Jedediah Smith

+1 My thoughts also.

I hunt and I geocache, both in PA. Some of my geocaches are on state game lands, and I include this statement in my descriptions. "State Game Lands, be aware of the hunting seasons, October thru January. Blaze orange during the hunting seasons and bright colors the rest of the year, is always a good idea. Please be considerate of the hunters, they have a limited amount of time to hunt." As a geocacher I have 365 days and nights to look for goodies, hunters only have a few days to hunt, depending on the game they hunt. Courtesy is easy to give. Unfortunately you met a D**KHEAD, I"ve run across these while hunting. Welcome to the club. If he had been there for seven and a half hours and saw nothing, you probably did more to chase a deer his way, than harm his hunt. You had every right to be there, although Sunday would have been a better choice. No hunting on Sundays. My two cents.

Maps! We don't need no stinking maps. When I first started caching it was full speed ahead, follow that arrow. I don't want to tell you how many times I ended up at a cache ten or fifteen feet off a trail or field, after bushwhacking a couple hundred feet or yards. Through these experiences, I try to remind myself, "Geochaers are lazy". To me this means there usually is an easier way. This was a hard lesson to learn and I still forget it, like yesterday. A few hundred yards of bushwhacking, around a cliff, down a steep hill to find the cache. The return was a lot easier. Up the hill and fifty yards to a dirt road. Another lesson learned. Have to start looking at the maps a bit closer. Yes, I have increased the terrain difficulty of a cache.

I cache with family members, and everyone finds the cache on their own. As each individual finds the cache, they stand off and make the call, "found it", stands back and watches. This has slowly evolved into a game of deception and mis-direction. Boy! Could I tell stories. After about fifteen minutes, if eveyone has not found the cache, the finders help the hunters with clues or play hot/cold. We have been doing this long enough to developed tells. I break out my camera, ghost lights up, hp4 acts bored and Mrs. Smith just smiles. This has added another dimension to the sport. I do list the find order in the log report.

Great thread! After I stopped laughing, I went through my first aid kit. I bought one at Walmart. It has a lot of stuff in it, for twelve bucks, and the only thing I added was some butterfly closures, an ace bandage, small multi tool and glucose tablets(yea, I'm one of those). On the down side, it's made in China and everything probably has lead or melamine in it. As for: All you need is a good length of rope(belt), a knife(k-bar/bayonet), a towel and an extra pair of socks(anything that soaks up blood) and yes, even urine(sterile liquid) as a last resort. That's battlefield first aid - it's works, until the corpsman get to you. At least that's the way it was when I was in.

For "SWAG" the dollar stores are a good bet. Yard sales can be a real treasure trove, a lot of stuff for the money. My "Geo-bag" has extra logs, pens, batteries, swag, first aid kit, snacks, water, spare GPSr, compass and a survival kit. Everything I would need to be comfortable if I would have to spend a night in the woods. For urban caching it stays in the car and I throw some swag in my pockets. Once I hit the countryside and head into the woods, if I'm going to be more than 10 minutes from the car I will take the "Geo-bag".

Yes, you can. You will need the interface cable, usb on one end, Magellan lookup on the other. The other thing you need is Magellan's Geocache Manager software. Download the loc files to your computer and then run them through the Magellan software to you GPSr. Hope this helps.

I cache with my grown(out of the house) kids, ghost_inthe_fog and hotpippy4. When we go on a caching run, we limit our search time to 15 minutes(we can always come back). This allows us to cover more ground, gain more experience and reduce the frustration. With time you will get better. Hotpippy4 actually did quite a few urban caches without a GPSr, just online research, read the cache page and logs and check the maps. She also has a good eye. One other thing we do, who ever finds the cache steps to a neutral location and makes the announcement, "Found It!". The other two continue the search, until each one has made the find. You can have a lot of fun with this, practicing you skills of deception and the ability to mislead each other. HAPPY CACHING

Originally bought for snowshoeing, wife concerned about getting back to the car, then started geocaching. Use on my motorcycle for speed check, marking great roads and tracking. It's nice to know where you've been after a day of riding.