Headed to Venice and the Peace River in two weeks any suggestions or pointers in hunting fossils there?

[DENKIDUDE]

Just wanted to update everyone on our trip to the Peace River. Thanks to John we all came home with some nice fossils. Here is what myself and my son ERIC found. Thank you so much for sharing your area with us. 

[ynot]

Nice finds!

Glad You had a successful trip.

Tony

[Sacha]

Mike, how was the 2 day camping trip on the river?

[DENKIDUDE]

Lots of river but very few gravel beds. We should have stopped about a mile past Pioneer park and looked at the gravel there. But after that we didn't see any gravel until just above Gardener. 

I did find one nice small Meg after digging for awhile. Looks like pretty good potential there. It is about 1 mile up from Gardener people have dug a big hole on the left going up by the bank. Lots of gravel didn't seem as good as your area. By the time we got there we were worn out from paddling. No gravel for most of the trip. But the wildlife was awesome Aligators Turtles and birds. 

[Darktooth]

Nice finds! I am glad you had a good time. I will be heading to the peace in a few days for my first time. Hopeing I can find something good.

[Shellseeker]

3 hours ago, DENKIDUDE said:

Just wanted to update everyone on our trip to the Peace River. Thanks to John we all came home with some nice fossils. Here is what myself and my son ERIC found. Thank you so much for sharing your area with us. 

 

Congratulations !!! John is a treasure and represents TFF in a fantastic way!!  I can see from your finds that this was a "typical"  successful Peace River trip into the shark tooth areas. There are other locations that are predominately mammal teeth and bones. Great memory for you and Eric..

[abach292]

@DENKIDUDE I was in your shoes just a few months ago! @jcbshark and @digit and I were going to take a trip, but the weather did not work out on the day we all had open. So i did a couple solo trips the following days. Great stuff to be found.

I got a meg right off the Brownville boat launch, but they are right, hiring a guide is quite fun and productive and well worth the price. I went with Fossil Funatics because of the reviews and they had a date I could tag along as a solo hunter (most have a minimum # of people).

I made a post on FF somewhere about the trip, but also recorded it on my blog if you are interested.

http://americanfossilhunt.com/2017/01/21/shark-tooth-hunting-peace-river-2017-trip-report/

 

sending you a DM b/c Shark Tooth Hill is on my list for June, I already have plane tix and would love to go home with a haul like yours!

 

revising b/c I see now that your trip is over it goes by quick doesnt it? haha where did you camp at and how was it?

[RCFL]

I believe I saw you guys on your paddle up river : ) 

Glad you were able to bring home some treasures! It was cold!

 

I would look for human wear around the circumference on that little vert with hole in the middle. 

[jcbshark]

That's a great haul you got therecongrats!

[Sacha]

7 hours ago, RCFL said:

I believe I saw you guys on your paddle up river : ) 

Glad you were able to bring home some treasures! It was cold!

 

I would look for human wear around the circumference on that little vert with hole in the middle. 

 

How did you do that day? 

[Sacha]

By the way, here's a picture of what I think is Mike's best find from his trip to the Peace.

 

[Sacha]

On 2/28/2017 at 7:22 PM, Darktooth said:

Welcome to the forum from New York! Congratulations on your beautiful makos from Ernst Quarry! I wish you the best of luck. I am making a similar trip week or so after you. Going to Disney but taking a day for Venice and the Peace.

 

What day were you thinking about for your Peace River trip?

[DENKIDUDE]

For anyone going I found out about better camp spots after being there. Brownsville park  and Pioneer Park in Zolfo Springs looks excellent. The owners of Canoe Safari are extremely nice and glad to accomadate campers   

They have camping and a house you can rent. In fact next to John they are some of the nicest people we met on the trip. We stayed one night at there rental house and it was the bomb. We stayed at the Peace River Campground and it is nice but really noisy and kind of crazy and expensive in my book. If you are in Venice and camping stay at the OSCAR Sherer State park. 

I give it 5 stars and at 35 dollars a night with electricity it is hard to beat. Let me know if I missed any of your questions and I will tell you more about our trip. 

[ynot]

3 hours ago, Sacha said:

, here's a picture of what I think is Mike's best find from his trip to the Peace

Hey hi John,

For those of Us that are ignorant of peace river mammal teeth-- What is it?

[digit]

Yup. I've stayed at the Peace River Campground in Arcadia before but I can get a hotel room (and not have to wait in line for a shower) for the same price as I paid for a primitive (tent) site there. I've camped at Brownville Park years ago and it is much more quiet and relaxed. These days if I do a multi-day trip I'm more apt to find a hotel with a hot shower and a comfy bed after a hard day of shoveling and sifting. Some day we may pack camping gear and do one of the longer 2-day trips but I have so much fossil hunting gear that I'd really have a full canoe with camping gear.

 

What can be really helpful when searching the Peace River for a place to dig is to bring along a probe to search for gravel hidden beneath a layer of sand. I use a fiberglass probe with a custom PVC handle that I made specifically for this purpose. I've seen others use golf clubs with the club face removed or the long metal probes used to penetrate ground to search for the concrete casement for septic systems. Anytime I'm floating down the river in a canoe where the river runs shallow enough to see the bottom I probe the sand as I float by to listen for the distinctive crunch of gravel. Finding gravel that other hunters don't know about yet can lead to some prime hunting area. When you are new to an area and perhaps visiting for a one-off trip, the other technique that works well is to leverage off the knowledge of previous hunters. When you see a spot that is pockmarked with signs of digging (holes and piles) stop and dig there. You can either continue where someone else has dug (going deeper or widening the hole) or try to find a new productive spot in the same area. If you dig and find gravel but no decent fossils you have to consider the possibility that you are digging in someone's spoil pile. If you come up with a nice find that another hunter would not have left (e.g., a meg or horse tooth) then you know you are in prime territory and continue to dig there. Dugong bones are common and are often tossed back so they are not great indicators of undug spots.

 

Looks like you did well for your first time out on the Peace and hopefully you have some fond memories to go with your collection of Peace River fossils.

 

 

 

2 minutes ago, ynot said:

For those of Us that are ignorant of peace river mammal teeth-- What is it?

 

I'll answer for John as I was already writing a reply. It's a really nice pair of associated Equus upper molars with a chunk of maxilla (upper jawbone) holding them together.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[DENKIDUDE]

If you want a great hotel place to stay check out 

canoe Safari and tell Jason Mike from California  sent you. If the house is available it is a great place to stay and really convenient to the River. 

[digit]

Nice option I was previously unaware of but now gives me ideas. Roughly where along the river is this house located?

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[DENKIDUDE]

Right between canoe outpost and canoe Safari. 

You can launch from there if you want.

[RCFL]

On 3/23/2017 at 7:09 AM, Sacha said:

 

How did you do that day? 

Other than freezing my butt off I did pretty good. Find of the day was a horse tooth and a comllete meg so nothing too crazy but I was happy with the haul. 

 

I did have an interesting encounter with a male gator about 100' up river who did his maiting call twice around noon while I was shoulder deep in my hole. I thought it was way too cold for that but he was calling out for a female. I was gripping my shovel a little tighter for sure lol

 

sounds like you guys had a good day out there, Love the 2 horse teeth still set in jaw!