fossilman7 Posted March 20, 2011 Share Posted March 20, 2011 ok. now i have been going to big brook for 8 yrs. now and have notcided someting no one else seems to notice, especially fossilguy(creator of big brook website) teeth and bone is much harder to find now. like in the website it says that goblin are very common. but after 3hrs+ in the pit, my dad and i are lucky to find twenty toatal shartk teeth. is it the increase of collectors that is causing this short? p.s. there are two tricks. first, find a spot that has lots of luck and continue to go to it year by year. for example there is this root tree which gives me such a fossil streak. second, the water may get deep, but if u scale the shell wallz, over the trees of falleness, through waist high water, and over rugged deer snarge and poisen ivy forest, down stream there is no sign of people hunting there. i swear that i found five a sift one year. but it is too much a journey for my 50yr. old dad and im afrai of drowning(lol im 5"7) but tell me why there is such a decrease. thanks so much! PEACE! -andrew Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fossilman7 Posted March 20, 2011 Author Share Posted March 20, 2011 oh i forgot to mention that that is why going to gmr was so amazin. when ricknc gave me all his broken and small teeth i thought he was ionsane. but i did a head count and i think my dad and i hit over a thousand in one trip! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darwin Ahoy Posted March 20, 2011 Share Posted March 20, 2011 Perhaps. Honestly, I haven't hunted these streams long enough to know. But sometimes trips just don't pan out. I collect in an area that some of the more hardcore collectors tend to dislike, but I had one day last year with two mosasaur verts and a tooth, another day with a Hybodus clasper and a pyncodont jaw section/teeth, and just yesterday I got a plesiosaur vert and possible Serratolamna. The stuff is there, but your timing should be right (shortly after storms works nicely), and don't restrict your collecting too much. Perhaps try shifting your collecting. Go for quality rather than quantity. So you don't find a lot, but was there anything REALLY nice? I hardly even bother with partial stuff anymore, and discard 80-90% of what I find back into the stream. Do you just use a 1/4" screen, or do you go smaller. Many times my favorite finds are the micros...a really nice Squatina, or an Ischyrhiza mira oral tooth. My Pseudocorax and possible Serratolamna went right through the 1/4", too. I suppose all I'm saying is if the same old thing isn't working, try something else. Shoot for really nice quality stuff, or try going for the smaller stuff. Perhaps try making a riker mount or two of REALLY nice teeth...if you go home with a tooth or two that are good enough to add to the display, consider it a success. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erose Posted March 20, 2011 Share Posted March 20, 2011 (edited) Folks have been complaining about Big Brook being over-collected as long as I have known of it (about 20 years). I got really tired of hearing them moan. I think as much as anything they were POd that they didn't have the place all to themselves anymore. But the truth is folks have been collecting from that and the other Monmouth streams for well over 150 years and they still produce new and interesting stuff all the time. I have been there when it was all dug up and footprints everywhere and you think "snarge this will be a slow day" and then I look and I find yet more stuff. I've found a few great fossils (2" Enchodus fang) in someones discard pile because all they could see was shark teeth and didn't notice the other stuff. There are great stories of rare stuff being plucked out from between muddy footprints where a crowd already passed. The stream can be very fickle. I collected one summer almost every Friday for a good 4-6 hours each time. I found the bulk of my BB collection that year. The weather was hot and dry and the stream ran quite low by mid August, but I still found good fossils every trip. At the end of August a huge storm, remnant of a hurricane, rolled thru dumping a half foot of rain and completely moved all the gravel and sand bars, tore up trees and made a mess. I went back the next weekend thinking it was going to be awesome but I didn't find hardly anything! Go figure. The majority of the vertebrate material comes out of a very thin layer that only crops out above the water line upstream of Boundary Road. That layer is very rich and has been supplying the stream with teeth and bones for centuries and will continue to do so for centuries to come. The oyster shell material comes from layers higher up and since there is no digging allowed in the preserve you just have to be patient and wait for storms and natural slumping to bring it down to water