Hunting at Aurora…well almost!

It almost didn't happen more time then I'll be able to write on this post. My car has been enduring engine problems for almost a month now, THANK GOD for my mother allowing me to take her personal vehicle to North Carolina for the weekend. I arrived @ 2am Saturday morning and crashed out in the hotel room. Saturday was a blast, there were way more people at the festival this year. A big reason was the weather, beautiful and sunny. I finally got a chance to meet mikeDoB and a few other p...

I took the day off on Friday (27^th of April) to hit the GMR before the virgin trip to Lee Creek the following day.  The late morning weather was becoming clearer the further east I traveled with some sun poking out as I passed Raleigh.   Then as soon as I crossed Interstate 95, the gloom and doom started to show its u...

First off I would like to thank PCS for giving us the opportunity to hunt at the mine.

Thanks to the guides and the museum for their help and support.  This was my first time into the mine and all I can say is wow. I had so much ...

I descended the ramp with a huge grin. All our guys could hunt! 8 Black River Fossils members met up to flex our collecting muscles, but up until about an hour before, I wasn't even sure we would be allowed access. Saturday was Black River Fossils' day to hunt the PCS mine, and fate had once again given us optimum collecting conditions. When you get your date, you never know what's going to happen. Some dates get cancelled. Others go in, but without the rain necessary to expose the foss...

First I would like to thank Curtis Ormond, the guides and all the other people who help make collecting at this site a possibility. Without them we would never have the chance to enter the mine and collect such wonderful fossils. Thank You!!
The day started out raining but not too cold. The view from the top of the ramp took my breath away...the collecting area is huge!!!! As I walked into the mine I saw hill after hill of great looking Yorktown and Pungo. The area h...

We left sunny Summerville, South Carolina on a warm, breezy, beautiful Friday afternoon. Our destination was the Lee Creek mine at the PCS Phosphate quarry in Aurora, North Carolina for the opening day of the spring 2009 fossil collecting season. Long time fossil pal T$ was with me, as was my long time wife.  T$ loves collecting teeth, so its no surprised that he was excited to be going. My wife, after a 5 year collecting hiatus, finally agreed that she would try collecting at ...

I haven’t been out toothing much because of college and studying all the time. I was excited about this upcoming trip and more than ready to take a break from school to hunt teeth! This trip turned out to be another fun road-trip to Aurora&...

Summer seems to speed by until you hear that your fossil hunt date at the PCS Phosphate Mine has been announced. Well the weekend arrived for the hunt and I joined T$ and Ditchweezil for a more economically sensible trip.

I had hi hopes for this day with all the rain that we got the few days prior to the hunt.  As we made our way down the ramp it was on.  I said to myself i was going to make it all the way out to the farthest corner where not to many people make it to.  I got about 3/4 of the way out and couldnt help myself anymore i had to stop and look.  It wasnt until about 10:00 that i found my first meg.  I was off to a good start.  Me 1 Wife 0&a...

Digging in the pile at Aurora fossil museum.

I first want to thank PCS and all the other people who help make hunts like this possible!

The weekend started out great when I found my first White Tip Reef Shark tooth on one of the spoil piles in town! But the best was yet to come. On Sunday I was lucky enough to be able to hunt in the mine. With all the rain and less than normal pressure this year I had hight hopes. I started out with intentions of hunting the area I had found my Parotodus ...

I know I'm late, but I  finally have had a chance to get back home to make this post.  I was at PCS on the weekend of April 6th. After receiving nearly 3" of rain, I knew that this was finally my chance to find something really great!  After about 5 minutes in the mine, I found a 2" Chubby.  In total I found 7 megs -  all broken except two.  I also met several other BRF members after the day was over - Chris, Obses...

Aurora, N.C. and the surrounding areas received upwards of two inches of rain on Saturday.  Saturdays hunt was canceled.  While I wanted some rain I didn't want my trip from northern Maryland to be in vain.  As luck would have it the PCS mine supervisor said the mine and entrance ramp was safe...we were going in!!!  The entire pit was devoid of all footprints...fresh material throughout!!!

Th...

I would have posted this trip earlier if my old camera didn’t die on me while I was collecting in the pit! I had high hopes for this trip after hearing about all the rain that PCS had received. I believe my mojo for this trip came from a fortune cookie that I received after eating Chinese for lunch the day before that said, “Good luck bestows upon you. You will get what your heart desires.” I’ve always wanted to f...

  The outlook for Saturday"s hunt at PCS with the BRFC crew couldn't have been better.  There had been two heavy rains since the pit was last hunted.  I just knew that the hunting would be awesome! 

The hunting was as good as I had hoped, but the finding was where I suffered.  It seemed that everything I picked up had major damage.  I was seeing serrated edges everywhere, but e...

Having had several weeks to ponder my poor showing during the Friends of the Museum Hunt at PCS a few weeks ago, I place the blame solely on the shoulders of mojo and how I lost it. I have concluded that it wasn't through a lack of mexican feast, it was because of my tools. I learned on wikipedia that mojo can only reside in qualified items - aka, not fresh off the shelf. Last PCS trip, I used a new rake with ...

This trip into Aurora is from this past Sunday 3/09/08. I think the coolest find from this trip was the partial whale jaw, but the caps of the teeth were broken off when I found it. I carefully searched the hill for a skull or any l...

