mndvs737

I agree with JeffBouldin -- check out www.msga.net -- free registration, and there are a lot of cachers in the Hattiesburg area that are very active and, from my understanding, have some phenomenal hides.

There's also the attributes that users can assign to the caches -- they can give a good picture of what might be encountered during a hunt. They have not been done on a lot of older caches that pre-dated the attributes, and not everyone placing a new cache uses them, but I do see them growing in usage (at least in my area), and they are very helpful (and sometimes funny -- "No Campfires Allowed" on a LPC).

Actually, a lot of timber companies lease sections of their land out to private hunting clubs. The hunters pay dues yearly for the right to hunt the land (in Mississippi, I have seen dues ranging from $400/person to $2500/person). On the higher end of the spectrum, a club with 40 members can bring the timber company $60,000 to $100,000 in extra income -- income that really has no cost associated with it, so it is pure revenue (I'm hesitant to refer to it as profit right now). Also, perhaps the hunter took off because they realized you were in the area and decided to hunt elsewhere so as not to put you in danger or because they thought you might have spooked game in the area.

Any hunters, does this hypothesis make any sense at all? You are seriously implying he sat in a tree ALL DAY waiting for dusk? Why couldn't he have just returned to his stand an hour before dusk? You are just trying to make us feel more guilty because we ruined this guy's entire day due to us happening to show up towards the end of the day. Vartan -- staying in a stand all day does make sense to me as a hunter. Whitetail deer typically move in the morning and evening. Hunters often spend a great deal of time before the season scouting out bedding sites, feeding areas, and routes of travel, picking a spot to hunt that should give them the greatest chance of success. Some hunters will leave their stand around mid- to late-morning and return in the afternoon, since nothing is usually moving during that time. Others, however, know that each time you go into and out of a stand location is a chance to spread more evidence of your presence (scent, especially -- deer have excellent noses), or to bump a deer that has bedded down in an unexpected area or that is moving at an odd time. Also, sometimes a deer will move at an odd time that defies all of the "rules". So, they stay in their stand all day. Others stay there all day just because they like sitting in nature all day, and they are free from traffic, computers, video games, etc -- kind of the same reason some of us geocache all day (be it a numbers run or a quest for 1 particular cache). I myself often stay all day, for a combination of the stated reasons. As a hunter, I think there is no excuse for the behavior of the individual you encountered. I do not consider them a sportsman at all. As a geocacher, I have walked up on a hunter before -- it was during archery season, and he was in a climbing tree stand, approx. 20 feet up a tree, and we (myself and a buddy) were coming up from behind the tree. We got too engrossed in "following the arrow", and while not making a loud ruckus, were not looking too far ahead of us and were making some noise. When we got to about 100 feet away from GZ, we heard a subtle cough -- we stopped and started looking around -- we didn't see anything at first, but another subtle cough made us look up. There, in a tree about 100 feet away, was the hunter. We waved to him, letting him know we had seen him, and headed back out the way we came in, trying to as quiet as we could. This was about 2:30 or 3:00 in the afternoon -- no deer moving, most likely, but he was there 1st, and he was quiet and respectful as he got our attention, so we were respectful of him. Had we decided to continue our search, things could have been very different. Please realize that you were very lucky when you returned a 2nd time -- you already knew this individual had a tendency for rage -- it's like going back to pet a dog that has already growled and nipped at you -- are you surprised when you are bitten? Again -- no excuses for his behavior, but he had already established his lack of emotional control.

I requested this feature a few weeks ago. In my local area, I kind of know which caches should be grayed-out, so I am able to see where a new one might change over to that status, or one that was disabled has come back online, or I see that the box has totally disappeared. Where I think it would be really handy is when people are planning out-of-town runs from the map. If I am scouting out an area for a visit, I go in and start turning off various cache types that might not appeal to me for the time I am there -- events, CITO, webcam, caches I have found from previous visits, etc. Being able to also turn off the disabled caches in the map view would make the screen just a bit cleaner, and planning a bit easier.

I'd suggest checking out www.msga.net, the website for Mississippi Geocachers Association. Very active forums there -- not many of them are active posters over here. Also, check out www.gowt.org, for Geocachers of West Tennessee -- we live in DeSoto County, but do stuff with GOWT because of our proximity to Memphis -- again, the majority are more active on those forums than the ones here.

We're heading down this weekend to spend a couple of days before a cruise next week. We are staying in the Andrew Jackson -- we are planning on walking all over the Quarter, GPS in hand! We are also looking forward to View Carre -- I'm from the Memphis, TN area, and it has been recommended by locals to our area who have been to NOLA.

