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  1. Hello These are the adventures of myself and my dog Millie as we hunt for fossils and history along the Peace River. Our mode of travel is our 12’ Indian River Canoe, Balance. Im a 4th generation Polk county native, and Millie comes from a long line of Colorado ranch dogs. We do everything together. Including work, as I am a farrier for my day job, and the farm owners are more excited to see Millie than me! The goal of this journal is to document the learning along with the adventures. To go below our sieves, and learn why the river is presenting as it is. Other members have already posted pictures and info on every fossil I’m likely to find, but the river can still teach me/us why the hole I’m digging is delivering specific materials. Understanding what happened before what happened, happened. That’s what I want to know! Millie and I have been gifted this river and the ability to run it at a moments notice. That’s not the case for everyone. Even with access I still only get out for a morning or so a week. So this journal will also provide an avenue for those who can’t just jump in the boat with us. Jump in through this forum and help out along the way when you can/want. The more we learn the better the treasure!! Jp & Mille LET THE ADVENTURE BEGIN! Season opener - Oct 2023 water depth day of - 8’ and falling. Like most things I’m impatient about, starting Fossil hunting this year was rushed. Millie and I ran head on into a river that’s a solid 3’ too high for me to handle any real working conditions. There’s places to work. We just haven’t found many at these depths! Yet!! After work arrived and we got started towards the river. Late arrival and definitely some dark water running ahead but at this water height you just gotta keep the boat in the middle. Got in late but just in time for a welcome back from the Peace! We woke up ready! Well, I did. Camp and my “Field Office” ready. Now to get wet! Because of the water depth I tied leashes to all the heavy tools and tied some extra pool noodle to them. That way I could drop them and just pull up the leader. Brought the “Velvet Touch” probe. No stopping us now! “What” I was after wasn’t an option this trip. I had only two available spots in mind that would be under 4’ deep. Both those spots are in a very recent deposit that I’ve been getting lots of Pleistocene and some Pliocene mammal material from. I ended up finding the time frame expected, and possibly an extinct sand shark nursery area. The river had sifted one spot completely away during the last flood so I was left with only one place to put in effort! At 4’ it was at my cap for height. I’m 5’6’’ and I could only dig 2 feet down before I ran out of shovel. So I had to figure something out. First I tried to fill the sieve on the River bottom and lift it up. FAIL! never got it to stay put long enough to do anything productive before I’d loose it and it would pop up down stream pulling on the leash. Next I tried to lift the gravel to the sifter on the surface. There was so much water the shovel load was gone before I broke the surface! FAIL! At a max depth of 2 feet down I wasn’t going to be learning much about the geography or layers I needed to work through. So I shifted gears and decided to focus on just the top 2’ as effectively as I could. The third try ended up succeeding. I would loosen the riverbed into a loose filled hole that had collapsed on itself and then use my scoop on a pole thing to transfer the loose material up to the surface. Not the best method but I’m grateful to have been able to stand there all day. I’d work forward 3’ and over 1’ then back again. All at 2’ or less deep or I’d go under. I suppose if I feel like moving a bunch of river bed again we could come back here and go deeper! One of my questions about this area is what is it old enough to find within it? Another trip! Here’s the gratuitous highlights shot! Not a bad day! The alligator tooth got a yell but the sand tigers and mammal teeth got me really excited. Millie and I were exhausted and COLD! I learned a few things this weekend to put in the journal. Before that. Let’s eat! Steak for me and steak for Millie. Yumm. Lessons: 1. I need appropriate clothes. Like wet suit stuff. Can’t be under water like that all day again. I got chilly and had to warm up several times. 85deg out too! What I wear is fine for knee deep wading but definitely time to upgrade the wardrobe. (I did try my new dive boots and that was the only part of me that wasn’t cold) 2. Regular shovel handles are way too short. Amend as needed to your stature. I need a 12’ handle to dig a hole in this water. So I’m out! 3. Jack, (Shellseeker) is insane!! This was my first time hunting this deep and it’s right in his sweet spot. You’re an animal! He tried to assist my tool tuning but until you run out of shovel that’s a new feeling to adjust to. 4. At two feet deep this area is where I will come for younger land aged fauna and I can expect the standard peace river sharks teeth assemblage with a higher than usual volume of sand sharks teeth. This was a great day hunting and I learned a lot. Maybe not about what my intended question was or the areas I’ve been thinking of but a ton about gear and technique! KEEP THE FAITH AND TRY TO DO GOOD!! Jp & Millie Here are the finds from this trip and some info used to figure out the unknowns. sand shark and some Hemi Serra Peace River mix fun and unique things - The mammal molar ended up being a Giant Tapir. By shape and size 3rd or 4th premolar. No root. Should have given it away. Mixed bag bottom to top of left- Gator tooth gator tooth Crappy Barbra’s incisor Canine- size 22mm broken suggest coyote or smaller domestic dog. 25mm would be the target. Tiny molar - it’s broken but by the face and measurements it’s most likely a rodent. Camel type tooth frag. Upper right - various tiger shark species to identify with Florida fossil hunters PDF middle - two deer horn buttons. One I already had but these were found 5 feet apart. Same deer?!? Bottom right- Eocene snail and crab shell fragments. Those are 37.5 Mya.?? Snail identification was general to the Ocala formation results of similar snail species.
