Show OW O W 0 ff bassil fuh 0 A V f yi I 1 f these fish swam over wyoming approximately years ago prepared by geographic society D C service OST fishermen must tie be M MOST thrilled by the pull of a live denizen of the deep some however enjoy fishing tor for fossil fish millions ot of years old using picks shovels and chisels for tackle one feature of fossil fishing bishin Is that the big ones cant get away once ce they are caught this fact and also the minor one that fossel in this country roust must be carried on in the remote not to say obscure portions of the united states will probably keep it from assuming the place which it deserves as a major american outdoor sport the proper fossil fishing trip leads you for example to fossil wyoming where you may be the only person getting off abere that yearl now the PrIs pealed poor fish to you youl 1 may look tame enough as you pass him by to in a museum on your way to the stuffed owls but that Is because these ancient relics of prehistoric days lave have been carefully caught for you imprisoned in their stone frames labeled and hung where they can excite only the inflammable interest of the paleontologist to but truly fishing some time for those rovers which only a few million years ago swam blithely abrou through h that inland ocean where are now the rocky mountains one weekend week end fishing trip in wyoming may net you a 6 foot palm leaf three large pickerel bass or pike a prodigious mosquito just the way like to see a mosquito transformed into solid rock sunfish herring the thick scaled gar pike then ou on never know when you may come upon an ancient crocodile 13 feet long one was found near the fossil bed where ou must look if you expect your weeks sport to be really exciting where roads meet fossil wyoming Is formed by the accidental meeting of two roads which slipped down from opposite sides of a mountain there Is a pleasing legend that the population of fossil Is 50 but counting the people you can see and the ones you can imagine you cannot arrive at a generous estimate of more than SO 30 they will have to stop the train especially pec ally tally tor for you they dont like to do it and as you look out over the windswept wind swept cold purple dawn on the rocky mountains at this particular point neither do you but its worth it I 1 A few minutes after you have arrived on a well conducted fossil trip the sun will break over the farthest ridge in a ion long crescent of fossil mountain which sleeps content in a past which even the most arduous fisherman will never know around you Is a shallow sweep of mount mountain aln red gray green blue and purple colored with time and embracing earth and sky and air the sky Is IL curious translucent blue you stand as it on the basin of some huge broken piece of pottery all about you at the broken brim are fossil beds which you may fish to hearts content and whose depth you way may never plumb custodian of the fossil beds amateur sportsman extraordinary robert lee craig will take you fishing if you have an honest interest ue ile has been fishing la in these hills bills for 37 years and he has no patience with people who will not climb with him the feet from his camp to the fossil hill bill who will not wait while he be lays bare it stratum of fossil rock who will not with his own sup suppressed excitement cleave those strata again find and again peeling stripping the layers down as though they were ears of corn often the finest specimens of fossilized fish will be hidden bidden just beneath the gray like surface and would pass notice of all except the most observing heat of day best time it Is best to wait until the heat beat of the day to raise a edge tor for then the bright rays of bun striking tach each layer as it Is peeled off with alth wedge and hammer often show up the faint graing of a backbone bael bone the dim outline of a fin when this outline Is ree revealed aled the ali fossil fisherman takes tile the blade of a knife and gently scratches the pru pro teching shale away to make sure of bli hi specimen then he hows hews out but a square of rock around the fish and the sperl meu men la Is ready for denning cleaning the clean ing process Is done the tine line bantle of H u knife ire greal brenk blell being exercise 1 to clear away all trace of rock in which the fish Is Im bedded without destroying the delicate outline of the fish hills slip and slide these fossil hills are contrary nry jealous ns as deep pools where bass lie ile hidden from the casters fly they slip and slide they shift and fall fail to confound the fisherman and make tor for him unceasing labor you must walt wait and hope you must listen to stories of other fish other days you must eat your noonday sandwich dry and brittle and filled with some dust of shale you must know the sadness of cleaving a whole sheaf of rock at last good firm fossil rock in which whole schools of prehistoric fishes should lie ile buried only to find it barren as a desert trail no these fish took one more dive before the cataclysm they ile he to windward or to leeward and though you are some 25 or 30 feet below the top layer of protecting shale still you have ha ve not fished deep enough if you are a proper fisherman you will of course spend many lingering moments which might otherwise be tedious in contemplation of the ancient story of how your catch came to be cast up in the very act of living onto the dry and dusty mountain tops As a theme for meditation it far surpasses the habits of the lively pike in his favorite deep lake retreat for the how and the why of the northern pike in present day waters Is mysterious enough but the how and the why of the fossil gar pike Is the story of time itself perhaps the best definition of the fossit fossil fish tor for the amateur stone fisherman Is the simple one given by the late frederic A lucas formerly a curator of the national museum in his book animals of the past fossils be says are the remains or even the indications of animals and plants that have through natural agencies been burled buried in the earth and preserved for long iong periods of time these indications which may be footprints tramped leaves the almost formless jellyfish the very ripple on the sands have been in many instances preserved in stone perfect patterns of tile the ephemeral life of millions of 3 e ears as ago and how did fossil fish come to be imprisoned in their strangely lifelike stony form in the rocky mountains of wyoming your mind must go back to lost ages when an ocean rolled over the wheat fields of kansas the prairies of nebraska and the site of the empire state building alike these abundant seas were ruled successively by various races of sea features cea cen tures which came ruled were conquered by larger and more powerful species and at last lay scattered at the bottom of the ancient ocean bed strange ocean rulers among the strange ocean rulers wert wen the armor clad fish then in turn the fierce sharp toothed sharks the als fist ah lizards the mysterious ichthyosaurus the plesiosaurus whose names are only a little less terrifying than the havoc they spread among the fish lizards crawl ing in the mud of ocean hed bed the great marine reptiles called Blosa sau rus geologists believe ruled the seas from new zealand to north america at one time the rocky mountains bo placid and gray now by dat daytime Itne swarmed with heroic battle in the days when they were still ocean bed huge turtles saber toothed divers the monstrous fish of legend gend all fought for supremacy and over the waters flew the etero dactyls dark menacing shadows with their powerful wingspread of 20 feet or more while the rival isu fish species spawned fought and died the surface of the north american continent was gradually taking form the land which made up the ocean bed was rising with alth monumental slowness in an inch perhaps an inch and a half a century at last the ci ocean cean on the north american continent was completely en closed on the west and on the east by elevations of sea bottom so BO that it connected with the atlantic and pacific oceans as we now know them only at the gulf of mexico and the arctic circle continued elevations of the eastern and western edges contracted the area of this inland ocean and parts of the ancient seu sea bottom rose leached beached the surface forming bars bar and 5 last lingers fingers of land parts of tire water amt were contracted into inland akes s until at last they lost all coo coa latt with salt mater ater |