Spend enough time hiking in the woods, especially wooded areas close to urban centers, and you will find stoves, refirgerators, cars, and other large items -- not on the perimeter, but WAY back in there in the middle of the thick stuff. I too often wonder how they got the items back in there. And some of the items have been there for a while -- when a small tree has grown through the hole in the floorboard and is sticking out of the sunroof, that didn't happen overnight!

Just stumbled across this thread -- we are at 491 and will be logging # 500 on 10-10-09 with the MS Alphabet Challenge in Jackson, MS -- would like to get in on this if we can. That cache is being logged on our way to NOLA for a cruise, so we could also take it for a dip in Mexico and get it some international mileage. ....spelling edit....

I'm not so much worried about caches in my local area. Most of those I have come to know the circumstances going on with the cache in question, and I have actually posted a "Needs Archived" on one of them. My main thought for this is for when someone is researching out-of-town caches -- we are going to be in NOLA for a couple of days before a cruise, and there are several caches in the City Park area that are disabled. Rather than go through and put all those caches on my ignore list, or worry about reading their history and trying to figure out if they should be given a "Needs Archived" log (not knowing any local information not shared on logs posted on GC.com, but rather on local organization forums), I was thinking it would be easier to have the option to just turn those boxes off (much like I turned off event, mega-event, Wherigo, and CITO - listings I am not interested in for the short time we will be there).

I would like to propose another filter option for Premium Members on the map view -- in addition to being able to mark the certain types of caches (traditional, multi, Earthcache, etc.) and My Finds/My Hides for display/non-display, can an option be added to allow disabled caches to be hidden from display? The system already knows that they are disabled and shows them in that grey box -- I would like the ability to turn those boxes on and off like I am with the cache types and finds/hides. I don't neccessarily mind them in my local area, as it clues me in if one I have been making plans for goes inactive, but it would be useful in planning caches for an unfamiliar area we are heading to. I did try and search to see if this has been suggested before, and kept getting the timeout error on the search, so if this has been posted before, I apologize.

I'm in that boat as well -- I might as well lead on the trail, because even if the point man clears out a web, chances are there is a very large remnant I am going to come across. I can dance quite a jig, as it turns out.

There are plenty of virtual caches to which you can find the answer from your home computer. There are a lot of 1-stage multis based on information on a historical marker, which can also be found online, so you can solve the final coordinates. You can pull up the camera for any webcam cache, and if so inclined, grab a screenshot and Photshop yourself in. There are also a ton of puzzle caches that you can solve from home and determine the actual coordinates. Doing any of these can be fun and educational. Should you then go to the cache page and log a find and claim a smiley? My opinion -- no. Maybe post a note to the page thanking the cache owner for giving you the opportunity to work through a new type of puzzle or to learn a new bit of history, but no smiley.

I log it as I am logging all of my caches for that day. I try and log in the same order as I found them in the field, so it goes right in line with all the rest of my logs. I had the "honor" on GC1B97K of not finding, meeting up with a buddy to go after some other caches, and coming back with him (probably within the hour), and finding the cache. I logged the DNF, then the finds on the 2 or 3 that he and I had hit, and then the find for when we came back -- I'm sure the owner got a chuckle out of those notification emails. The DNF is part of the story of the cache and of your efforts -- log 'em proudly, and log the smiley with even more pride when you avenge!

In our area, I see "Bug Drop" used for Event caches -- starting a few days before the event, people start showing what TB's and geocoins they are bringing. I like this, because it lets us look ahead and see if there will be a traveller that we can help on its way to its goal. And, to echo what others have said, I've also seen it used where people re-visit a cache (especially a Hotel) to drop off bugs/coins.

Did you have to go beyond the deadfall to find this location?

We have the County, Delorme, and Alphabet Challenge. We also have a new one -- the Alpha-Numeric -- in addition to A-Z, you have to find caches within the state beginning with 1-9 (as numerals, not spelled out, so "Three Musketeers" would cound for "T", not "3"). We also have the "1 Busy Day Challenge", where you have to find a certain number of different cache types in 1 day.

Check out GCV8JF -- this is a Travel Bug Hotel in downtown Chattanooga, TN that has been around for almost 3 1/2 years -- there is a spoiler picture (from April 2007) so yo ucan see how it is done -- it uses a lock similar to a luggage lock, but just a bit beefier -- the combination is listed on the cache page (luckily I took the cache page with my while my wife circled the block). I think it is labeled "Official US Geocache Monitoring Station" or something similar. Inside the metal box is a Lock-and-Lock with log, swag, TB's, GC's, etc. If you can get permission for it, this would be the way to go, I would think.