  2. Michael1

    Peace river mammal ID

    Hey, wondering if anyone could ID this… tooth I think? Found it in a creek near the peace river my guess is that its some type of mammoth tooth but im not entirely sure. Last photo is the best results of the trip’s finds from the creek.
  3. I'd like to start by saying I am a complete novice. But I have always been very interested in prehistoric life and paleontology. After recently getting back into the hobby I researched my local area. I have an interest in marine reptiles and was hoping to find a mostly untouched site with the possibility of finding some. Reviewing various bedrock maps and surveys I found one site that might work. I am aware I will need to review permitting and regulations before doing anything but for now i'd like to just identify areas with potential. I was wondering if anyone would help me assess it given the information I have found. Site description: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Name Jurassic marine rocks ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Geologic age Devonian to Late Jurassic ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lithologic constituents Major Sedimentary > Clastic > Sandstone (Bed)Feldspathic to volcaniclastic Metamorphic > Metasedimentary > Metaclastic > Slate Minor Igneous > Volcanic (Pyroclastic) Metamorphic > Metasedimentary > Metaclastic > Argillite Incidental Sedimentary > Clastic > Mudstone (Bed) Metamorphic > Metasedimentary > Metaclastic > Quartzite Sedimentary > Clastic > Conglomerate (Bed) Sedimentary > Chemical > Chert (Bed) Igneous > Volcanic > Mafic-volcanic > Andesite (Flow, Volcaniclastic) Sedimentary > Clastic > Siltstone (Bed) Sedimentary > Carbonate > Limestone (Bed) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Comments Primarily argillite, slate, feldspathic to volcaniclastic sandstone, and pyroclastic rocks. Includes some rocks of Paleozoic age ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here is my thinking: The geologic age of the rocks ranges from the Devonian to the Late Jurassic. Marine reptiles, such as ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs, first appeared in the Late Triassic and continued to evolve and diversify throughout the Jurassic. Therefore, rocks from the Late Jurassic are particularly promising for finding marine reptile fossils. The rock types present at this site also suggest a good chance of finding fossils. A large portion of the site consists of sedimentary rocks such as sandstone, mudstone, conglomerate, siltstone, and limestone. These rock types are known to often contain fossils, as they form from the accumulation of sediment, which can include the remains of organisms. Additionally, the presence of marine sedimentary rocks such as limestone is a strong indicator of a past marine environment, where marine reptiles would have lived. Furthermore, although there is some metamorphic rock present, such as slate and argillite, these are low-grade metamorphic rocks that have undergone only mild metamorphism. This type of metamorphism is less likely to destroy fossils compared to the high-grade metamorphism that produces rocks like gneiss and schist which is common in other formations in the area. The presence of volcanic rocks and pyroclastic suggest some volcanic activity, which can sometimes be associated with excellent preservation conditions if organisms are rapidly buried by ash. I am trying to find pictures of the rocks in the area but it is a bit challenging. I'll update the thread if I can find some decent ones. Please let me know your thoughts on this location from a purely geological perspective. Thank you, -Ged
  4. The first images are of a bone i am almost certain is non-fossilized but i could always be wrong! can anyone ID the species? Next images are of what i assume may be petrified wood, any chance it is? Its quite heavy for its small size, and has a wood-like texture. Then i have this black shell-like thing, unsure of it’s species but it is certainly something. Lastly i ID’d this tooth as a cretaceous thresher shark tooth- am i right? thank you for your help!
