More teeth

By this time, anyone who actually used to read this blog for its fishing content has long since departed, so I feel less and less of a need to aplologize for the fossil content.  Still, a little voice nags me from the far reaches of my brain, reminding me that I have become useless as a fishing blogger.

Oh well - shit happens.

I made it down to the local beach last weekend to take a walk and see what  I could see.  I got there at 7:00 AM but was beaten there by one other car.  With a low tide, I would be able to walk past the cliffs and get down the beach as far as I wanted to go, but there is DEFINITELY an advantage to being there first.  Oh well. 

The day was beautiful - chilly at first, but warming quickly.  I love being outside early in the morning - it's always invigorating.  It must have been the opening of deer season for some of the zones because I could hear pretty constant shooting from the Eastern Shore -  about 8 miles away, across the Bay.  It never ceases to amaze me how far you can hear across water.

Overall, I had a pretty good morning looking for teeth.  I found:

The best cow shark tooth I've ever found

A big hemipristis (broken on one side - would have been an awesome tooth if whole.)

Some pretty nice tiger shark teeth

Bigger than average ray crushing plates


Overall - a great day to be out shark tooth hunting.  Thanks for coming along for the ride.

A fossil adventure in FLA

I had to go to FLA for a short business trip but had a half (OK - 3/4) day available for some "me time".  In every instance in my past life, that would have meant go fishing.  Well - not this time.  And, for once in my life, I made a good decision.  On Tuesday there were record lows throughout FLA, and I have NEVER had good fishing there on cold post-front days.  But the fossils don't really mind a change in conditions.  Maybe when they were killed by the Ice Age or some catastrophic event 20 million years ago, but not now.  So, it was off to the Peace River for a day of digging for fossils.

Before the trip, I did my usual research and came upon Mark Renz' Fossil Expeditions on the Peace River.  His website sold me, and a little more research on Fossil Forum confirmed that Mark was held in high esteem by all those fortunate enough to have met and dealt with him.

Well, in person, he's even better.

Mark went over the fossils we might encounter at our meeting place in Arcadia.  We did a kayak trip, where I learned that I like going downstream, but don't like coming back upstream, even in the gentle Peace River current.  We tied up near a gravel area and started digging and sifting.  There were 5 people on this trip - 2 other couples, and me.  Absolutely great people to spend a day with.

The results of the dig were somewhat along the lines of what I expected - a TON of bone material, a fair number of smaller pieces of various teeth, and lots of rock and unidentifiable "junk".  The crown jewel of the area is , of course, the giant Megalodon shark teeth.  Our group had one couple find a Meg tooth and 2 Meg tooth halves, while I found a couple of fragments of Meg teeth.  The other couple found a few pieces as well.  That' s NOT to say I didn't find anything good - I did!  My best find was a fossilized Tapir tooth, followed by some fish tooth/jaw pieces, 2 croc / gator teeth, my Meg pieces, a softshell turtle shell piece, another turtle piece, a bunch of smaller sharks teeth, a possible echinoid, and a lot of Dugong rib pieces and vertebrae material.  The river is full of Dugong pieces.  The Dugong we were finding is an extinct relative of the one found in thewaters of the Indo-Pacific, and both are / were related to the Manatee.  Every scoopful of sediment held something neat.  I absolutely loved it and can't wait to go back, and I will absolutely book Mark again for my next trip to FLA.

                                            
                                          Mark (on the right) with fellow fossil diggers

                                            Mark's faithful fossil dog (can't remember his name)

                                                               Dugong rib pieces

                                             Tapir tooth - chewing surface

                          
                                               Tapir tooth - root

                                                                      Fish teeth , jaws

                                                            Megalodon tooth fragments

                                              A pretty big, but very worn, tiger shark tooth

                                                    Assorted smallish shark teeth

                                                           A decent little Hemipristis

Some of the haul on the kayak - gives a better perspective of the size and mass of the Dugong ribs


A few words about the day and the experience:  Mark spends the day rotating among the groups digging and sifting.  He ID's all your stuff for you if you have questions (and you will!) and is a treasure trove of knowledge and information.  He's also a keen observer of the incredible natural surroundings found along the river.  We saw a small gator while kayaking in, the usual amazing assortment of birds - herons, hawks, ...  Heard a Pileated Woodpecker, and saw a Red Shouldered Hawk attack a Green Heron.  He (the hawk) failed in his attempt, by the way.  Mark is entertaining and knowledgeable without any feeling of being anything but helpful.  A great guy and guide.

