Mazonia-Braidwood (Pit 11) 2022 Season Opening

[deutscheben]

Tomorrow (March 1st) is opening day for fossil hunting at Mazonia-Braidwood State Fish and Wildlife Area, also known as Pit 11 to Mazon Creek collectors. The weather has been on an excellent trend running up to now, with many days over the next week predicted to have highs in the 50s and even 60s, although a few days do have rain predicted as well (and things may already be muddy as the soil thaws too). 

 

Who is planning on heading out this week to kick off the season? I will be taking tomorrow off work to be there on opening day. I missed out on the 2021 season entirely, and actually haven't been to the park since March of 2020- my last trip there was one of my last activities before COVID hit. With any luck I will be able to make at least a couple of trips this year. 

 

With the warmer weather, be sure to watch out for ticks, and with potentially muddy conditions drive carefully- I have seen vehicles get stuck in the past. Finally, it's always a good idea to have your copy of the fossil collecting permit, either picked up outside the park office or printed from online: https://www2.illinois.gov/dnr/Parks/Activity/Documents/MZB_FossilPermit.pdf 

 

Best of luck to everyone and I hope to see some of you out there in the park! Please feel free to share your finds and reports in this thread as well. 

[connorp]

Good luck tomorrow @deutscheben! I am probably going to take Wednesday off, figured I'd give the snow an extra day to melt, plus it looks a little warmer.

[Mark Kmiecik]

Good luck guys. I wish I was healthy enough to join you. Get some good ones.

[flipper559]

Good Luck Ben !! Find a bunch !!

 

Connor good luck !!

 

I'll be out sometime. Was looking at Saturday, but rain is likely..........we'll see.

 

Rock On !!

 

Phil

[jdp]

My wife and I were thinking to get out of town on Sunday and Mazonia-Braidwood is one possible destination. I'll keep you posted!

[Nimravis]

On 2/28/2022 at 1:53 PM, deutscheben said:

Finally, it's always a good idea to have your copy of the fossil collecting permit, either picked up outside the park office or printed

Years ago when the Mazon Creek Project was still in existence, we were given Permanent collecting cards that were issued by agreement between Northeastern Illinois University, the Illinois Department of Conservation and Commonwealth Edison.

 

 

[flipper559]

5 minutes ago, Nimravis said:

Years ago when the Mazon Creek Project was still in existence, we were given Permanent collecting cards that were issued by agreement between Northeastern Illinois University, the Illinois Department of Conservation and Commonwealth Edison.

 

 

That is very cool Ralph ! !

[connorp]

How was it out there today @deutscheben?

[deutscheben]

34 minutes ago, connorp said:

How was it out there today @deutscheben?

It was pretty darn nice! A little snow left still, but not obstructing anything, and only a couple of concretions that were difficult to extract due to frozen soil. The hillsides were very slippery, but I managed to get up and down without too much trouble (and I can’t lie, the physical challenges of Mazonia are part of the appeal, to a point- and after that point I just want to get out of the woods and home to a hot shower).

 

Once the sun came out the temp was very comfortable, and everything was quiet except for bird song and the occasional distant sound of planes and trains. I only saw a small handful of other people who looked to be fossil hunting. 
 

I ended up with a little more than a gallon of concretions for my day’s work, about average in my experience. I’ll get them soaking and hopefully freezing as soon as my Mazon River concretions are all finished. 
 

Here is the first find of the day:

 

[deutscheben]

And best of luck to you out there @connorp and @flipper559- and you as well if you end going, @jdp. And thanks for the bit of history@Nimravis!

[Mark Kmiecik]

Petrified snake head, I believe. 

[sheahankim]

I a looking forward to my first time heading down to find a few concretions if possible! If I print the permit off and fill that out, do you need to have it approved at the office or just with you? Any tips for a new be?

[Mark Kmiecik]

25 minutes ago, sheahankim said:

I a looking forward to my first time heading down to find a few concretions if possible! If I print the permit off and fill that out, do you need to have it approved at the office or just with you? Any tips for a new be?

 

Print the permit, fill it out and bring it with you. You can drop it off at the office and get some advice.

 

The best tip I can give you is to go with someone who's been hunting Mazon Creek fossils before a few times. I guarantee you'll probably come away disappointed the first few times if you go by yourself. There's probably a few people going this weekend. Look in the hunting trips topic (oops, just realized that's where we are) and PM one or two people who are going and ask if you can join them. I would take you myself but I can't go anymore due to failing health. 

 

The other option, of course, is to go by yourself to the Mazonia South unit and see if you can hook up with someone in the parking lot. If you can't hook up there just start looking around or follow someone else at a respectable distance and pick up what they miss. It took me about five trips when I started to get the hang of it, but it was well worth the investment in time. 

 

Be prepared to be cold, wet, muddy and generally uncomfortable for several hours, and should you be lucky enough, to carry a heavy load back to your car. Bring a 5-gallon bucket and a large screwdriver to pry out the stubborn ones. Wear grubby old clothes that you don't care if they're ruined. There's nettles and thorns, etc.

 

Good luck. The season started March 1st, so the pickings should still be good this weekend. Other times of the year it's best to go after hard rains expose new nodules. If you find any, ask how to open them and we'll help you with that.

Edited March 2, 2022 by Mark Kmiecik
added info

[sheahankim]

Thank you Mark I will take all the help I can get!  I work at a Nature Center and we where lucky enough to have a collector ask us if we would take his collection!  His name was Paul Friend.  At the time of its collection, he had the largest fossil of Arthropleura found. I have always wanted to go and try my hand at looking for some.  I so enjoyed talking with him.