level or hike way down stream where it washes free naturally. Some years will have more storms and thus more new material to go thru and some will just be dry and quiet and the footprints will be there for weeks without change. I think Darwin Ahoy has the right idea in widening your search. There are pretty cool things to be found with a finer screen. I also found that it wasn't always a tooth or bone that rated best fossil that day. There are dozens of invertebrate species to find and getting a really good complete bivalve or snail was often what put the smile on my face as I drove home. Edited March 20, 2011 by erose Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RickNC Posted March 20, 2011 Share Posted March 20, 2011 You mentioned gmr and I do admit there are thousands of small teeth in there. Using a half inch screen I don't see that many of them anymore. I hardly keep the ones I do find. You get to a point where you start wanting only the best teeth. But even here there are days where I feel there isn't anywhere else to look that I haven't already. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Diplotomodon Posted March 20, 2011 Share Posted March 20, 2011 Well, I suppose you can say that. But fossils get washed out of the banks and into the stream all the time. It is a bit hard to find stuff sometimes, but usually other places will yield better results. And the microfossils ARE missed a lot. Using a finer mesh means you'll have to work through more gravel, but I think it's worth it! What a wonderful menagerie! Who would believe that such as register lay buried in the strata? To open the leaves, to unroll the papyrus, has been an intensely interesting though difficult work, having all the excitement and marvelous development of a romance. And yet the volume is only partly read. Many a new page I fancy will yet be opened. -- Edward Hitchcock, 1858 Formerly known on the forum as Crimsonraptor @Diplotomodon on Twitter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bear-dog Posted March 20, 2011 Share Posted March 20, 2011 (edited) Not knowing your location too much,I may still add some insight for you.As mentioned the fossil gods play into it a lot.Did you sacrifice a pack of hot dogs over a charcoal funeral pyre. :lol: Second the amount of people hunting an area plays into it a lot.Check the area for increased traffic. Last but not least is river/stream flow.Even if the area is hunted a lot if you have a good flow,fossils can still be found,washing down stream.Check this all out in no particular order.I like to start in order cause I like onion,relish,and plenty of mustard on my sacrifice. Weigh the info,then decide you may have to move to a less hunted area.Or add beer to your sacrifice. Edited March 21, 2011 by bear-dog Bear-dog. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fossilman7 Posted March 20, 2011 Author Share Posted March 20, 2011 Not knowing your location too much,I may still add some insight for you.As mentioned the fossil gods play into it a lot.Did you sacrifice a pack of hot dogs over a charcoal funeral pyre. :lol: Second the amount of people hunting an area plays into it a lot.Check the area for increased traffic. Last but not least is river/stream flow.Even if the area is hunted a lot if you have a good flow,fossils can still be found,washing down stream.Check this all out in no particular order.I like to start in order cause I like onion,relish,and plenty of mustard on my sacrifice. Weigh the info,then decide you may have to move to a less hunted area. so u want to sacrifice the life of a poor hotdog fore fossiling? u sir, may be goin to heck, but thats a great idea. ill but cheese INSIDE my hotdog. it replaces their SOUL! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bear-dog Posted March 20, 2011 Share Posted March 20, 2011 (edited) quote name='fossilman7' timestamp='1300632085' post='216615'] so u want to sacrifice the life of a poor hotdog fore fossiling? u sir, may be goin to heck, but thats a great idea. ill but cheese INSIDE my hotdog. it replaces their SOUL! Forgot it also helps to wear your camo.hooded Barney sweats,this way you can sneak up on the fossils before they get a chance to run. :lol: Edited March 20, 2011 by bear-dog Bear-dog. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scylla Posted March 20, 2011 Share Posted March 20, 2011 A few weeks ago I hit Big Brook and it seemed fine. A lot less gravel and a lot more silt, but I found some shark teeth, none that break any records, but nice, a lot of those oysters that I left behind, a few big and still articulated, a bunch of small brachiopods that were in nice shape, some belemnites, etc. I don't think anything is missing except arrowheads, I think those are all gone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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