Adventures in Balance. A Peace River fossil journal.

[Shellseeker]

On 1/8/2024 at 10:14 PM, Balance said:

Consider this installment one to create dental study guides for the use in identification of mammals for both Florida and other regional fossil hunters.

Jp,

You march to the beat of a different drummer, and that's a good thing. BoneValley and the Peace River will be in good hands from at least one member of your crew,  maybe the one who likes Taylor Swift. 

I am thinking how to capture this section of your thread in a Gallery or some such mechanism.  Maybe @digit or @Fossildude19 will have a view

[Shellseeker]

22 hours ago, Balance said:

It was a banner day for trash collection. Typically I toss any glass or plastic trash into a bucket I keep in the boat. Beer bottles and old cooler pieces are most common but occasionally you’ll hit a sweet spot. 😁 - this spots trash was apparently accumulated in the late 60’s early 70’s. 
 

RayBan sunglasses, push button radio, and an older RC cola bottle. 

I likely never told you that a bustling set of Bottling companies were set you in small rural Florida towns where there was cheap labor and few regulations... Both Arcadia and Wauchula included. 

Some places and people used the Peace River as a town dump back in the day. 

I hear you could pickup $50   for a soda bottle labeled "Arcadia" or "Wauchula" and usually they were downstream of the town bridges...

 

I had a couple of finds... This one made in 1958 in West Virginia ,  xx

and this Vaseline Bottle made in New Jersey prior to 1905... There is gold in them there hills..

 

[Sacha]

[Balance]

@Shellseeker thank you for that!

 

My Granddad had a Charlie’s chips tin next to his chair. Maybe it’s all granddads but for mine he had a chair in the TV room. It was his. Obviously, I could sit in it 😉 but it was mostly off limits.  Sometimes the Charlie’s chips truck would show up when I was there. BBQ!! was GDaddys favorite. Mine too. 
 

The more you look for the better chances you’ll find it. 😊 

 

Jp

[Balance]

@Sacha 😂 you too!! Had no idea this can of worms existed. Now I’m excited but concerned I’ve limited myself to only RC bottles. Lol

 

Jp

[Shellseeker]

2 hours ago, Balance said:

@Sacha 😂 you too!! Had no idea this can of worms existed. Now I’m excited but concerned I’ve limited myself to only RC bottles. Lol

 

Jp

Another thread that might interest you...

The Blue Bottle is selling on ebay for $40, with cap $115...  Amazing what people were throwing away ...

[Harry Pristis]

Nice old Vaseline jar, Jack.  

Let me explain the Vaseline jar in the river.  -- Stop me if you've heard this story -- Many old-time collectors, like me, never carried a sharp knife to fend off 'gators.  We carried a 'gator stick' -- a baton about 18" long tethered to a wrist with a thin cord lanyard.  I personally used an old police baton made of hardwood.

 

 The idea was when a 'gator bit your upper arm or shoulder (they like to go for your head), you just stick the baton down the 'gator's throat to make it let go.  The baton breaks the watertight seal of the glottis, and the 'gator has to interrupt his business in order to cough up the leaked river water.  Works every time!

 

 If the 'gator has hold of your baton arm, you have to be able to break the lanyard to employ the baton with your other hand.  I have always favored keeping my baton arm on the away-side of any aggressive 'gator I can see.  I have always come out on top in every 'gator encounter.

 

If the 'gator has hold of your head and begins a deathroll, keep your arms and legs tight to your body to go with the roll.  Then, working by feel, you can get the baton into the 'gator's throat.  This head-hold is a best-case scenario for the 'gator, but a worst-case scenario for the collector who may wind up with tooth punctures on the head.  That's why I always wore a miner's hard hat when I used mask and snorkel to survey the bottom.  No scars on my visage!

 

Oh!  About the Vaseline jar . . . Old time collectors applied Vaseline to the end of their batons to ease the way through the 'gator gums and past the 'gator glottis.  Every old timer had his own jar of Vaseline because the baton had to be re-treated from time to time after contact with trousers or with the sand of the river bottom.

 

Now, if you think I made up this story, look around you at the next fossil show in Florida.  Do you see any old time collectors who are missing limbs or who have puncture scars on their heads?  No!  You know that I wouldn't kid you.  
 

[digit]

1 hour ago, Harry Pristis said:

You know that I wouldn't kid you.  

Totally trustworthy--Harry would never tell a tall tale.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[Balance]

@digit the great @Harry Pristis has no need for tall tales. I believe it Whitman who said, “If you done it. It ain’t bragg’n”. 😉

 

Harry, have you ever found any of your demijohn bottles in the various rivers you’ve explored? 
 

Jp

[Baking Geologist]

On 1/13/2024 at 1:07 PM, Balance said:

Magic hour lighting for a quiet ride back. Saw a friend of Jacks’ on the way. 

Green Heron?