[Mark Kmiecik]

23 minutes ago, sheahankim said:

Thank you Mark I will take all the help I can get!  I work at a Nature Center and we where lucky enough to have a collector ask us if we would take his collection!  His name was Paul Friend.  At the time of its collection, he had the largest fossil of Arthropleura found. I have always wanted to go and try my hand at looking for some.  I so enjoyed talking with him.

 

As I said, it's not the easiest thing to do, but I'm sure you already knew that since you talked to him. I may have met him in the past. MC people are a fairly tight-knit group. It will eventually pay dividends if you stick with it. Takes some time to find the good spots, and just like fishing, no one will reveal the location of their honey-hole to you until you have "paid your dues". The best spots are mostly on private property. That takes lots of time and research and just talking to people who live in that area. I rang lots of doorbells back in the day and ended up with about 10 spots on private property that were just sweeeeeet. If you want to hunt on private property, be sure you have the land owner's permission. They know how to use a shotgun down there. I've had neighbors of the land owner whose property I was hunting come out with a shotgun and ask me what I was doing there. It helps a lot in that instance to know the owners name and have their blessing to be there.

 

Back in the day, I could make a day trip to one or two locations and fill, and I mean FILL, two or three 5-gallon buckets, and then carry them a few hundred yards back to the car, then go back for the rest and carry those back to the car.

Edited March 2, 2022 by Mark Kmiecik

[connorp]

3 hours ago, sheahankim said:

I a looking forward to my first time heading down to find a few concretions if possible! If I print the permit off and fill that out, do you need to have it approved at the office or just with you? Any tips for a new be?

All I'll say is that if you want to have success, you gotta go deep deep deep into the woods. You can find stuff just off the trails but that will not be super productive. For reference, the spot I hunted today took over an hour to hike to.

[deutscheben]

2 hours ago, connorp said:

All I'll say is that if you want to have success, you gotta go deep deep deep into the woods. You can find stuff just off the trails but that will not be super productive. For reference, the spot I hunted today took over an hour to hike to.

How was your day? I feel like things were also notably more overgrown out there since I visited last, but that may just be my imagination. 

[deutscheben]

5 hours ago, sheahankim said:

I a looking forward to my first time heading down to find a few concretions if possible! If I print the permit off and fill that out, do you need to have it approved at the office or just with you? Any tips for a new be?

Best of luck from a former McHenry County resident! Most of the time you won’t need the permit, but if you happen to encounter a DNR employee they may ask to see it. 
 

@Nimravis wrote up a great overview of some of the collecting areas at the park here: http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/95940-its-summer-and-you-want-to-go-to-pit-11-for-mazon-creek-fossils/ 

As others have said, don’t expect to find concretions easily, and don’t expect to find a lot. On my first trip I was disappointed I didn’t come close to filling a 5-gallon bucket, but I’ve since adjusted my expectations to around a gallon for a day of work. 

[Nimravis]

4 minutes ago, deutscheben said:

As others have said, don’t expect to find concretions easily, and don’t expect to find a lot. On my first trip I was disappointed I didn’t come close to filling a 5-gallon bucket, but I’ve since adjusted my expectations to around a gallon for a day of work. 

Such a true statement.

[connorp]

24 minutes ago, deutscheben said:

How was your day? I feel like things were also notably more overgrown out there since I visited last, but that may just be my imagination. 

Pretty productive actually, I found a good area and collected about 2 gallons. I only brought the one 2 gallon bucket since I've never found more than 1.5 gallons in a day, so I actually had to stop collecting since I had nothing left to carry any more concretions in. I found some weathered plants and jellies in the area, so fingers crossed I didn't collect a whole bucket of blanks. I'll have to bring more buckets next time. The downside of course being that lugging buckets of rocks back on a 2 mile hike is quite excruciating

 

First concretion of the day

 

Here's my good spot. Lots on smaller but nicely shaped concretions.

 

First jelly of the day

 

I also noticed this parking area, which I think is new? I don't remember it being there last year, unless I was just oblivious.

[Mark Kmiecik]

26 minutes ago, connorp said:

First concretion of the day

 

And a dinosaur egg with the embryo preserved as well?  Wow, the first one as well! Seriously though, 1-1/2 gallons and all your pockets stuffed and holding a few in one hand is a pretty good haul nowadays. 

[Mark Kmiecik]

For the newbies to MC who may see this before going out there. The ones with the question marks I'm not sure of. The rest are what you're looking for.

 

@deutscheben Did you rake this spot after you picked these up?

 

[connorp]

12 minutes ago, Mark Kmiecik said:

For the newbies to MC who may see this before going out there. The ones with the question marks I'm not sure of. The rest are what you're looking for.

 

@deutscheben Did you rake this spot after you picked these up?

 

I think you meant to tag me. This was actually post rake, I raked around the concretions just to take a nice picture.

 

For those curious, here's the tool I use, a 3-pronged hand rake. Superbly useful.

 

[Nimravis]

8 minutes ago, connorp said:

For those curious, here's the tool I use, a 3-pronged hand rake. Superbly useful

I take this little rake that I cut down to a length of 18”, it works well and is small and light enough to carry.

 

[deutscheben]

9 hours ago, Nimravis said:

I take this little rake that I cut down to a length of 18”, it works well and is small and light enough to carry.

 

Funny, this is the first year I brought a rake too! 
 

Nice haul @connorp, sounds like you’ve found a sweet spot. Since I have only been able to go once or twice a year I haven’t had a chance to really explore new areas of the park in a while. 
 

I did notice that they had done some road and parking lot maintenance since I was there last. 
 

One additional find I made was these sweet and unintentionally appropriate Pit “11” Viper sunglasses: