The Eleventh Hour

    I'm getting that freaked out, end-of-the-season, feeling.

     An "eleventh hour" decision had me leading Pam and Steve to some gravel I stumbled across over a month ago and I was having trouble finding my location.  The warm weather is bringing afternoon rain and the high water levels left everything looking alien.  I'm not a tech wiz so the GPS on my phone is only so helpful in taking me back to a hole and I swear, everything in Florida looks the same!  Palm, oak, willow, cypress, palm, oak, willow, cypress... Add to that an overnight low of 57º and I was out of my very narrow comfort zone.  

      Finally, I found the area we were going to dig and Jack met up with us as we were getting situated.  I spend a fair amount of time on the river alone because even when you are digging with a partner, they tend to drift off, usually out of easy conversation distance (but still within "GATOR!" shouting distance), so it was enjoyable to dig as a group.  

     The first half of our day, the temperature was in the low 70's with a bracing wind that left us all wishing we hadn't abandoned our wetsuits back in March (very unusual for mid-May in south-central Florida) but we persevered.

     I was originally attracted to this digging site because I felt it was my best chance to find a good sized chunk of mammoth or mastodon tooth this season.  It's still possible, although relatively rare, to find whole mammoth teeth as evidenced by this pair of associated teeth (from the same animal) found by Pam and Jack's friend, Kim, only a week ago.  

     This photo is used with her permission and the teeth, for a modern-day newbie hunter like myself, defy description.  I truly can't imagine what it would be like to find these.  

     I certainly wouldn't snub whole mammoth teeth but my goals are more modest: I wanted a chunk of tooth bigger than any I had previously found...

...and I did it!

     Six heavy, glossy plates (segments of the tooth) from an adult mammoth.  I can't expain it, maybe I'm worn out from all the digging, but this instantly enabled me to deem the day, and even the season a success.  Yay!!!  I took this beauty home and set it on a plate and have been staring at it ever since.  I put the plate in my salon to show a client and when I picked it up, she was startled because, she told me, she thought it was a piece of cake.  I've been giggling about that all afternoon.   And the best part of my mammoth find was that Pam and Steve also found large chunks of mammoth tooth; everybody was happy.  

     I also scored this large vertebra:

     It might be manatee or dugong but the jury is still out.

     The site is not very productive but, as I pointed out to Jack who found a large bear canine, when it does produce, it's good stuff.

     Nothing new for the curio cabinet on my odds and ends plate but everything is so glossy and pretty. 

Good enough to eat!

     The new trolling motor/kayak combo worked like a dream and the ride back downstream in the warm afternoon sun was so peaceful, I almost dozed off...

I'm not kidding.

Every day left on the river this season is icing on the cake.