Thats what I like about Sunday!

I know that was a strange title, but you ever have one of those days where it seems the planets and starts align, the sun comes out, the weather is perfect, the birds are chirping and it seems like nothing can go wrong?  Well this day didnt start out that way.  The fossil deities favored us on this day!  It was June 7th and me and Govinn were back in the GMR.  We jumped in at 5th street park and now I hear it is actually called Green Springs park.  Which I didnt know and acted pretty confused when I heard people call it that, but now I know.  Anyways, We got out there early around 6:30 and start wandering upstream.  We screened a bit as we moved up and eventually got to the 10th street bridge where we sat for awhile and screened away.  The good finds were not showing up.  We didnt lose hope and continued for awhile and finally when we were about to give up I pulled out a decent great white. 

But I was already set on moving back downstream and Govinn was already walking that way.  We moved downstream to a spot where there was gravel everywhere and started screening away, again not much showed up.  We again started moving and as we are walking I glance up and what do I see but a beautiful 8 point buck standing out in the middle of the creek.  It still had its velvet but you could still tell that it had an awesome rack.  We stood and watched it for a minute before it bounded off downstream.  We did a little more screening and then decided it was lunchtime.  After a Sonic fossil fueling we continued our search. 

Here is where the luck turned.  Maybe it was good luck having that deer walk out in front of us, or maybe Sonic was good luck fossil hunting karma, but we got back into the creek and the teeth started showing up again.  Govinn started finding big teeth immediately including a whole but beat up tooth over 3" long.  The large meg pieces followed for him and then as I was sitting on a log sifting through a screen I look up to see him walking towards me with a big grin on his face.  That could only mean one thing, an awesome find.  He asks me to guess what he just found and my first guess "Great White", he replies "YES, And my biggest one yet".  With that he holds out his hand and there is an AWESOME great white.  Big ol thing, complete and mosterous.  What a find.  I was very happy for him finding such an awesome tooth, biggest I have seen out of there in a long time!  I sat back down and continued through my screen and he sits down with his screen and almost instantly I hear him exclaim of another find!  Same screen, I dont hesitate in walking over and he hands me a perfect great white.  I think it was just under two inches long, but it was one of the most perfect great whites I had ever seen, awesome coloring, awesome root, awesome blade, perfect serrations.  Words cant describe how awesome this tooth was.  TWO awesome great whites in the same screen!  He hadnt even finished sifting through that screen yet and I jokingly exclaimed if he found a third of the same size/quality I was going to push him into the water!  Ok just to make things clear, I would never push anyone into that creek, that is very cruel and inhumane.  But it is funny to joke about especially after an awesome screen like that. 

Ok, at this moment I was a little jealous.  How could anyone not be, I was happy for him finding those teeth but still..  I finished my screen, dumped out the spoils and started filling it back up.  Once I figured I had enough leaves, sticks, rotten wood, sand and rocks and hopefully teeth I dragged it to deeper water and started rinsing out the material.  I had just gotten the sand out and was about to start rinsing the leaves and plant material out when in the bottom right corner of the screen I see something that stopped me cold.  It was BIG.  It was tooth shaped, it was whole.  I dropped the screen.  I think I exclaimed something about holy shitake mushrooms and reached down and plucked the tooth out of the screen.  I held it in my hand and took in the complete awesomeness of the tooth.  It was a Great white, it was big and it was whole.  Not only whole but in awesome condition.  Like it had just washed out of wherever it had been laying for millions of years just for me to find.  The root was whole, and very very little wear  on it.  It still had the flat top.  It had all its serrations.  It had 100% of the enamel with an awesome patina of dark green and light tan.  It had all its serrations and as sharp as you could possible hope for.  It was simply awesome.  I held it firmly in my hand as I went skipping over to show Govinn my find.  I was shaking as I handed it too him in which he exclaimed what an awesome find it was.  It measured at 2 3/8 inches on the slant.  Not my largest but definitely my best tooth.  I have found smaller great whites in awesome condition but that was by far the largest. 

After that I needed about five minutes to stop shaking.  I made sure I did not announce that I was now in gravy mode.  I have found its bad luck to announce it before the end of the day because it could ward off other fossil finds, but with the both of us already pocketing some of the nicest teeth we have ever found we were reinvigorated with the search.  It was on, it wasnt even early afternoon!

The finds came steady after that.  And not just the usual but more complete great whites, makos, big meg pieces, whole megs with just the creek wear on them, chubs, modern tigers, large goblin shark teeth.  Govinn found two more complete great whites in great condition, how awesome is that, 4 awesome great whites in one day, and I found two more.  The last one being on my declared last screen which was right at dark. 

I also found an encodus tooth, and several broken great whites as well. One of those was also in awesome condition except for missing half the root and part of the blade because it was broken off clean and was quite the heartbreaker.  :(

Even though we both werent planning on staying all day, the steady awesome finds won out and we couldnt help but stay until dark.  We automatically made plans to be back the following weekend and climbed out of the creek and started the long drives back. 

Until next time, good hunting!

~MikeDOTB