Well, we weren't really fishing, but we were "catching" fossil fish at Ulrich's Fossil Gallery outside Kemmerer, Wyoming.  This area is known worldwide for the wonderful fish, bird, leaf, insect and (very rare) sting ray fossils found here in the oil shale.  There are many different varieties of ancient fish found  here in the Green River Formation, which consists of oil shale compressed into many layers, formed by ancient lake deposition.  A good place to start is to visit Fossil Butte National Monument located on Highway 30 west of town.  Open year around, the monument will give you a good overview of how the fossil beds were formed 50 million years ago.  There are several fee dig quarries located near the Monument, so you can take your pick and take your chances of finding good fossils. The most common fish fossils you will find are Knightia and Diplomystus.  Knightia, a type of herring, are found in schools or singly, and were "low man "on the food chain meaning that all the other fish ate them.

We were excited to start collecting so after we left the Monument, we made our way to Ulrich's, just a couple of miles away.  The owners there were happy to show us what to look for, plus show us their plate of fossils being assembled for sale to a museum.  It would contain an excellent whole specimen of a sting ray, which along with another specimen of a large fish (genus unknown to me) was being inserted into a very large slab containing some Knightia.  These sting ray specimens are worth thousands of dollars and very few complete ones exist, so it was acceptable practice to make up this assembled plate for sale.  We realized as we began splitting the blocks of oil shale, that it is uncommon for a slab to come out in a really large piece, or for a complete large  fossil to all be on the same plane in the slab.  Due to the way the fossils were laid down, large fossils may extend several inches through the thickness of a block, which in turn may split apart into several plates, each of which contains a part of the large fossil. 

The shale really smells like gasoline when wet, and splits very easily with a chisel and hammer.  It was great fun to begin our "fishing" adventure here at the quarry, trying to find large chunks to split, and racing to see who would find the first complete fish.  As with most fossils, broken pieces are far more common than whole specimens.  We were able to collect some Knightia that were intact, as well as lots of pieces of other perch-like fish, probably the Diplomystus.  We weren't lucky enough to find anything rare, but we would have had to give it to the owner or pay retail price for it.  Those are the rules when you collect at these quarries---your fee entitles you to keep all the common fossils you find, but you may not keep the rare ones like garfish, birds, crocodiles or sting-rays.  You are allowed to take some of the rock chunks home to split at your leisure, so of course we loaded up a few into our vehicle. 

There is a retail shop on the premises as well where you may purchase some of nicer specimens, which have been prepared and preserved properly.  They also will educate you on how to clean and reveal your fossil fish, as well as give you tips on how to preserve the very thin and fragile fish fossils.  A thin solution of Elmer's glue brushed carefully on the fossil will keep it intact.  It takes some practice and perseverance to uncover your fish without it being destroyed, so a little patience and care is needed to do a good job.  We really enjoyed our outing to this famous "fishing hole", and have spent several enjoyable evenings at home working diligently on our oil shale treasures!