Teen fishing on Minnesota lake reels in cash-stuffed wallet

Aug. 23 (UPI) -- A teenager fishing in a Minnesota lake reeled in a prize catch -- a cash-stuffed wallet that turned out to have been dropped by an Iowa farmer one year earlier.

Connor Halsa, 14, of Moorhead, said he was fishing with family on Lake of the Woods when his line went taut.

"I thought I had a huge fish, so I set the hook really hard," Halsa told WDAY-TV.

He reeled in his line and discovered the catch was actually a soaked wallet containing $2,000 cash.

A business card inside the wallet helped them track down the owner, Iowa farmer Jim Denney, who said he lost his wallet while fishing on the lake a year earlier.

"The odds of ever finding or hooking a billfold in 20 feet of water -- I don't think there's a number," Denney said.

Denney made the drive from Iowa to Moorhead to retrieve his wallet. He offered Halsa a cash reward, but the teenager refused it.

"I would take Connor as a grandson any day, and I would fight for him any day," Denney said.

Denney ended up gifting Halsa a personalized cooler and taking his family out to dinner as thanks.

Another young man was recently dubbed "St. Simon" by the Sunapee Police Department in New Hampshire after retrieving a stranger's valuable item from the bottom of a lake.

Police said Dianne Bonfiglio accidentally dropped her cellphone into Lake Sunapee in the dock area during the weekend.

The department said a young man named Simon was on a pontoon boat with friends nearby and offered to take a dive into the lake to look for the lost phone.

Simon donned a pair of goggles donated by a worker at the nearby Harborside Trading and was able to retrieve the phone on his first dive.