 

Nice haul.  January is normally the month I consider moving to warmer climates. Then I remember gators 🐊 

[Balance]

@Baking Geologist I thought it was a Kingfisher but I guess I need to look again. 
 

Thanks!! 
 

Jp

[Shellseeker]

2 hours ago, Baking Geologist said:

Green Heron?

 

Nice haul.  January is normally the month I consider moving to warmer climates. Then I remember gators 🐊 

 

2 hours ago, Balance said:

@Baking Geologist I thought it was a Kingfisher but I guess I need to look again. 
 

Thanks!! 
 

Jp

Yes, Little Green Heron,

 

They are pretty hard to photo... Skittish between Red and Blue cousins,  on the river fewer than the Blues and more than the Reds.

 

It takes a while to learn all the birds on the River.... even if you have no other responsibilities beyond hunting....

[Balance]

Thanks, Jack!! @Shellseeker And thanks @Baking Geologistfor bringing it up!!

 

 

His pointy business end threw me off for sure. My daughter knew. 😂 Her friend is currently into birds and we just did a tour at the Circle BarB preserve last month. Saw a green heron. She pegged it right away. Guess she was paying attention. 😊 

 

Also: If you want me to put pep in my step. Take away my hunting privileges until I get something done. 😂

 

As a midwesterner would say, “GAME ON!”

 

I’ll paint it after this stuff dries but now we just need the river to drop about 4 feet! 
 

Have a great week and thanks for an awesome day of conversation here at the forum. 
 

Jp

[Balance]

When the rivers up, get the pole out. 

Been almost a month since I was able to get out. Sometimes that’s good. It allowed me time to work on some other fossil projects and read quite a bit of archive stuff. Watching the gauge was becoming useless because it’s stuck between 7-8’ . I need 5.5’ or less for the current dig sites so I decided to explore a completely different stretch of the river. Take some prospecting time and see if I could find some locations to come try later. 
 

Wasn’t at all sure what I’d find. No real way to ‘hunt’ so a healthy cruise a few miles in each direction from the put in seemed like a good plan. My technique is very hi-tek. 😉 - I bring my pool cleaning pole. Drop it in and let it drag behind balance at low speed. It’s hollow, so it echos the sound off the bottom and you can listen to it grind through sand and gravel. Likewise if the bottom is lime-rock it will clank and bounce up and down. I’ve learned to hear different things and when the right mix of noises come up I’ll throw balance in reverse and then do some direct probing into the area. 
 

I found the gravel to be in pockets here. Not in big bars or deposits stretching long distances. This will need investigating with much lower water levels. 

 

Downriver was still really deep. My 10’ metal pole was floating in several sections. I noticed a lot of limerock in this stretch and not much gravel but your limited to what you float over so I’ll give this stretch more attention at lower water. 
 

We passed a monster. Big bull. Solid 10’. They get way bigger but this is plenty when you have 5” of draft. Found this Sperry deck shoe near by. Looks like the “real tree” camouflage edition. 😊

 

Upriver was lower water but lots of sand.  After a bit I lucked onto a “crunch” while poking around from the boat. I found a spot I could reach. Barely. Decided to see what some test scoops would produce and jumped in. Essentially Im digging in a foot of water when the river is down. Possibly even on the bank. So I did lots of single scoops instead of digging deep. I don’t want to destroy the bank but more importantly I don’t want anyone seeing I was hunting here should good thing come to the surface. If the test shows the basics I’ll come back to look for the treasure in the deeper pools at low water. 

 

Used some fellow forum advice and ran my micro screen under the main sieve. Figured this would show more of what is in the area. The more we know, right? First test I found a mammoth frag and a nice gator tooth. Followed up with a scute and a few pieces of agatized Coral. That’s a nice mix of time ranges.  



 

serrated fish spine was cool. soft shell turtle carapace. Tamiami shells. Agatized Coral and a big sponge section. Weird eroded rock. Antler frag, peace river sharks teeth mix. Tiny tiny hemis?? Basically, this covers a lot of fossil time frame bases. So hunting here could yield a wide array of species. 

 

So water needs to drop about 2-3’ and I’ll be back. Gonna try out a few spots around this new test area and see what happens. The river hit 13+ feet recently so old holes are probably filled in. Time to make plans for when the getting is good! 

 

Keep the faith and try to do good!

Jp

 

The problem with passing giant gators on a tiny river is you kinda have to go past them again to get home. Figured I’d try to video him going by but he exceeded expectations. 😂😂🫣🫣

 

 

[digit]

6 minutes ago, Balance said:

serrated fish spine was cool.

 

 

Your spine is a pectoral spine from an Ictaluridae catfish (they are the ones with the serrations that we find in Florida). By the looks of it this one is from the right side. Here is an image from a scientific paper showing several spines in dorsal view (top down) with the anterior (front) to the right in the image. You can tell by the shape of the base that your spine is from the right side (all the pictured ones below are left pectorals).

