My Days Are Numbered

As my days of regular collecting in NJ draw to a close, I’ve been hoping to find just one more really killer tooth before I relocate to North Carolina. My short list included any one of a nice Chubby, Ric or P. Benedeni. Not that I don’t appreciate the all of the great teeth I’ve found here, but I know that finding nice teeth of these species in NJ requires time and a lot of luck. Well I’m just about out of time and with only one or two trips left before I go, today was a day of exceptionally high hopes. I decided to spend my time on the stream revisiting some old hot-spots where I did well in the past. My first stop was where TM and myself had pulled out 3 complete chubbys, a complete ric and more than a dozen nice makos - there had to be more. The layer we had been working was full large green sandstone rocks that had shell impressions scattered on them. I worked this area for about an hour only finding a couple of broken blades but the material looked too good to be completely devoid of nice teeth. As thoughts of moving began running through my head, I hit pay-gravel with a nice 1 3/4" mako and a small chubby landing in the same screen-load of gravel. The chubby was missing a root lobe but otherwise nice and the mako was close to perfect. I continued through about 10 more screen-loads picking up a nice lateral mako amongst them. Being that the trip was now a successful one, regardless of what else I found or didn’t find, I decided to move on to some other spots where the collecting would be a bit easier - shoveling through those rocks for an hour is hard on the back. I wanted to move up to where JP had found the nice Xiphodolamia tooth on the last outing, but I decided to first load a couple of screens just upstream from where I was working. On my third or fourth screen-load I saw what I initially though was a partial shell mold but soon realized was half of a hyplural (tail) vert. This was my first one and complete or not, it was gravy. I made the move up to where JP scored his Xipho tooth and he happened to arrive shortly afterwards. I showed off my earlier finds like a proud parent and we went to work. It wasn’t long before while loading my screen, a 2 3/4" chubby appeared lying on top of the unwashed gravel. I didn’t have my camera but oh what a sight! The tooth had a nice tan color, a great blade, both cusps and other than a tip of one root lobe missing, complete. JP and I agreed it was probably one of the largest teeth either of us had seen come out of the stream. I packed the tooth away in it’s own container, since it didn’t fit into the one I normally use, and loaded a couple more screen before moving on to one last spot. I intended to spend the last half hour at a spot that I had found on my first ever trip to the area, but after finding nothing in the first couple of screens, my impatience led me to a small channel slightly upstream. The low water made the channel a little more accessible than normal and on the second screen, came the largest complete sand tiger I have ever seen - this thing was huge! I happily packed it away with the other finds of the day. As I loaded the last two screens before leaving, I pondered the thought that I would probably never have another day like this in NJ, and could only hope I would enjoy collecting in NC as much as I have here - I’m sure I will, but I am going to miss it.