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Dumbest Thing You Have Done While Hunting.


jax

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I know theres a bunch like me that have to go that extra inch to get a nice fossil. I know im not the only one that has done something just stupid while out hunting, so lets hear the stories.

Theres always the small stuff like not wearing glasses while breaking rocks and getting hit in the eye, I got that one many times. My new one is I hit myself in the hand with my hammer while trying to split a rock ( go ahead and laugh) But Im talking bigger.

My major one that comes to mind is.. Theres a pit in fort worth, and all who live here have been, so It was my first time there and im up on the rim looking in and theres a few ledges about 5 feet down or so. I had never found an unchin before this day and I look down and theres 2 perfect ones on the ledge, and there big ones. Oh and im by myself. So I weigh my options, either knock them into the pit and try to find them in the mess of broken rock, or just go get them. So I slide down the mud to the shelf and crawled over to them. Im not going to lie, I was scared. I think that pit is about 30 feet deep or so, maybe more, and the ledge was muddy and slick. I made it up ok...

I have others of me climbing out on rock ledges high in the air, and going hunting in the middle of summer when its 110 degrees, but I wont bore you.

Justin

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Guest bmorefossil

well we ride our boat up on to rock covered beaches its stupid but worth it untill something gets broke

instead of taking my time walking over the clay blocks i walked a little to fast and filled my waders with freezing cold water and had to deal with sandy, wet and frozen legs and feet for the rest of the day.

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When I was young and stupid (as opposed to old and stupid), I made the weekly two hour drive to Westmorland State Park for a day of shark-toothing under the cliffs. As soon as I got there, the weather turned ugly, but I pressed on anyway. You can probably tell where this is going; let's just say that my escape involved scaling a clay cliff and negotiating catbriar thickets and a beaver dam, all in a howling thunderstorm under a sky that was the color of an old bruise. I found nothing.

"There has been an alarming increase in the number of things I know nothing about." - Ashleigh Ellwood Brilliant

“Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.” - Thomas Henry Huxley

>Paleontology is an evolving science.

>May your wonders never cease!

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Working a roadcut with soft shale overlaid by more durable limestone, I looked up and saw a beautiful petalodus tooth under the ledge. I hammered it out after about an hour of work. Driving by the next day, the rock, the size of a large car, had fallen. I would have been under it and squished like a bug if I was collecting 24 hours later (maybe an hour of hammering had something to do with it....hmmmmm). I never collect under overhangs any more.

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Guest N.AL.hunter

Another cliff story. I was collecting fossils along the train track cuts on the side of Mount Cristo Rey in El Paso, TX. I had found a small brittle star a few weeks before and wanted to find another, more complete specimen, so up the cliff I went. There were no problems until I reached and area about five feet from the top and 20 feet from the bottom. I simply froze. Couldn't see a way to go up, and couldn't figure out how to get down (even though I had just climbed up it). I was just sitting there while a couple of trains passed by almost blowing me off the face with their wind. After what seemed like an hour, but most likely ten minutes (and I was wet all over from nervous sweat), I managed to place my body as close to the cliff as possible and slowly make it up the last five feet. I was actually shaking when I made it to safety.

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While searching through a section of the spoil pile one year at our dig, and not paying attention to exactly where the spoil was pitched. I laid down flat on my belly and felt some...not pain, but definately some discomfort just to the right of the, uh, "region". So, I squirmed a bit trying to get comfortable, and ended up smashing down full force onto a tiny little Prickly Pear type cactus that grows all over the place out there.

WOW!!! That burnt, stung, hurt, the whole nine yards. It didn't help that everyone else had a good laugh at my expense, especially when I had to drop my pants just to pick out the needles.

I make sure I look more carefully now. Sometimes.

Wm.T.

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Yeah...ow.

I can laugh at it now.

"Hello, my name is Wm.T., and it's been 4 years since I laid on a cactus".

Wm.T.

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When I was reading that I was hoping you werent going to say you laid in a fire ant pile! THose suck!

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When I was reading that I was hoping you werent going to say you laid in a fire ant pile! THose suck!

Oh, give me time, if there is a way to hurt myself or make myself look like the fool, I'll find it. Usually with tons of people around to witness it too. Ah well, it's good to laugh at oneself :D

Oh, N.AL.hunter-the comment-too funny. Good thing I just put the kids to bed, as I think my laughing would have woke them up.

Have a great night all!

Wm.T.

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Flipped the boat, snapped the engine off its mount, and watched it and my paddle sink into the icy river all in a matter of 2 seconds, paddled out with a rotten board.

Grüße,

Daniel A. Wöhr aus Südtexas

"To the motivated go the spoils."

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  • 2 weeks later...

