Franconia hunt July 13-15
Here are some photos of our most recent hunt at the Franconia strewn field. To avoid the extreme heat, we hunted from nightfall to about an hour after first light each day. We had headlights on our caps and Maglights taped to the poles of our metal detectors for illumination. At about 7:00 AM Saturday morning while hiking back out to the truck, we came across a sidewinder and I coerced him to pose with a scale cube and a nice 88.1 gram chondrite that my son Erik had found. Is it a great picture or what! On this hunt I found three small stones with a total weight of 13.7 grams plus another 4.25 grams of meteoric iron. My son found nine stones with a combined weight of 194 grams with the largest stone for this trip at 88.1 grams. We're looking forward to hunting in daylight again once the temperatures get down to 100 degrees.
Ben
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e145/phxerik/10.jpg
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e145/phxerik/9.jpg
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e145/phxerik/8.jpg
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e145/phxerik/4-1.jpg
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e145/phxerik/3-1.jpg
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e145/phxerik/2-1.jpg
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e145/phxerik/1-1.jpg
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e145/phxerik/5-1.jpg
Nice! I've tried night hunting several times but without any luck (usually while camped out on a trip and bored by the camp fire!). Impressive finds as well - including the rattler!
Hi metcentral,
We started night hunting in hot weather about three years ago. It's a long drive from Phoenix to Franconia, so we arrived well after dark. After getting camp set up, my son (who still had lots of energy) couldn't wait until morning to start hunting, so I gave him a flashlight and turned him loose. I wisely elected to sit in my campchair and commune with a cold one. I watched while he searched the groud by eye, bent at the waist with flashlight in hand. After only about fourty minutes, my son walks back over to where I'm sitting next to the Colman Lantern and opens his hand and asks, Is this a Franconia meteorite? Well, it didn't look like a Franconia chondrite but, It DID look like a meteorite so we kept it. Anyway, that stone was later identified as an "L" from a different fall that intersects with the Franconia strewn field. Not bad, and less than a hundred feet from camp! When you add in the right gear, night hunting becomes a real summer pleasure.
Ben
Thanks for the story; sometimes I feel the same way (as your son) when I get to a spot after dark but usually opt for your choice with a camp chair and cold one(s). I think I'll try again to see what I can find at night.