Tuesday, May 31, 2011

I saw a rock and caught some rocks.

First things first, my annual fishing trip to the Aflac River turned out to be an exciting event. Now, this is not the real name of this river but you may be able to figure it out, if not, I will tell you later. Located in Middle Tennessee, this river flows into the Tennessee River and is a good river for fishing.
All rigged and ready to go. The recent rains have the river up a bit and the water is slightly dingy.
The fishing is cut short because I saw an interesting rock. I docked to investigate and hiked on the shore.
Check this fossil rock out. The round image is as large as a dinner plate. It appears to be 10" to 12" in diameter and is in sediment rock. I don't think I've ever seen any other fossil like this? 

This area was covered by a swallow ocean milllons of years ago. This petrified cirlce was probably a sea creature. It looks like a cross-section of a piece of coral. If this is correct, it would have been gaint coral and as large as trees. So, this is the rock that I saw.
Here is the rock I caught. Actually it is a Rock Bass also called a Redeye. A bit on the small side but very fun to catch.
It's no wonder they call these Redeye. They normally run under a pound, but can get a little larger.
I saw a lot of snakes on this trip, mostly Northern Water Snakes. I could not postively identifiy this beauty. In the last few years, this river has become loaded with Northern Water Snakes and I'm not sure why?
 
All good things must come to an end and so did this trip. Oh, by the way the name of this river is the Duck River. Remember: What's in your River, Lake, or Bay? Go find out!

1 comment:

Jay said...

LB, snakes aren't stupid, they're awesome.

Larry, the fossil looks like a crinoid to me. They're very common fossils, although usually they're pretty small. The one you found was quite a specimen.