Your most productive hunt?

[Scotto]

What's your magic number you have to beat to have your most productive hunt/day?

I know that quality is better any day over quantity, but I'm just curious to know how some of your 'great' hunts have panned out. I'm talking artifacts that you put in your actual collection, or in your frames. So if you save decent brokes, cool. Beads, bone tools, maybe a great hammerstone or flint core or something like that.

Putting it all together for a particular day, what is your top number?

[Steve Valentine]

Back in the 70's and 80's when they actually deep plowed the fields in my area I considered coming home with less than 10 solid, perfect, trayable pieces a bad hunt and usually hit close to 15 or 20 on most hunts. Plus Scrapers, Stone Tools, and other things.

I even had a few hunts where I found well over 100 pretty much perfect Points and and another 100 or so broken or damaged pieces. One hunt I actually had to take my shirt off and make a sling to carry the pieces out of the field since my pockets were full. Two buddies and I got into a field that had been in pasture and hadn't been turned for a very long time after about 24 hours of very hard steady rain. It was a very sandy spot right along the Ohio River and we were actually pointing them out to each other as we walked through. You could bend down to pick one up and see one or two more before you raised up. It was incredible.

Another time my father and I hit a Ft Ancient site and while we were there it came a very strong storm with about a 25 minute downpour. This field was also right along the river and very sandy and between the two of us we picked up well over 100 perfect Triangles, and bunch of Drills and Scrapers, and all kinds of Beads. If I remember correctly I think the total haul was somewhere close to 150 or 160 pieces.

Nowadays, if I come home with one solid trayable piece I am happy and finding 5 or more solid pieces is considered an awesome hunt.

[Wildhorse]

Back in the 50's when we could still hunt along the Columbia we went out during a winter storm. The river drops at night because of the dams holding water for the next day. Wind was just right to wash off the beach as the water dropped. I came home with over 60 complete points and the two guys with me did about the same. Lots of tools and scrapers, net weights, ect but just the points over 60.

[joshuaream]

I cheat by digging at some tropical sites which are productive.

Pottery, 18 whole pots in one day.

Celts, 25 keepers. (But celts were centrally produced in large workshops, so finding 5 or 6 is a bad hunt. If I was willing to spend a full day I could beat the 25 number.)

Beads, about half a gallon in one pot. Otherwise I stop picking up beads after 2 hours or I wake up really sore the next day.

Here in the US my numbers are much more average, 5 to 10 including tools and brokes is a nice day. I have had a couple of 100 point days including brokes, but it's been a long time.

I'd bet many of us also have a story of the site. (The one to which you compare all other sites.) Mine was a golf course in Indiana where the builder was moving through a deep archaic site. He was pushing dirt for a while, but collectors discovered the site during the last 2 weeks of work. I was in highschool so my dad let me quit my summer job to hunt it everyday. I'd get 20 to 30 very nice points per day, plus more brokens from the dozers than you could look at. It never rained so it was just dry dirt hunting, and there were always 5 or 6 guys walking it (who did equally well.) Of points, I'd still say 80 out of my top 100 points came from that site in those two weeks.

[ghost recon]

A few years ago a buddy of mine called and asked if I wanted to come over and hunt arrowheads before his dad filled in the pond with water. He lives on a small hill that overlooks a creek and three spring fed ponds. His dad, genius that he is decided to dig out a medium sized fishing pond basically by removing the earth between the three natural spring ponds. I had some pretty good days walking their corn field after harvest, I knew the area was rich in artifacts and was very excited to hear the news about the recent landscaping project.

It was unreal, I remember emptying both pockets many times and I had a mound of artifacts in a pile by a tree beside the pond. I never counted all of them but I would estimate around 70-80 whole points and well over a hundred brokes. I'd say I found over 300 artifacts that day including points, scrapers, knives, hardstone (6 celts and 2 axes), and worked flake tools.

Another epic hunt for me on a farm in WV in the summer of 03. I found more than 100 whole points around the banks of a manmade lake that was recently drained. I'd say I found close to 200 artifacts that day.

In less than a half hour I found 60 good triangles around a small spring in a 20 foot radius, I think it was a cache that had spilled out of the bank over the years.

These are my most memorable hunts as far as quanity goes. It's rare for me to find over 20 whole pieces on an average hunt. I doubt I'll have any days that compare to these but you never know. Being in the right place at the right time can really pay off.

[Indianasmith]

In 1978, my dad and I went to a site on Lake Livingston. the people that lived there were finding arrowheads at a rate of 200 whole points a day when the water first came off it - they didn't even pick up the brokes at first! It was tapering off when we went, but we still got 86 complete ones that day, and over 100 brokes. I got 44 and Dad got 42. I've never topped that number, although I did get 32 whole ones on two separate occasions - once in 1996 and once in 2006.

Great thread idea!

[Scotto]

Holy moly, some great hunts! Keep 'em coming!

[Fluff effect]

Honestly my most productive headhunting day only produced 2 points. It was a few years back when I found an archaic corner notch and a birdpoint. I had never found anything notched before that day but decided to look for notched points and somehow it worked.

[Dennis]

If I can find one whole point Its a good day. Two or more A great day. My best day ever was 5 bird points All surface finds. And that was after a good rain on a log deck. where they used a brush rake to pile slash.

[Scotto]

Question to those here who found a huge amount on one hunt, did you take a pic of all of your finds that day put together? If so, can you post it? Thanks!

My best day is 14 pieces for my collection. It was at a new spot, and if they do some construction there in the future, I've got a feeling it will be great like some of you had.