However, if you think that you are going to come here and simply walk into the river and scoop out shovels-full of Meg teeth, you are delusional.  That doesn't happen anywhere.  Are there Meg teeth here?  Absolutely.  Will you find any?  Maybe.  It's much the same as hiring a fishing guide - they'll determine where to take you and what method to employ but the end result is always in question.  You WILL find fossilized material - it's everywhere.  If you want to learn and appreciate the awesome resource, and maybe find some GREAT fossils, but definitely find neat stuff - this is the best money you can spend in FLA.  I'll do it again next time I'm there, and hopefully every time after that.

Mark can be reached at http://www.fossilexpeditions.com/  or by phone at  1-239-368-3252

Another Fossil post, and a contest!!!

Alright all you folks out there interested in my new pursuit of fossils.  [ That's basically Howard and maybe one other person]  Today is your special day.  I have a fossil-related contest, and the winner gets actual shark tooth fossils.  That's right - you can start your very own addiction right here!! 

We've been hitting the beach pretty hard recently, and it has been generally uneventful.  By that , I mean that, on a normal 2 hour beach search, my wife and  I will find about 120 - 150 shark teeth, but only 4-8 of them are what we put in the "good specimen" box.  The others go into a box that has, literally, thousands of teeth in it.  Small ones, broken ones, just normal, run-of-the-mill teeth.  And, every once in a great while, we (alright - she) finds something really cool.

Like the subject of today's contest.  The last picture is our first find of a certain unusual fossil.  Identify the fossil and I will send you a set of 5 each, 15 - 17 million year old shark teeth fossils.  One each:  Sand Tiger, Tiger, Hemipristis, Lemon, and Requiem shark, and a crushing plate from a Ray.

There haven't been any major storms to stir things up, and summer has the most people on the beach, so the "toothing" can be tough at times; still, here are a few of our recent finds:

                                     A really nice speciman of Cow Shark

                                   A good Mako for the area we hunt

                                            A couple of Hemipristis, or Snaggletooth shark teeth

                                              Some nice Tiger Shark teeth


AND FINALLY, THE MYSTERY PIECE.  FIRST CORRECT GUESS WINS!!

Fishing, Fossils, and Friends

I always seem to find cool turtles on my travels around camp

I really needed to get a post written before BOTH my loyal followers leave this wretched blog and do something more beneficial with their time - something like, um , watch the grass grow, watch the paint dry, ...

This is a 3 part post and spans the past 3 weeks.  First up - the fishing.

Yes, I actually got a chance to fly fish for 1 day in a creek I actually know, and in a place I actually felt comfortable fishing.  I got to spend a day with my Dad, brother, and few other friends at the camp in PA I have been fortunate enough to use (when I've had the time) for the past 30 years.  The camp, owned by my best friend, sits on the banks of Kettle Creek in Potter Co., PA.  It is a rustic log cabin with no running water and, to my way of thinking, is about the best place on earth.  The truly wonderful thing about this camp, and the part that pushes it into the stratospheric realm of legendary camps, is that here is absolutely NO CELL SIGNAL within 15 miles of the camp.  It truly is heaven on earth.

The view from the camp porch of Kettle Creek

The fishing on Kettle Creek and its many tributaries gives a trout fisherman all the possibilities he could ask for.  The main creek is primarily a put-and-take stocked trout fishery.  All the tributaries are class A Wild trout streams and harbor lots of small native brook trout.  A few of the larger tribs have some stocked fish in them, too.  And, the creek is dammed by Alvin Bush dam, so the option is here for lake fishermen, too.