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[automech]

Love the idea of using the pool sweeper pole. Not much use along the Bay or Potomac river though. Crazy video, too! Made the hairs on my bald head stand up! 

[Balance]

@automech one of those “Happy Accidents” last spring. I was having to pole myself with the water really low. Long stretches were too shallow for even the trolling motor so I use the pool pole like a fishing flats boat pole. I had about 150 yards of water deep enough for the trolling motor and was lazy so I just left the pole hanging off the back of the boat. It started to fall in and I grabbed it right when it hit bottom on the low end. The trolling motor was still going so it started dragging behind me while I held it. Couldn’t see under the water in the channel but I could hear it. 
 

Both holes from this seasons main spot are in a channel I found “dragging” a section of river. when I say you can hear the difference I’m completely serious. It’s like a speaker inside of that pole. 

Have a great week and keep that shiny dome warm!

 

Jp
 

That is the exact wrong size gator for me. I’ve experienced much bigger and much smaller. These 9-10’ bulls have something to prove. Also more pissy about my presence and quicker to assume defense. 
If you look at gator attacks it’s always this size… 

Edited January 29 by Balance

[automech]

A great "Accident". Kind of like - "Necessity is the Mother of Invention".

It's above freezing this week. So, the dome is safe. Kudos to all the fossil folks north & west of Maryland that deal with much colder weather.

Gotta love those gators. Not!  

[Balance]

Nice end to a Wednesday.  Normally I just, “am” no matter what day it is. Unless it’s fossil hunting day… Today was a proverbial Wednesday…
 

Enjoyed a minute outside this evening. Had to pull the decking out of Balance. Needed to clean it out completely but my eye caught that enamel shimmer… 

 

Bigger day in Balance’s ballast than my last scouting trip! 

 

Jp
 

 

 

[dries85]

I usually empty my shoes in a 1mm sifter when i come home after a day of fossil hunting, occasionally some small shark teeth and stingray tooth plates come up 😏

[Balance]

A Free Afternoon:

 

Unusually, last week I had an afternoon off and decided to hit the river for a bit. The water is/was down a couple feet so I decided to try one of the new spots I found while out scouting a few weeks back. It turned out to be a great spot and I’ve got plenty of gravel to run should I make it back there soon. The only thing to complain about is that a huge construction project upriver has the water clarity at zero. I don’t enjoy not seeing what’s with me. Cold enough the man eaters are sleeping. So onward!
 

 

A local legend gifted me a sifter made from a bread rack. Best darn sieve I’ve ever used. 😂 Only weighs a lb or so.  Traveling light and only the basics on this trip. Last time I was here my sift tailings were underwater. Today I found them on the bank. Had to hide that before I left.  Lessons for the next prospecting trip. Might just be discovering the spot for someone else if you’re leaving clues about! 🫣🤫🫣

Along with the fossils this spot has a bunch of mixed coral and mineral composites. I threw everything in vinegar for a day to eat away the limestone and then in a parts tumbler for 2days. All I had was metal polishing media but I learned enough to make learning more about it worth while. Some agate geode type pieces , chert mix and some bonkers conglomerates of both minerals. 

 

 

 

So where’s the fossil report!?! 
 

This trip I didn’t find anything new. I found more volume than any other trip though. Over 100 sharks teeth!  This seems like a good sign I’m in a less dug spot than before. Time will tell. 
 

So I put the entire lot from this trip into the Forums rolling auction along with other matrix’s from locations around the US. Since we have pics of this stuff it’s there for someone else to sort through and ID. I even put some cool mineral specimens in too. 
 

Check out the link below if you want to support the forum and get a chance at a “Great day on the river!”  I made some one of a kind measuring and sorting tools too. 😊
 

 

Back to the regular schedule and program next trip. For today I’ll leave you with this.
 

Sometimes you “gotta go forward to go back” Willy Wonka.
 

 

[Sacha]

JP, it looks like you are finding some of the "Taffee" looking chert stuff that I find upstream. I think it's pretty cool especially after tumbling.

 

Before:

 

 

After:

 

[Balance]

Exactly, @Sacha  way more solid with this stuff. I’m actually upstream of your neck of the woods in this spot. I believe I’ve stumbled upon a very old reef. Of course the local legends already knew about it. 😂😂 

 

Do you do the slow roll rock tumbler thing or the parts tumbler like I did? Mine vibrates at a super high rate. I added water to the silica mix I use but it didn’t dissolve like I hoped. I wanted mud. Got sandy water… 

 

Jp

[Sacha]

I do the silicon carbide 4 or 5 month approach with 80, 220, 600 and various polishing media in a 2 barrel tumbler when I have enough material. 

[digit]

2 hours ago, Sacha said:

After:

 

 

That's some awesome material--much more going on there than the silificied coral from the Withlacoochee.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken