Cool Hand Luke.....

I made a solo trip to the Run last weekend for a group dig with my fellow brethren, the East Coast Fossil Club which congregated at the Green Springs Park bright and early last Saturday at 8:30 a.m.   I would have beaten my “neighbor” Reeltooth and his son with our same 3 hour drive if it wasn’t for my quick stop at McDonald’s for two sausage/egg/cheese McMuffins (fuel for shoveling).

We all geared up and headed upstream in search of many fossil finds.   I was hoping to meet some of the fellow Blackriverfossil Maryland crew; however, never came across any of them.  I made it up past the 10^th Street Bridge and found some evidence of sifting and concluded they most likely convened at the Elm Street Park parking lot, found some nice gravel and dug in for the long haul.

As usual, I trekked to my favorite spot, the 10^th Street Bridge.  I was there for over 3 hours and worked both ends in addition to the tunnel with nothing worth mentioning or taking a picture of.  I was animate on finding something but nothing “panned” out.   I got a sinking feeling in my stomach that it was going to be skunk time and that I was finally going to have to search for a new location / gravel. 

With empty pockets (other than some meager quarter inch screen finds) I shuffled back downstream to see how the crew was doing.    I came upon the group pretty much all dug in one area.  They were slinging gravel all over the creek similar to the scene from Cool Hand Luke (when they were feverishly shoveling the sand over the freshly tarred roadway). 

I was in awe seeing Brian picking out GW after GW from his screen.   I decided to give this “probing” technique a try but couldn’t quite get the hang of it.  Luckily Brain took a break from stuffing his fanny pack with find after find to give me a few pointers.  In no time he found some bank gravel with his probe.  I checked the same location with my probe to get the “feel” for what to look for.  

I ended up spending almost 3 hours in that one hole next to him which made for 90% of my finds including my biggest megs so far (3.5” and 3.75”), except they were on sale (half off / middle splitters).  Found what would have been a decent 3” meg if it wasn’t for a broken root.  Also found my second and third Sawfish (Ischyrhiza mira) rostral spines (my largest ones even though they were partials) and a decent amount of GWs and Makos with only a couple in “Grade A” condition.   I was also informed that my Reef Shark find was a pretty rare find at the GMR.

All in all, the group had a good dig with all finding a good haul / variety of fossils. 

Brad

aka “Brachiomyback”