I usually spend my limited time here walking into the rtibs and fishing for natives, but this trip I decided to fish with my Dad and brother and stay on the main stem and bigger tribs.  Remember - I had 1 day to fish.  It took me 6 hours to drive there Wed. nite, and another 6 drive home on Friday, so everything happened on one day - Thursday.  I woke up early and my brother and I drove up to Cross Fork creek to check it out.  This stream is one of the larger tribs and gets stocked as well as supports a wild trout fishery - both browns and brookies.  The lower section is crossed by a snowmobile bridge and is a good observation deck for the creek.  We stoped there and saw some nice fish in the main run.  I gave Pat and Brian that section, and drove upstream a few miles on a dirt road to fish a nice little stretch that often contains wild brookies.  Ended up getting a rainbow and a brookie that morning.



                                                                                                               A Cross Fork Creek rainbow

We met back at the cabin for lunch.  Pat had gotten a few of the rainbows in the lower stretch on dries and had a lot of refusals.  A good morning, overall.  I decided to try that stretch in the afternoon.  Luckily, no one was fishing it when I arrived around 3 pm.  I set up and decided that, with limited time, I wanted to rack up a body count and see how many fish I could catch in an hour and a half.  That meant stowing the dry flies - no apparent hatches going on - and going with "rainbow candy" - a tung bead red San Juan Worm.  It was, quite simply, a slaughter.  I landed / lost / missed enough trout that I actually took the worm off and put on a tandem nymph combo just to see if the action would be as fast.  It wasn't , but I still picked up a few more fish.  Total afternoon tally - landed 13, missed a LOT, broke off one big fish.  All 'bows.  Biggest went 17".

The evening meant an anticipated sulphur hatch on the main stem.  I went along with 2 of the guys from the camp and proceeded to land four browns.  I left early and went back to camp, very satisfied with my day.  Actually got a Kettle Creek Slam - brookie, rainbow, and brown in the same day.  Whhoo Hoo!

I got back to camp, made a fire, and had a couple of my favorite adult beverages - a Stone Ruination double IPA, and a glass of Blanton's bourbon.  Life did not suck that evening.

                                                                                          Camp, Stone Ruination, and Blanton's

PART 2 - More Sharks Teeth

The Shark Tooth hobby has firmly established itself in our routine and is definitely not just a passing fancy.  My wife and I go out every opportunity we have and walk the beach.  We really only find small teeth, but just really enjoy getting out there.  And, we know if we put in our time, eventually we'll find some good teeth.  Here are a few of the recent hauls:

                                                                                                      This was a 2 hour haul. 

 Most of the teeth are small, but the second picture shows a few of the better teeth - a Cow Shark tooth (the one with the multiple teeth on one enamel) and Hemipristis with a broken enamel.  The other piece is a Vertebrae - pretty cool.  Only the 3rd one we've found so far, and the largest so far.

The following batch came from yesterday.  It was a pretty tough day of beachcombing, but once again my wife found all the good stuff.  The larger teeth in the center are all Tiger Shark teeth she found.  The round white pieces on the lower right are pieces of fossilized sand dollars.  The large piece in the center with the lines running through it are a nice piece of sand dollar - the smaller pieces are the individual segments from a larger piece such as this.   I found pretty much nothing.

Finally, we come to the part about friends.  Many blog posts have been written about hte friendships we all develop - usually unexpectedly - via our blogs.  One of the folks I really wanted to meet up with has been Howard Levett - the author of Wind Knots and Tangled Lines.  Well, the stars aligned and we got to share a dinner and a LOT of conversation on Thursday night.  The one thing both of us agreed on was htat we WILL do this again, and it will involve a stream somewhere.  We enjoyed a buffalo steak and a never ending supply of stories throughout the night.  Howard is as genuine a person as I expected him to be, and he compliments my "Life List" of bloggers that I've met perfectly.  That list began with Rebeca Garlock, includes the now retired (?) Kari Murray, Mike Agneta, and Howard.  An "A" list of bloggers if there ever was one!

Beer and Buffalo steaks!

Wow - a real post!  I might have to do this more often!

More teeth, and sometimes it's good to be pathetic

We continued on our quest to find more fossilized shark teeth. It's really just a good excuse to get outside and walk along the beaches, but I am really intrigued by this whole fossil thing. We're finding more and more of them, but all the ones we find are very small. My wife and I both keep thinking we'll find some bigger teeth sooner or later, but so far - just little stuff.

