Weekend in the Water

I have been fossil hunting like a madman lately. I thought the Edisto was done for the season last month due to a near flood stage surge, but now at the end of the diving season, unseasonably dry warm weather has given us a second chance to collect and I have been taking full advantage of the opportunity. Like my college days, I work at night to have my days free. Besides being a little chilly, collecting has seldom been better.

da fossz called me last week and we hooked up for a weekend fossil hunting fest. The weezling and Megamouth came, too, along with Makocauliffe for his first time collecting fossils in the Edisto river.

Over two days, we systematically worked a productive bend. The first day was decent, destined for greatness even, when it was prematurely spoiled because of a jet-ski-riding moron who did donuts in the water upriver from us. The viso was devastated even with bright overhead sun and we had to leave early. Unlike the Beaufort County rivers where you can successfully feel around in the dark and find teeth, you have to be able to see in the Edisto because the fossils aren’t as plentiful.

The second day was where all the finds were made. We made it around the bend where the river straightens up and piles upon piles of gravel are stacked up after having been whipped around the bend like a slingshot. We hunted the same location years ago when we first started hunting the river in this spot and we thought we killed it – how wrong we were! It was a free-swimming rack-o-rama, having been replenished with fossils over the past few years. I ended up with two megalodon teeth, a superhero angustidens tooth, a really nice Isurus retroflexus mako tooth, and a fantastic arrowhead. Da fossz called it a Kirk and when I looked in the Overstreet Guide, this one did indeed resemble a Kirk Corner Notched type. I also chanced upon a gold ring – always a good find!