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Once more into the Peace, Racing against Lockdowns


Bone Daddy

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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. :D
 

EDIT : apparently the guy I spoke to on the river was wrong - Pioneer Park is still open.

 

 

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The report of your day on the river with your family was a pleasure to read. Thank you for sharing it. Never having been on the Peace, my wide-mouthed expression and barely noticeable gasp caught my wife's attention as I read of the tossing of dugong ribs and turtle scutes back into the water. I can imagine how disappointing it will be if you cannot get back out there again soon. Be well. 

Start the day with a smile and get it over with.

 

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Glad to hear you made it out to the river Sunday.  Not so glad to hear about the competition!  Its one of the reasons I like to hunt further north.  When I was out Friday I didn't see anyone through the day.  Upon getting back to my launch site, about 4 pm, there were three guys launching a canoe to go fishing.  I am heading back tomorrow morning and will go as much as possible as long as the Gov doesn't shut things down.

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9 hours ago, Bone Daddy said:

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 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. :D
 

 

 

 

 

 

Pioneer park and boat ramp are NOT closed. I put in there today and it was business as usual. The museum and other features that are paid access may be closed, but everything else looks normal.

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56 minutes ago, Sacha said:

 

Pioneer park and boat ramp are NOT closed. I put in there today and it was business as usual. The museum and other features that are paid access may be closed, but everything else looks normal.

 

Thanks Sacha! That is good to know. The guy I talked to on the river must have been confused. I made it point to eyeball the entrance of the park when I drove past it while returning from Gardner and it was open. Before I attempt to go again, I think I will call around and double-check what is actually open and what is not. I am glad that the Zolfo ramp is still open.  :)

 

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9 hours ago, Pagurus said:

The report of your day on the river with your family was a pleasure to read. Thank you for sharing it. Never having been on the Peace, my wide-mouthed expression and barely noticeable gasp caught my wife's attention as I read of the tossing of dugong ribs and turtle scutes back into the water. I can imagine how disappointing it will be if you cannot get back out there again soon. Be well. 

 

There is a joke amongst Florida fossil hunters that dugongs must have been all ribs. I think that beast was made up of at least 80% ribs, judging by how many are laying around. I could probably pave a patio deck with them if I brought them all home. We are spoiled down here in Florida. Everywhere else you go fossil-hunting, you need a hammer and a chisel to bring your fossil home. In Florida, the river literally spits them up at you. In some cases they are laying around on the surface in large numbers after heavy rains wash them from the sandy banks.

Now, I will still pick them up if they are interesting : very long section with curvature, fat/wide circumference with pointy end tip, lots of clam bore holes that make it look weird, predation marks, etc. But the average little broken sections, I just toss them.  :)

 

 

 

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7 hours ago, PODIGGER said:

Glad to hear you made it out to the river Sunday.  Not so glad to hear about the competition!  Its one of the reasons I like to hunt further north.  When I was out Friday I didn't see anyone through the day.  Upon getting back to my launch site, about 4 pm, there were three guys launching a canoe to go fishing.  I am heading back tomorrow morning and will go as much as possible as long as the Gov doesn't shut things down.

 

Gardner is a hot spot for local hunters, and I expect to see them every time I go. I usually go in the middle of the week when a lot of people are working and I usually have my pick of the known good spots. But, I was unsure how much longer the parks and ramps would remain open, so I decided to try my luck on sunday, rather than run the chance of everything being closed up monday. Now I just heard that Pioneer Park is still open, so I am relieved that fossil hunting season might not be lost yet.

 

 

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When I first started this adventure in spring of 2019 I launched at Gardner.  I always go on weekdays and that is probably why I never ran into many other people.  Most likely due to my inexperience I really did not have a lot of luck finding a productive spot to hunt when launching from Gardner.  I paddled a good distance north on several occasions but didn't hit a spot that produced good returns.  After several tries I decided to head north in search of other launch sites and thats when I hit on some productive areas.  I am excited to return tomorrow with the water level so low.

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Such a good read, thank you for posting. I'm savoring hunt reports more and more these days now that I've been indoors a lot more.. Thanks for sharing :trex:

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We went in and out through the boat ramp in pioneer park today - no issues / no closure on ramp there 

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I really don’t think stay at home orders apply to fossil hunting by yourself in the great outdoors. I’m going the next chance I get

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I hope everyone has good luck and stays safe. If I lived closer or had a newer vehicle, I would risk it. But, my truck is 20 years old and has over 200k miles on it. If it breaks down, I would feel badly for making a tow operator put his life at risk to rescue me over an optional activity I insisted on doing. Besides, my wife is having none of it. She is the final authority on lockdowns and curfews. LOL.

 

Yall stay safe out there!  And leave some fossils for me!  :)

 

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Take the virus epidemic seriously or you may live to regret. I live 50 miles from NYC,  People all over the area are getting it and the numbers are growing every day. it's dangerous just to go grocery shopping around here. It's frightening to know it's all around you and you can't see it or know when you might be next.  It's only a matter of time until it hits your state. Take my word for it, a few fossil sharks teeth aren't worth it.

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