The interesting factor with this new "sport" has to do with the tides. The generally accepted principal is to go out on a falling tide, about halfway between high and low tide. We've been finding more, though, on high tides. Go figure. This past time out was a high tide so we had only a small section of beach to explore (the water goes tight against the cliffs at high tide and, unless you wear waders or the water is warm, you are stuck with a small piece of beach)


sand tiger shark (l), snaggletooth shark (r)



Fossilized porpoise tooth



Crushing plates (skutes) from Eagle Ray

All fossils are 13 - 15 million years old


Still, we were finding s lot of fossilized Sand Tiger Shark teeth and Gray Shark teeth on the short stretch of beach. We did, however, find our first fossilized porpoise tooth - pretty cool, actually. A local fossil guy came by and asked how we were doing - we replied with the usual "finding a few small ones". He reached in his pocket and gave my wife a "small" megalodon tooth he had just found about 50' away! "Small" was his verbage - not ours. I would have been doing backflips down the beach if I had this. He showed us pictures of one twice as big he found the week before.


Megalodon tooth. This one is not a "great" find (to the hard core fossil folks) because it is small, the point of the tooth isn't perfect, and a section of the serations on one side are missing. I think it's pretty darn cool, though.



Our best finds of the day


I guess that's what keeps you coming back. And why being a pathetic fossil hunter sometimes pays off.

My New Favorite Hobby

What is this?? 3 posts IN THE SAME YEAR?? Yep, I've returned - better than ever! (Well, probably not, but at least I feel like writing again)

As you know, I moved last summer. The fishing opportunities in So. Maryland have been infrequent and, well, uneventful. At least so far. But, while fishing has always been my passion, I really like to do about anything outside around the water. And now I've found my new hobby.

I'm a fossil hunter.

A really bad one. One who doesn't know exactly what it is that I'm looking at on the rare occasion that I find something. But a fossil hunter nonetheless.

So. Maryland is home to a relatively unique feature along much of the Calvert Co shoreline on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. There are cliffs rising up from the bay. These cliffs are home to a LOT of fossils, which continually wash into the Bay via natural erosion. And once in the Bay, they wash upon the shoreline, or at least in the shell / stone / junk that accumulates in the waves and on the beaches. There are only a few public or quasi-public beach stretches here, but they all have the potential to yield a handful of fossilized sharks teeth on any given afternoon. I had read about the teeth found here, and researched it (we joined the Calvert Marine Museum, which is well worth any one's time if you ever find yourself in Calvert Co)so I decided I would go and try to find my very own shark's teeth. My wife likes to meander around beaches too, so this is a perfect escape for the two of us when we get some time.

Saturday we found we had some time and headed off to Flag Ponds Park. Only a few cars were in the lot. We walked the 1/2 mile trail toward the beach. Along the way we were greeted with lots of evidence of last summer's hurricane.





We checked out the salt pond where we saw the cooter last week. Another one was spotted but this one was very spooky and across the pond. I think we'll see lots of cool stuff in this pond when the water warms a little. Hopefully some diamondback terrapins.



A Northern Red Bellied Cooter across the pond





We made it out to beach and started looking. Neither of us were really sure what we were looking for. The teeth are usually tiny and there are a lot of shell fragments and junk in the wave wash. The experienced fossil hunters use a clam rake with 1/8 - 1/4" mesh screening. We just brought a couple of white plastic colanders. I'd scoop a bunch of junk from the water, swirl it around to get rid of the sand, and check for treasures. Nothing. At least at first. Then, I found my first one. Of course, I only found one more, and my wife found 5, but at least we had broken the ice. We also found some coral and assorted other "stuff"




The real fossil hounds can tell you the species of shark by looking at the tooth. I can't - at least not yet. But I can definitely see myself getting immersed in this hobby, and soon enough I'll know what it is that I'm looking at. I do know that they are from the Miocene Epoch, and are about 17 million years old.





There's something about finding 17 million year old teeth that I find fascinating.

While this is a departure from my usual fishing rambling, I hope you find some degree of interest in it. It still revolves around my love of the Flowing Waters - tides, this time, instead of streams. I still plan to fish as much as I can, and have some trips planned for this summer (Including fishing at least 3 of the states I need to fill my 50 state quest) but I'm sure I'll spend plenty of time looking for teeth this year. Follow along - might be fun!