  5. easterncarolinahunta

    My best Crow shark teeth (personal finds)

    What’s up! I’ve been bored lately and just wanted to play with some of the crows I’ve found. These have all been found on the east coast of North Carolina, in creeks and on beaches. So here you go, -My three prettiest, not the biggest crow shark teeth in the world, but in my opinion, I have not seen much crows with better colors than these 3. ( if these teeth aren’t in order, I’m sorry I’m new to this, the three I’m taking about are the yellowish tooth, orange, and blue one that’s in the middle). So those out of the way, here are some of my biggest, these are all over 1 1/10, the biggest hitting 1 2/8 ( almost 1 3/8), the biggest one is the one in the bottom middle with the slight pathology, (and top left in my palm). The three biggest in my palm, as scale. I hope y’all like this, i love my crow shark collection that I feel gets really overviewed by the big guys.
  6. So, had planned to hit the Peace River yesterday for the first time this season. I set my alarm for 6:30am and loaded up the truck. Went to sleep dreaming of the river. ALARM BLARES! WAKE UP! TIME TO DRINK COFFEE AND GET READY! WOO-HOO! WAIT. Something is wrong. THE ALARM WON'T TURN OFF. PANIC. ADRENALINE. CONFUSION. HALF-AWAKE FUMBLING. ALARM CONTINUES TO BLARE. NOW WIDE AWAKE. ALARM APP FREEZES and PHONE FREEZES, WHILE ALARM BLARES. TURN OFF PHONE TO SILENCE THE ALARM. Relief that the loud alarm has been silenced. Look at the clock on wall. 4:30AM.....!!!!! WTF? The alarm went off two hours early. Phone reboots, double-check the alarm time, it was correctly set to 6:30am, but for some unknown reason it went off at 4:30am. I need more sleep than this to hunt the river, so now the Peace trip is canceled. 4:30am is a little too early for me to "just stay up" and I desperately needed that extra 2-hours of sleep. Due to anger, confusion, and adrenaline making me WIDE AWAKE, it takes me a full hour to fall back asleep. Wake up at 8:30am, ticked off about the alarm fiasco, and the truck is still loaded up. After a quick discussion with the wife, we decide to salvage the day and take a paddling trip closer to home. So, we hit the Chassahowitzka river and spent the day having a lovely paddle and a picnic lunch. Ended up making lemonade from lemons, and we had a nice day on the river......just without any fossil-hunting. Peace River will have to wait until next week. Hell or highwater, my kayak get wet in the Peace next week. Thanks for reading my mini-rant. LOL.
  7. A few weeks ago I went on a fossil hunting trip to Albany County. I was hunting in the New Scotland formation which is lower Devonian in age. It was very quick and easy to collect in and the dry dredging technique was quite useful. The rock was a very thin shaly limestone which could break easily but many of the fossils had been silicified, making it easy to pop them out of the rock. I found many different species of brachiopods, some gastropods, lots of corals and large bryozoa and a few trilobites
  8. This week I went to look for belemnites in the "big forest" near Beutenaken (South Limburg, the Netherlands), in the uncovered parts of the famous belemnite cemetery in the "Gulpense kalk" (Gulpen formation, part of the Cretaceous period). If you look closely you can find a lot of (mostly fragments of) belemnites, especially Belemnitella Mucronata (Schlotheim). The high concentration of belemnites in certain places in this forest is because the limestone has disappeared through dissolution. The harder belemnites are left behind. After a lot of work I finally had a day off and wanted to combine a walk with fossils. Last week it had rained, for me an excellent opportunity to walk in the beautiful south of the Netherlands and at the same time look for some Belemnites. I live in the east of the Netherlands, where it is flat. So the south with its hills and small rivers like the Gulp feels like a holiday. Especially in the Beutenaken area.
  9. Hello all, Do you have any tips to minimise back strain while fossil hunting? We go home with stiff backs, weather we walk on the beach or scratch next to the road, and it takes a few days to fully recover. I tried to think of some solutions, like buying kneepads so that I can put more weight on my knees instead of my back while I scrach and hit at rocks.
  10. Traveling from Minnesota to Texas next week Take I35-W down and roughly following the Mississippi back up. Any recommendations for fossil or paleo related Museums to visit or fossil hunting trips/locales along this loop? I am mostly interested in vertebrate fossil hunting but would really be up for any good suggestions.