I'm not so sure about difficulty, but I would think terrain would need to be bumped up a bit -- maybe 1/2 a star, depending on how high it is placed and the "accessability" (lots of branches to use, or are you stretching at points to gain the next level). As to the height, I would put it as high as you are comfortably able to climb and secure the cache. If you do not feel at risk while you are doing this, that is probably a good place to put it. Also, I would not put anything in the description regarding the fact that it is in the tree. That is part of the fun of these hides -- you get to GZ, and go poking around the bases of trees in the area, looking for hidey-holes and random piles of sticks. Only after 10 or 15 minutes does someone roll their head back to stretch their neck and see the container. I would recommend against a micro, though, as that will be harder for people to see, and you will likely get a lot of DNF's. We have one tree hide in my local area where they secured a wire basket to a section of the trunk with rope (no screws or nails, please), and the container (listed as regular) is camoed and sits in that. The camo is just enough that you don't see it walking up to the tree, but if you look straight up the trunk, you know what it is. If done properly, these are a lot of fun, as people's expectations of what a cache can be are expanded.

Just think of the possibilities for icons similar to geocoin and other trackable icons based on the characters on the lunchbox -- Dukes of Hazzard, GI Joe, Transformers, etc. -- especially if you were able to get the ultra-rare Bonanza or BJ & The Bear.

We have some caches in the Memphis area that are specifically designed as night caches utilizing firetacks -- the posted coords take you to the start of the trail, and then you go from there. What you have to learn is the balance between watching the tacks and watching the ground. Watch the ground too much, and you lose the tacks. Watch the tacks too much, and, well, you get the idea -- we had one cacher go mid-thigh deep in a wet hole one night. These caches would be nigh-on-impossible in the day. Some of them also add in various twists and turns during the hunt -- the hiders who have put them together are very creative -- 2 of them are in a local park in Germantown, TN and 2 more on on a section of greenbelt in Collierville. There is also one up in Bartlett, TN that I have yet to do called "Nighttime Squirrel Hunt" -- here's the thing with that one -- previous finders will go out with new seekers just to follow them through the woods -- to me, that means it's a pretty good hide.

Here's an idea I have for a library cache that would be listed as a Mystery/Puzzle: posted coordinates would take you to a tree in the parking lot containing a pill fob -- inside the pill fob is the projection to the front door of the library (260 feet at 134 degrees, say), and the call number of the cache -- I have some container ideas that would allow for swag. I would pick a tree across the parking lot, or on a shared barrier with another building in the complex -- not one right outside the door. So, you have to use GPS to find the container that gives you the info to find the container with the log, and there is another use of the GPS to get you from there to the front door. Nothing on the cache page would give away any of the info regarding the location of the container and logbook inside the library -- it would have to be obtained by finding the pill fob. A good friend of ours is the children's librarian, so I'm hoping she can help me with permission. Would something like this meet the "GPS is an integral part of the hunt" requirement? I'm also going to call it "Butterfly in the Sky".

I adopted an ALR cache right around the time of the guidelines change -- it was placed in December 2006 and had been set up based on other similar caches around the US, and required that cachers post a 30-word essay as to why they are not hooked on geocaching in the logs (FTF had to post a 50-word essay). Well, after the adoption, I changed it over to traditional and edited the page to bring the wording in line with the guidelines -- I wanted to honor the spirit of the cache's existence, and hoped people would play along. Some cachers have done that, and I enjoy those logs. The other day, though, I got "tftc" as the log. Did it upset me a bit that they didn't try and say something a bit more? Yes, it did. Did I let it keep me awake that night? No, I did not. They choose to log the cache in their own way, which is acceptable by the guidelines, and I am letting their log stand. No email to request that they change their log to be more in line with the spirit of the cache, no Note posted to cache page asking people to play along -- I can go on until I am blue in the face wanting people to "play along" with the request, but if they don't, there is nothing that I can do to change that. However, the world goes on for another day, and there are more caches still to be found.

I am in the US and don't read German, but the cache you are referencing is a multi-cache -- that means that the posted coordinates (N 48° 11.070 E 011° 33.890) are not the actual hide location -- they take you to a site where you have to perform some calculation based on information at the site to get the coordinates for the actual cache. I would recommend printing out the cache page and going back to the posted coordinates -- the description of the cache should help you find the numbers you need for the calculations to find the final location. Best of luck in your hunt!

Found one this past weekend -- "Graduation" (GC1R3VE) -- it's an ammo can hidden in the middle of a major college campus. How can an ammo can be hidden in such a public environment? Once you see this one, quite easily, actually, if you do it right.