When I was living in Tucson (AZ), one New Years Day when the family was away I decided to treat myself to a day off and drive 4 1/2 hrs to check out a Cretaceous site in the Big Burro Mts (New Mexico). Although the site was on BLM land, a local had locked the gate on the dirt road about 3 miles from the site (where he road crossed a creek). His trailer was within sight, but the guy wasn't home. His SO was, but she spoke little English and at any rate she wouldn't unlock the gate, so I waited about 2 hrs for the guy to come back. When he finally showed up he said I could go on up to the site, but 1) he wouldn't unlock the gate, I'd have to hike, and 2) he didn't want to put up his dogs, so I'd have to go a bit back down the road, scale a 40-foot nearly vertical slope, and strike out cross-country. By now it was after 1:00, and I knew it would just waste more time to try and argue, so off I went. After scaling the hillside (an old quarry as it turned out, and indeed almost vertical), a 1/2 mile hike across he desert had me rejoining the road well past Trailer Bob and his nasty dogs; from there it was another 2+ miles to the "creek" (very dry as is typical for that area). So it was just after 3:00 when I finally got started on my hunt. Fortunately I was successful and eventually had a backpack full of many pounds of nodules that eventually yielded a number of good Neocardioceras, Pseudaspidoceras, Burroceras, and other goodies. At some point I realized it was getting hard to see things on the ground; I looked up and realized the sun was setting. The days are short at that time of the year, it was only about 5:30. I started back, but before long it was so dark I couldn't see where I was going. Soon the ground was pitch black; the sky was a mass of stars, and I could make out the surrounding hills only because they were black lacunae in the fields of stars. I literally couldn't see my feet. Plus, although the day had been quite warm, now the temperature was rapidly plunging towards freezing. I was alone, freezing, no flashlight, and had no idea where to go. After a long time I noticed the sky brightening a bit on the horizon. A while later a 3/4 moon popped up, and as if by magic in the moonlight I could just see the two tire ruts of the road shimmering. Now I knew where the road was, and off I went. Every once in a while I would accidentally look right at the moon and lose my night vision, but after a few minutes of staring into the darkness the ruts would reappear and off I'd go again. It was about 10:00 when I came up on the trailer, and I decided I'd rather risk the dogs than try to find and climb down the cliff in he dark, so I stayed on the road. Fortunately the dogs were inside by that time; they barked like crazy but no-one came out. I was back at the car by 10:30, cold but safe. By 3 AM I was back home, 23 hours after having started out.

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Great topic. The dumbest thing I ever did was whine that I wasn't finding anything instead of continuing

to look. I was on a trip in South Carolina (land collecting), and one of the guys in the group was walking near me. I started whining to him about how I wasn't finding anything and how I have such bad luck, blah, blah, blah.. After a

about 30 seconds I see the guy's eyes look down near my feet and light up. There was a white 4" meg laying

half exposed about 2 feet away from my right foot. It was the best find of the day.

I learned a lesson that day!

Thanks,

Eddie

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Working a roadcut with soft shale overlaid by more durable limestone, I looked up and saw a beautiful petalodus tooth under the ledge. I hammered it out after about an hour of work. Driving by the next day, the rock, the size of a large car, had fallen. I would have been under it and squished like a bug if I was collecting 24 hours later (maybe an hour of hammering had something to do with it....hmmmmm). I never collect under overhangs any more.

Would that spot happen to be on I170 in St Louis? I visited there once, got some nice phosphatic nodules from under overhanging limestone, saw some LARGE chunks of fallen limestone and beat it out of there. No fossil is worth your life!

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Would that spot happen to be on I170 in St Louis? I visited there once, got some nice phosphatic nodules from under overhanging limestone, saw some LARGE chunks of fallen limestone and beat it out of there. No fossil is worth your life!

That's exactly where it was!

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Guest bmorefossil

well i have two new once from just last week!!!! I broke my finger trying to flip a 200lbs rock over with out any tools and sprained my ankle by walking on a wet clay rock.

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well i have two new once from just last week!!!! I broke my finger trying to flip a 200lbs rock over with out any tools and sprained my ankle by walking on a wet clay rock.

ouch!

Just a week or 2 ago, I was trying to split this rock that had a bunch of ammonite imprints and a nice ptychodus tooth. It would have made a nice plate to display, so I got my hammer and rock chisel and tried to split it. Well I half hit the chisel head and it bouced and hit the back of my hand. It hurt bad, but that didnt stop me, I hit it a few more times and hit my self in the same spot. I thought I broke something. I had a good size bump. As for the rock, I gave up on the plate and chiped the tooth out.

I need a new rock chisel that has that nifty rubber handle that protects your hand......

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