  11. During one of my hikes exploring the badlands in Central Alberta Canada (Scollard formation) near the Red Deer river I found this strange flat & thin piece of what appears to be fossilized bone. As you can see from the pictures it fans outward and it's quite thin, to me it almost looks similar to a aquatic flipper although I obviously am not sure at all what this could be. My instinct wants to say turtle piece possibly? Any help to ID this cool fossil would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance!
  12. Gemma Baker

    Is this a fossil??

    Hi All, I recently visited Walton on the Naze and found this...does it look like a fossil? I am not sure if it is anything but it looked interesting so thought I would take it home to have a proper look. hoping to go back and look for more items in the warmer weather. thanks in advance, Gemma
  13. Hi all, Another bunch of items me and my sister found at Walton-on-the-Naze. I think we know what a couple are but does anyone have any idea about the others? Thanks Gemma
  14. FossilsandScience

    Fossil Hunting on Private Land

    Hey everyone! There are a few formations that I want to be able to dig in and I have found their locations on different mapping services. Now all I need to do is figure out if the land is public or private, and if private, who to contact to ask for permission to hunt on their land. I'm not sure where to start to figure this out. How do you find out if an area is a private land, and if so, their contact number? Any response is appreciated! Thanks!
  15. Due to the proliferation of Covid-19 “stay at home orders”, I felt an urgency to go out and fossil-hunt at least one more time before my city, county, or the entire state got put on lockdown. I loaded up the truck on saturday night and we headed out to Gardner early on sunday morning. When we arrived at the ramp about 9:00am, there were a lot of vehicles and activity – much more than my previous three trips. I think a lot of people had the same idea – get out and enjoy the river while you can. It was a beautiful day with plentiful sun and a cool breeze. We loaded up the kayaks (my wife, my stepdaughter, and my grandson) and we headed upstream to check out our usual spots. As we were going up around the bend and our first site came into view, we saw a pair of fossil-hunters parked right in “our” spot. Looking further upriver towards our second spot, there were fossil-hunters in that spot as well. The early bird gets the worm and these folks beat us to a preferred spots. So plan B came into action and we paddled further upstream. We paddled further than we have ever been previously. Looking for gravel beds or exposed strata eroding into the river, we found a good spot about another three-quarters of a mile beyond our usual spots. On this day I decided to be picky and only go after teeth or highlight specimens. I have buckets full of dugong ribs, chunkasaurus, and turtle scutes at home, so I immediately discarded those when they turned up in my sifter. I tossed them downstream behind me into the river and kept digging. My 10-yo grandson held the sifter and helped me with sifting and he got a big kick out of pulling teeth and bits from every shovel load. A little further down the bank, my wife was snapping nature photos and my stepdaughter was digging and sifting in her own spot about 50 feet away. This spot was a tease. Tons of small teeth and common stuff, but only tantalizing fragments of the better stuff. A broken quarter of a mastodon tooth, broken megalodons (fragolodons), etc. I think I did find a couple of baby megs (when they are tiny, I find them hard to discern at times, versus bull or mako). I felt that there must be at least one good meg in this spot, so I dug like a man possessed. I moved a lot of gravel and dug three bomb-craters in the river bed, but to no avail. That big meg eluded me. Eventually my back started complaining and we decided to call it a day. We saw many other hunters on the river, some operating alone and others in groups. We would exchange pleasantries as we passed them by - “How yall doin’?”…… “Beautiful day!”…..”Having any luck?” - most were friendly and reported results similar to our’s – lots of small stuff and oddballs, but nothing to write home about. Of course, if I found a pocket of 100 megs in a hole, I would say something along the lines of “Nah, just little stuff and broken stuff.”. I hope they had better luck than I did. I often wondered if any of the other hunters were forum members, but I never asked because I don’t like intruding on folks or being nosy. But if any of you reading this saw two green kayaks (one of them a bright neon green tandem) pass by with a tall lanky guy, two women, and a kid, then say hello here so I know it was you! I spoke to a couple of fossil-hunters who had rented canoes from Canoe Escape and put in at Zolfo Springs. They told me that Pioneer Park (and the ramp) had been closed earlier that day and that the public park at Brownville was also closed. Both of those are parks with facilities and staff, so I expected they would close eventually. Gardner is just an unstaffed ramp with no facilities, so hopefully it stays open. Hearing that made me glad we decided to go when we did. As I sit here writing this, Hillsborough County (where I live) is about to announce a “stay at home order” - threatening the rest of our fossil season. I know that exercise is considered OK for going out (essential), but I don’t know if driving three counties away to fossil-hunt will be viewed as “exercise”, so I am unsure if I will see the river again any time soon. I guess now we wait and see how this whole Covid-19 thing plays out. I hope this is not the end of fossil-season for us because the water is so LOW. I brought home a much lighter load this time around, having decided to leave all the dugong ribs and chunks of matrix behind. My highlight of the day was a small fossil tooth that I pulled from my first hole. It’s intact with both roots and an undamaged crown. I will try to get it ID’ed today. I also found a couple of very small teeth that I think might be baby megs, but I am unsure. I’ll post photos of our swag when I get everything spread out and dried. I was so tired when we got back last night that I didn’t even inspect or lay out my finds. I showered, ate, and went to sleep by 9:30pm. My wife is still downloading her photos now, so I added visuals to this thread later today. EDIT : apparently the guy I spoke to on the river was wrong - Pioneer Park is still open.