Just like the rest of you I'm always trying to find some new "edge" to find more fossils! So I read all the posts and studied any info I could find. Hmmm seems like lots of guys eat Mexican on their fossil excursions. What could it hurt....well when we arived in Washington NC. we hit a nice little Mexican restaurant. The food was great! So off to the room we went. Well now I know why DW has so much trouble at his rooms. It's the food he eats!!!We have never...

Finding a nice tooth takes the pressure off the rest of the season.

I did pretty well on Saturday finding my best tooth with only a fraction of the blade exposed.  Also found a very complete bulla which was surprising.

There were SO many nicer teeth found than mine!  Special congratulations to Scubapaul for his 2 killer teeth (one his largest ever)!!!

Welcome to good times, good exercise, and the best surface collecting for fossil shark teeth anywhere. Yes, its that time of the year again when hunters world wide converge on Aurora NC in hopes of finding megalodon teeth of the highest order.

How I have anticipated the Spring 2008 PCS hunt! With no productive land sites in SC and water too cold to dive, its been a long fossil-less winter. Not exac...

I was fortunate to collect on day1 of the season this year.  I was super excited knowing day1 can hold great potential.  It was especially great because I finally got to meet a few folks in person such as DW, Riverdigger, and a couple others that until this past weekend I had only known via the keyboard & monitor. 

As for the collecting, once we arrived at the ramp and got our quick do's and don'ts, the starte...

        I would like to thank BRF and PCS for the chance to enter into the mine. With all the reports of lack of rain to uncover fossils we decided that we would head in different directions until one of us found a promising area then we would work it over together. I had been walking about 20 minutes when I found an area of Pungo and Yorktown mixed. As I pondered where to go next I saw a serrated tip sticking out...

This is my 1st trip to PCS and I have to say thanks to the mine and also to BRF for allowing me to hunt this past weekend. I had a great time. Met some great people, and found some firsts for my collection. No monster Megs up I did get my 1st Cow Shark, 1st Porpoise tooth, a couple nice Makos and a really nice Sand Tiger in Matrix. After the hunt I met Obsessed1 and Toofless at the Spoil Piles around Aurora. We started talking and realized we where all members of this site. &am...

November 24 was to be my  first day ever into Lee Creek.  I was fortunate and thankful to get a slot, and really had looked forward to this trip for a long time.  The fact that  the fall season was coming to an end, and the lack of rain was not helping out with the collecting conditions, didn't matter to me.  I really just wanted to get down there, hit Greenmill Run  the day before, take in the museum and hope for...

My much anticipated slot at Aurora came back on the 7th and with word of the large collecting area spreading like wildfire, expectations were running high. At the end of my early morning eastward trek, I made a pre-pit stop at the Aurora Fossil Museum to pick up a couple of containers of spoil material that I intend on using for fossil talks with Scout troops. Once by bins were full I headed for the parking lot where it was great seeing so many familiar faces going in on the ...

Hi Everyone, The fall 2007 collecting season in Lee Creek is upon us and my chance was today. I read that the area was big, but my concept of big did not match the reality of the size of the collecting spot generously granted by PCS. When I walked down the ramp, the area seemed limitless. The opening gun went off and the other collectors all seemed to know exactly where to go. Some people started looking almost immediately after the ramp. Some headed towards l...

It was once again time for the bi-annual road trip to hunt at the PCS phosphate mine in Aurora NC. Or is it semi-annual?? Hmmmmmmmm.

For this long anticipated trip to Aurora. First, I would meet up at Da F0ssz’s pad. Before we left his pad I had to gaze over his prime fossil specimens. Especially his screamer chubs from past

Spring is a difficult time for me.  I have to split time between 2 passions (hunting and fossil hunting).  I've been chasing the elusive wild turkey splitting time between SC, NC, and even OK.  With no other hunting trip planned this past weekend I volunteered to replace a guide who could not make it Saturday (already on the schedule for Sunday).  The usual starting gun sounded and the first collectors raced down the ramp.  I had a...

After a relaxing night's rest without A/C units crashing on mr. fancy-college boy, we headed to the PCS parking lot. Thanks again to PCS for allowing us to collect and thanks to the trip leaders and guides. We arrived at the pit and noticed the area reduced in size from reclamation. With the great Pungo and Yorktown material, there was still hope for a nice find. If nothing else, there were lots of shells. RivrDigr struck first with a really nice Pungo mako. Ironically, this ...

Yesterday during our drive up to Aurora NC to hunt Lee Creek, we the vigilant shark tooth hunters of Black River Fossils braved the rain and gleefully anticipated the bounty the pit would produce if it were also hit with the thunderstorms. Alas, the rain barrier that has shielded the favored collecting ground of so many again proved to be an effective anti-erosion measure. The collecting area, ever shrinking because of the reclamation, was dotted with the footprints of last weekend’s hu...

The Aurora Fossil Museum Friends weekend hunt #2 was set for March 10^th.  DW, T$ and myself were able to secure the same day, and a trip to PCS was set. Thanks to PCS and the AFM for the opportunity to collect fossils in such a rich locale.

We headed to hotel and relaxed with a Discovery Channel show on sharks and some refreshing beverages. We all agreed that most can achieve better life through chemistry!!  After a restful n...

Here are some of my best finds for the past few trips into the mine.  Each day has someone finding a nice tooth, but not me.  The odds are against you right now with 50 collectors and 1 or 2 big megs finding their way to the bus.  I have had good luck with "odd" fossils and my first land parotodus.  I am slowly putting together my prey display with a whale "hand".