um, oh yeah, I mean just incredible.
The Fisher family were awesome father-son team again and what they’ve uncovered is really truly incredible.
We always say it, we’re showing up for one maybe two days.
Yeah, I did not expect this moment, right?
And it can’t be the Lone Ranger, there’s more of those, right?
Yeah, and the gentleman in this case, uh, Tim and Ross Fisher, they knew there was a history of gold mining in the area when they bought

their piece of land but they had no idea there was a complete ship dredge there as they uncovered it.
Wow, wow, wow.
What did we buy here?
So that’s interesting and that’s the, um, serendipity side of things too I guess.
Incredible.
Last year in Nash County, North Carolina, Maddie Blake, a metal detection expert, Nicolina Bohr, seized a golden opportunity for rich discoveries with father and son treasure hunters Tim and Ross Fisher who had been searching a gold dredge that they discovered on their property back in 2019.

You won’t believe what you’re going to see just through those woods, man.
That is incredible.
Come on down and check it out, guys.
The dredge, which was constructed in the early 1900s, is actually a ship that was designed to float in shallow water while scooping soil into compartments.
Check it out, guys.
Very much, uh, Frank and sluice.
Just over a century later, Tim and Ross have created their own gold processing machine known as the Franken sluice and a digging crane that they hope will help them discover untold millions in gold

that they believe is still waiting to be found on the dredge and in old spoils piles that it produced long ago.
Well, uh, I want to see some gold coming out of this, let’s do it.
[Music] [Music]
Made numerous incredible discoveries with Tim and Ross before having a portion of them processed in the Fishers’ very own gold smelting plant.
Oh yeah, cool, there you go.
The spirited and rewarding adventure culminated with special gifts from the Fishers which Maddie delivered to Rick and Marty back on Oak Island.
I see a

bunch of gold in here.
Jeez, didn’t expect that.
It is some gold from my area off the bridge, very cool.
I’m staying in touch with them and they start pulling out more gold and those chunks of gold we’ll know about it.
Okay, well thanks for being here on Emissary and great people.
Oh yeah, I love them, the best Southern hospitality personified.