  16. On a class field trip for 3rd Block (3rd Period), we went to Freedom Park to measure slope, air temperature, soil temperature, etc. of the Northern & Southern sides/slopes of hills. In between the hill slants, there was a creek bed. Inside the creek bed, there are fossils that I just had to pick up some. I got this oyster and this other shell. It seems everywhere I go (someplace new in nature, or a field trip) I always find either a fossil shell or seashell or land shell. It's really weird, but cool, because mollusks are my favorite type of fossil. And fossils are my favorite study. I am somewhat surprised, still, when I find the shells and fossils, even though it happens every time. The white one I've never seen before, but it's hard to identify because it's broken. I wish I knew what it was...I've tried to figure it out. Actually....I have a guess. It's some kind of clam. It's a tongue shell! It's gotta be! These fossils I found in that creek. I thought it was an interesting story, so I wanted to share it.
  17. My wife Tina and I hit the Peace River yesterday for some fossil-hunting. The weather was mild with the temps hanging around the mid-70’s for most of the day. The forecast had called for a partly-cloudy day, but the sun was rarely seen. It was mostly overcast, so the sun wasn’t going to help us much with water visibility. One thing the forecast had mentioned was gusty winds coming out of the north. We both made note of that, but didn’t expect it to be an issue. We were wrong. More on that later. We made good time on the way out. We left the house just prior to 7am, and we managed to beat the majority of the morning rush-hour traffic out of Tampa. If you don’t leave before 7am, you run of the risk of getting caught in the death-grip of Tampa/Brandon traffic. Trust me, stay away from I-275 and I-4 during rush-hour. You can easily lose an extra 45-60 minutes of sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic trying to go the first 20 miles out of the Tampa/Brandon metro area. We arrived at the ramp shortly before 9am and began unloading the tandem kayak and our gear. While we were getting our yak ready, a Canoe Outpost bus pulls up and dumps off it’s load of 8 canoes and a gaggle of surburbanites. They proceeded to monopolize the entire ramp, leaving no room for anyone else to launch. Poor ramp etiquette for sure, but surely it wouldn’t take them long to get out of the way, right? Well, these folks looked like they were packing for a 10-week overseas safari. I had never seen so much junk loaded into canoes for an overnight or weekend camping trip. These folks just kept unloading more and more boxes, containers, coolers, and bags from the bus, that it started becoming comical. Those canoes looked so overloaded that I doubted they would float and they left little room for the paddlers. There was literally almost no room to sit in these canoes. Time ticked away and they made no sign that they were aware that at least two other boats were waiting on them to launch. “We didn’t make good time on the way out here to sit and waste it all at the ramp while clueless people piddle around with their excess of gear.” - is what we thought to ourselves. Finally, we decided to carry the yak across the ramp and down the hill-slope and just launch from the muddy bank. We were already a 1/2 mile down the river before the first of the canoes started to launch. So, after putting the crowd of rookie canoeists in our rearview mirror, we started the paddle to the search area. The wind was at our backs and the river was running harder than we had anticipated. I had hunch our work would be cut out for us on the paddle back upstream. The paddle downstream was nice. We saw a lot of birds of every possible type, but only a single small gator and no turtles. I guess the cool overcast day was not good for reptiles looking to soak up the sun. We made it to the search spot about 45 minutes later and unloaded our gear. This particular spot has been good to us in the past, but the last couple of trips made it apparent that this spot is hunted out and cleaned out. The haul from each trip was becoming a game of diminishing returns. On this trip, we decided to hunt the snarge out of this site one more time before crossing it off the list for the remainder of the season. My hunch was right. We didn’t make any major finds on this trip, but we did find a lot of interesting small stuff – some of which I will need help identifying. The spot is still productive, but it’s 90% tiny teeth, turtle scutes, and other very common pieces. The amount of highlight specimens coming out of this spot has definitely decreased and I think it’s time for this spot to “recharge” until next season. The highlights from the sifter this