Newbies First Trip To Gmr, Nc

[Brad P]

Hello everyone, My name is Brad Polack and I live in Richmond, VA. I grew up in south Florida and spent a lot of time when I was younger collecting sharks teeth on Venice Beach, FL. Fast forward 20 years and I have been bitten with the itch to get back into this hobby. Only now instead of being able to drive an hour away and come home with ziploc bags full of small teeth, I find myself working much harder, and driving much further to find good spots to even find a tooth, let alone teeth in numbers. We bought a small canoe, trailer, and motor, and have spent quite some time searching local waterways with almost no luck. We found one small tooth in Tar Bay on the James River, but quickly learned that all of the beaches are private. We took a trip to Westmoreland State Park and found a few small teeth as well. So after browsing the web and seeing all the great trip reports I decided to dive a little further and try somewhere new. I came across a very detailed thread about GMR and decided to give it a try. With all the rain recently, I was worried we wouldnt be able to get into the creek due to high water. With nothing else to do this weekend, I figured whats the worst that could happen....drive 3 hours one way, and then back, not so bad. So we made the trip and arrived only to find that the water was rather high compared to most of the pictures Ive seen. Not wanting to give up without trying, we decided to walk down the rocks near the bridge at the ball fields. We were unable to go very far as majority of the creek was knee to waist deep and the water moving quite a bit. With a few scoops of the sand flea rake, we found 2 small teeth in our first screen. I was rather excited and wished the creek was at a lower level. We tried another spot just upstream with no luck. So back to the first spot to spend the next hour or so collecting small teeth from the one patch of sand that we could reach. All things considered, water level and no idea where to look, I would say we did pretty good. We look forward to returning, and anyone in the area who may want to meet up and hunt with us (wife, 5yr old Daughter, and I),we would greatly enjoy the company.

P.S. Any info about specific teeth in photos would be greatly appreciated. I am just starting to learn all the different types. Thanks for looking!

[crinoid1]

Those are some beautiful teeth, especially the serrated one on the bottom row. I'm sorry I can't ID any of the teeth, but I sure can admire them! Thanks for posting.

Gabe

[MikeDOTB]

What you mostly found we're sand tiger, goblin and mackerel shark teeth. Some you will never be able to identify as they are kind of beat up. But the ones I can identify for you are as follows:

2nd row, 1st and 3rd on the left and 4th row, 2nd from right are crow shark. (Squalicorax sp.)

4th row, 1st tooth is part of a modern Great White (Carcharodon Carcharias)

4th row, 4th from left is a modern Tiger Shark (Galeocerdo Cuvier)

And on the bottom far right that burnt reddish orange cylindrical object is a Belemnite

The Squalicorax and Belemnite are from the Cretaceous Period (Peedee or Black Creek Formation 70-85 million years old) and the Great White and Tiger shark tooth is from the Pliocene (Yorktown Formation roughly 4.5 million years old)

If the water was up to high as it does that quite often you could have driven fifty more minutes to Aurora and crawled the piles. There is a nice museum to visit there as well. It's definitely worth the drive and is a good alternate if the creek is too high.

Hope this helps!

Regards,

Mike

[Auspex]

"To the motivated go the spoils"

Well done! I predict a great future for your re-booted hobby

[MakoMeCrazy]

The creek that keeps on giving. Love this place.

[zachj]

where did you hunt? i imagine most the creek was swelled with water.

[Brad P]

We had no idea where to start, and with the high water our options were limited. We started right below the main bridge next to the picnic tables and ball fields. We walked right out onto the rocks which at this water level were pretty good little rapids at the time. As soon as the rocks ended I started digging in what I could with the sand flea rake and our first 2 screens both had small teeth in them. Then I got excited and decided to move and actually explore some of the creek. We walked up stream a little to the next bridge, and I got really excited when I saw the shell filled bank that looked very promising.....after fighting down the bank to there, 10 screens later, no teeth. So we walked right back to where we started and spent next hour or so there until we decided to call it a day and hopefully come back at better water levels. I found that 1 half of the great white tooth and that's all I needed to make the 6hr round trip again in the future. Any hints would be greatly appreciated.....I know its like telling someone where to find gold.....but I hope someone else besides me gets excited when anyone, even people they don't know, have a good trip! Thanks!

[Brad P]

By the way Zachj.....Awesome Gallery!!!! If youd like some company down there one day let me know!

[stonesnbones]

Looks like you had a great day...I love to hunt Greens Mill Run. I have not been this year because of all the rain. thanks for posting