A few perfect specimens. Native only to northern Michigan.
Fat ones, skinny ones, round ones, dark ones, huge ones, tiny ones, all around pretty ones!
This is Petoskey Todd. There is nothing he enjoys more than the hunt!
"They're 'rare' only because hardly anyone really knows how to find them:)" - Petoskey Todd
I can't remember the first time I found a petoskey stone on my own. I have a few that either my mom or I or my brother Steve found on the beaches of northern Michigan when I was a kid. The pass time was instilled in me by my mom who would occasionally and haphazardly hunt for them while on the beach up north in Michigan. Later it was my uncle Johnny and then my mom followed suit in purchasing bigger ones to display in their homes. Very cool to look at but that is an expensive paper weight!!!
I decided I wanted to find them and "crack the code" on the locations of the elusive Petoskey Stone. I wanted quantity, quality and most of all, size! This was after I had stopped at a rock shop just to the east of Honor, MI and bought a little book that the owner of the rock shop wrote, all about petoskey stones. ("The Complete Guide to Petoskey Stones" by Bruce Mueller and William H. Wilde) Millions of years old... fossilized coral... neat looking... some people think they have mystical powers ....... uh. I just like the way they look but, COOL!
The idea that they are just lying around and all you have to do is comb the beach for a couple hours to find a few quarter sized Petoskeys didn't really interest me. I started with nothing but my current knowledge and a little intuition. I was camping up north and our family was at the beach. There was a rock bed in between the beach and the dunes. There were people combing the rock bed and my first thought was that this area HAD to be picked over. Dune to the left. Dune to the right. But the rock bed had to continue under the dunes... Right? And no one was looking there! So, my son and I started to dig. 2 hours later we had found exactly 111 petoskey stones!
I was now hooked. When I closed my eyes at night to go to sleep I would see Petoskey Stone patterns:) One thing the book told me was that the coral that fossilized to form the stones covered all of the northern part of the lower peninsula. The other things that the book told me was some specific locations to try! So, I went to those spots. However, much like digging for stones under the edge of the sand dune, I tended to improvise and found some proven ways to find petoskey stones almost anywhere!
The nitty gritty of the hunt: ( mostly not found in the book )
- Misconception #1 They are only on the beach and only near the city of Petoskey. FALSE!
- Rocky beaches. Dig! Anywhere you see rocks in the northern half of the lower peninsula.
- Where there is one there is likely a thousand others near by.
- Always keep a sharp eye out while canoeing in the northern rivers of Michigan. Yup, they are there too. You don't have to be that far north. I have found them in the Pine River.
- Improvise: I hiked along the Bordman river south of Traverse City. I saw a fallen tree with rocks underneath the pulled up root system. Yup! Bingo.
- AND FINALLY, My number 1 tip to finding the huge ones: The steep banks along lake Michigan. This can turn quite adventurous sometimes because we are sometimes talking about steep banks. And a lot of time the bank or even cliff can be thick with cedar tree. Petoskeys are constantly eroding out of the bank and you WILL find them if you look there:
When I found this I could only see about 20% of it. It was under the root of a tree in the woods on a steep bank.
After you have been practicing for a few years you will create your own methods of hunting. Think outside the box! Happy hunting!
P.S. Please share this with all your petoskey stone hunting friends! Join the Petoskey Stone Hunting group on Facebook. And I would love to here if this has helped you find some nice ones. And don't forget the pics!