time included : a small but very complete fossil vert, a piece of tiny fossil jaw with a tooth in it, another vert, an unknown odd tooth, and some geological oddities including a nice piece of botryoidal chalcedony. Tina found a turtle leg bone, some nice (but small) teeth, and some oddballs that will need a closer look. The pieces are drying now and I will post some better photos later after they dry. All in all, we spent about 4 hours searching at the site. This includes a thorough walk-around to look for low-hanging fruit and obvious surface finds. Then the digging began. The last flood season had exposed a gravel bar in a new place that wasn’t there in previous years. In this season alone, we have spent a combined 30-ish hours searching this one spot. This represents hundreds of full sifters worth of gravel that has been searched. I sampled the entire length of the deposit working from one end to the other. The gravel layer is relatively thin – less than 12 inches in most places. Digging much deeper rarely yields anything other than fine sand, organic muck, and clay that is not very fossiliferous. So, we mostly worked the exposed surface layer, although I did dig numerous sample pits that were substantially deeper – all of those yielded nothing of note. We always fill our holes and re-distribute spoil gravel in a natural pattern. If you come across one of our search sites, you will never know anyone was there, except perhaps for the total lack of trash in comparison to the rest of the river. Well, this time around, one of the first things I noticed was fresh shovel marks in the bank near the gravel bar. There were no obvious spoil piles, but there were definite signs of someone digging the banks well above the water line. This tells me that “my spot” is no longer off the beaten path. Other hunters have also noticed the new gravel bar – and some of these hunters are illegally digging the banks and being obvious about it. Having said all of this, I now feel comfortable giving a bone to the reader – this spot is just downstream from the town of Zolfo Springs. Feel free to go look for it. It’s a healthy paddle downstream and you’ll have your work cut out for you on the paddle back upstream against the current. But feel free to go look. You might get lucky and find something I missed. I likely won’t be returning to this particular spot this season unless it’s for a group hunt. This is probably still a good spot for a beginner hunt, but I personally feel like I have tapped out this spot for the year. Plus, this specific spot has never been a good source of megalodons, so I don’t feel too bad about leaving a few hints about the location. While I am not just interested in megs, I’ve always been disappointed with the lack of them in this general vicinity. You will find everything except megalodons around there. And it’s not just me, the handful of other people I have brought to this specific area have never found any megs either. Weirdly, there are lots of small teeth from other shark species, but no megalodons – not even fragments. About mid-afternoon we decided to head back to the ramp. The wind was really whipping up and gusting strongly. When the wind picked up the water would get choppy and really start to run hard. The wind was coming out of the north and blowing directly in our faces while going back upstream against the current. The USGS Zolfo gauge said the discharge flow rate was approx. 321 cfs. Usually, that is not a difficult paddle for your average able-bodied or slightly-aged-bodied (like myself) person. But, trying to paddle it with a 16-20mph gusting headwind in your face is a different matter entirely. We had to take several extra breaks on the side of the river to catch our breath and wait for lulls in the wind. When the wind would calm down, we would set out again and paddle a couple hundred yards before pulling over and waiting again. We finally made it back to the ramp a little later than usual and we were both tired as heck – I’d use a more choice word to describe it, but I want to keep this family friendly. My arms, shoulders, and back were shot. My neck and shoulders are still sore as I type this – the old grey mare, she aint what she used to be. LOL. My next trip out will be to revisit some old honey holes that are in remote areas that are difficult to reach and will require an overnight trip. These spots near public ramps are just too hunted out and I am curious about what some of my old spots look like now. Some of my favorite honey holes have not been visited since about 2017. I am confident that few (if any) other people hunt those same stretches, so I am keen to see what Mother Nature has “recharged” for me at those spots. Those spots are next on this list for this season.
