The Prize

When I go collecting, my goal is to find one nice tooth. Anything beyond is gravy. Anything less is exercise. Today, the universe granted that simple request in a big way. When I got to the river, my original goal was to go up past where the whale came from last week and continue to fan the sand from the ashley formation in search of more killers. On a whim, I decided to swim over some parts really close to where we wash our gear at the end of the day. There is layer there that washes some and I couldn't remember the last time anyone looked there.

As soon as I hit the bottom, my eyes beheld a completely exposed, flawless, massive angustidens tooth. It was flat side up and I could see every serration. I put my face close to the bottom to see a needlepoint tip and two sharp cusps. The root had a crack and I couldn't tell if it went all the way through so I was extremely careful when removing the tooth. I cautiously dug around the tooth with my screwdriver. The root held and I lifted out my prize. I was parked close by, so I got out of the water and walked to my truck in full gear, stashed the tooth to avoid any mishaps, and got back into the river in fully gravy mode.

Good thing I racked first thing, because I worked the area all around the superhero where I found a few broken teeth. I was happy to pick every last one of them up for decoration in the trip photo. My find of the day was safely in the truck. Gravy mode is cool like that.

Towards the end of the dive, I fanned out a wierd little tooth. I thought it was whale when I first saw it. Most everything is where we dive. When I cleaned it up later, though, I could immediately tell that it was not whale. It has these ridges that whale teeth don't have. I'm not positive, but I think its seal. I found one at Lee Creek last season, and the ridges look very similar when I compared them.