GMR- 3/7/10
This report encompasses the days of March 6th and 7th, and what warmer days they were! March in the 60’s with no wind is waaaaay better than February in the 40’s with lots of wind. (Yes, I did get sick after the hunt from my first report.) Anyway, as my friend and I made our way from Elm St. Park to the stream, some guy exclaimed his amazement that we weren’t wearing waders because of the cold. I told him this is how I’ve been going, (hence sickness after my last hunt) and walked away eager to hit the stream, as it was already late afternoon. (I later discovered he was MikeDOTB!) Hey, I figure if it takes more than an hour for my thumb to stop working, it’s not that cold… (Although it did lead to issues turning the keys in the ignition later.)
Anyway, we entered on the upstream side of the 10th St. bridge with our gear, (shovel, two 1/2” sifters, and backpack with ziplocs, knife, phone, keys, ID, and maglite) re-enacting scenes as Stallone in Cliffhanger, as we almost fell in due to the cliff-like slope of our poorly chosen entry point. Once down, I spent the next hour and a half just scanning the gravel inside the tunnels under the bridge with my maglite. I just watched 28 Weeks Later the night before, so I kept thinking a zombie would grab at me from under the water. To tell you the truth, I jumped HIGH out of the water when a branch floated into me. So, I didn’t use my sifter on that day, but I did find some odd stuff. I found a really worn 1 1/8” tooth that I first thought was a mosasaur, but I googled for a while and the most similar image I found was of a plesiosaur tooth, but I still have no idea. I found a worn tooth that looks similar to Squalicorax pristidontis, but with the upper half of the root swept way back. I found a beat up GW with no tip and lots of root missing, and also scored my best sand tiger to date, a 1 ½” with a small chip off one of the root lobes. I also found a weird rectangular stone with a circular hole in it, but I can’t even tell if it’s rock or bone. Well, our hunger got the best of us, so after an hour and a half, we quit to go chow on some paninis from Marabella.
Yesterday, we came back to the stream and I actually used my sifter this time. We hunted from 2 to 5:30, so my tooth count climbed into the triple digits. For the first hour, we sifted where the stream piled up some gravel against the concrete of the bridge. I didn’t find much, mostly just lots of little/broken teeth that slipped through my ½” screen. I did find two crows and an awesomely perfect 1 ¼” super-white sand tiger though! The next two and a half hours we sifted downstream of the bridge, just past the bend. A little while into it, my friend loudly exclaims “PREPARE TO BE JEALOUS!”, even though I was only ten feet from him. Well I did become a little green as he opened his hand to unveil a perfect 1 1/8” great white. (I still have yet to find a complete GW.) He then unearthed a split 3” Anguistidens. If the other half was there, I might have sent him to heaven. He also found two 1 ½” really beat up angies that had lots of enamel missing. I did find a weird curvy little 5/8” toothy fang thing, which is probably a perfectly matching description for many unknowns discovered by users of this site… Anyway, during the last hour, out of the corner of my eye, I notice a toothy figure slip off my shovel. I wait in predation mode as the sand clears from the hiding place of my prey. I see a triangle shape emerge and, praying it’s not another piece-of-sharp-broken-glass-tooth-wannabe, I reach down and grab it. Still being next to my friend, I appropriately exclaim, “PREPARE TO BE JEALOUS!”, as I show him a beat up 2 ¼” broad-toothed mako. As hoped for in my last report, and with the help of my sifter and motivation from some friendly competition, I have now found my first tooth that breaks the 2” mark. So, ending the day with cartoons and pizza, I am now in a prolonged stated of euphoria; except when I close my eyes and in suspense see a tooth stuck in gravel... or zombies.