  18. Hey guys, I live in south Florida and I have been trying to find good locations to hunt for fossilized sharks teeth. I have gone to peace river with my boyfriend before, but we want to try and look for locations that would be closer to us . Please please please help!
  19. The stars have finally lined up : schedule, health, weather, funds, and river gauge. That means it's time to hit the river again! Tomorrow I am going to a location that is one of my secret honey-holes. Let's call it "Alpha". It's on the Peace River and has produced plentiful Pleistocene and Holocene specimens. Want a fuzzy clue about it's location? Ok, here goes : it is in a counter-intuitive spot that is easily overlooked. That's it. I have not laid eyes on Alpha for months, so I am unsure what to expect. Hopefully it is fruitful (it usually is). Only three other people on the planet know where this spot is - my wife, my stepson Josh, and my daughter-in-law Alaina. Tomorrow my wife and I are going - so wish us luck! The truck is already loaded up and we will be on the road when the roosters are crowing. I typically post a report after the trip, so that report (and photos) will go here via replies. Stay tuned...
  20. After much anxious gauge watching and storm radar prognostication, I decided to make an attempt on the Peace River today. I got up at 7am and hit the road, expecting to arrive at the river by 8:30. I got stuck in some traffic getting out of Tampa, and I didn't arrive until 9:15am. The sky was cloudy, overcast, and grey. It was not promising and looked like the forecasted afternoon rain might arrive early and cut the day short. But, within minutes of arriving, the grey vanished and the sun started to peek out through gaps in the clouds. It might be a decent day afterall. The water was still a little high and fast, but still doable and far from dangerous. I found a newly-exposed (or transported) gravel bed and worked it for a couple of hours before gathering grey clouds started threaten again. I found a lot of turtle shell (left most of it behind), a couple of weird oddballs that might be partial claws or teeth, two tiny verts, and a very nice fossil skull with a green patina and blue teeth. I posted photos of the skull in the ID forum. Here is a photo of the rest of my finds. I was picky today and left behind a lot of turtle shell, small shark teeth, and chunkasaurus bits. Not much to see, although a couple of pieces merit closer inspection later after a nap. The skull can be seen on the lower right. Rain is in the forecast for the next couple of days, but the weekend looks dry, so I might take another shot at it this weekend. I forgot to bring my camera, so no trip pics this time.
  21. I'll just leave this here.... (it's been too rainy to get out and hunt, so I am getting bored.)
  22. Snaggle_tooth

    C and D Canal Help

    Hello all, Recently my girlfriend and I were planning on taking a trip to the C and D Canal for a day as it isn't very far from where we live. However, I have a few questions. Any input would be greatly appreciated. Questions: 1. Where could we park when we head over to the dredge piles, and how far of a walk would it be from the parking spot to the piles? 2. Are the dredge piles productive currently? I am aware that if they havent been dredged recently they won't be very productive. 3. How deep would we need to dig to actually reach the fossils? 4. What equipment would be reccommended/required for finding fossils on the trip. ... I believe that is it. Thank you for any input! -Snag
  23. Any suggestions on where to go fossil hunting over by seaside heights, nj area?
  24. As the snow will start to clear soon, I’ve been looking into new places to hunt for fossils in New York! If you have any suggestions I would love to hear them and visit them! Thank you in advance!
  25. Snaggle_tooth

    Big teeth at Brownies Beach?

    Hello everybody. My girlfriend and I are making one last trip to Brownies tomorrow before it costs 40 dollars for us to get in (barf). But I've had some questions about it. We have gone one time before, and were unable to get past the one little point/corner, but still found over 200 teeth, which was awesome, however most of the teeth were small, tiny even. Are there any tips or places to find some bigger teeth in the area? I've heard the farther south you go, AKA past the point we couldn't get past last time, the teeth tend to get bigger. And is sifting a viable option to finding bigger teeth? I'm not looking for Meg sized teeth, more or less looking for decent sized teeth, and maybe a bigger Hemi or two any tips for the recovery of larger teeth at Brownie's Beach/Bayfront Park is appreciated! Thanks so much! -Snag
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