Rocketsteve

I like having the maps on my Venture HC, but my previous GPSr had no maps and I was still able to locate caches. It really comes down to user preference.

I've found that on logs that have gotten wet, a gel-ink pen works really well, but they work equally fine on dry logs.

I saw one of these in a Bass Pro Shops flyer and thought it might be a little better suited for me when I go hunting, rather than carrying my Garmin GPSr. It apparently will hold three locations and it also has a self-calibrating digital compass, which is about all I really use when I go hunting anyway. I was wondering if anybody has one of these and what your likes and dislikes are?

In this particular situation, you probably have quite a bit of unobstructed sky, and so averaging very well could be more accurate and a time saver. As I mentioned in my earlier post, I think you'll find a marked difference in the accuracy, depending on how much overhead cover and/or obstructions you'd be trying to get the gps signals through.

I have a Garmin Venture HC and it has the ability to average your location. On the few occassions when I've used the feature, I've noticed that it hasn't given me a very precise reading, especially if there is some sort of overhead cover or obstruction. What I do instead is walk to and right through GZ, then come at it from another direction and repeat the walk-through. I'll do this anywhere from 6 to 12 times depending on the amount of cover. When I'm finished, on my GPSr map page, I look for the point where all of the tracks cross, put my pointer on that point, and write down the coords. By doing it this way, I've found the accuracy to be much better than letting the GPSr average the location. I can't say if your GPSr averaging software is any better or worse than mine, but I know that doing a little more leg-work for the coords produces better accuracy on my Venture HC.

Today, I was caching in Cypress Creek Preserve, and on my way to GC1T0FA (Make Like A Tree!), I came across this doe that looked like she'd been killed by some predator. She was about 15 yards away from the cache and when the wind shifted, the smell was bad enough to knock a buzzard off a garbage truck. After just 10 minutes, I was ready to call it quits when I happened to stumble upon the cache, so I logged it and got the heck out of there.

With 116 caches found, I scored my 1st FTF this morning! It was a good day to cache.

I had a Magellan GPS 315 that I used for hunting and my brother-in-law asked me if I geocached. He took me out a few times and I was really surprised how many caches were in the vicinity of my neighborhood. When we went out, he would make fun of the accuracy of my GPSr, so he gave me a Venture HC for Christmas that year.

Another option you could explore is downloading maps for free from: http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/

No need to buy when you go download for free at: http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/

There was an ammo can cache located about 1/2 mile from where I live, and last year, the Hillsborough County Sheriff's bomb squad came out and blew it up because a nervous muggle spotted it and called it in. With all the emphasis on combating global and domestic terrorism, things like this are bound to happen.

Would your family prefer that you stay home, sitting in your rocking chair in front of the boob-tube, and waste away for the rest of your life? Don't you listen to those people! You do what makes YOU happy, and your family can stay at home and continue to gnash their teeth. If they call you crazy or nuts, just smile and walk away.

Back when I had to print out cache details I would copy and paste just the pertinent information from caches to text document and print that out. cache name, coords, hunt details if necessary. Sure saved on paper. Once you go paperless you'll never go back I still "copy and paste" to a text document and it works great! If I use a 12 text font, I can usually put more than 40 caches on a page.

Sounds like Garmin might have a little bug or hiccup hidden in the download package. I'll just wait a while before I do an update on my GPSr.

As a cache owner, I've had people write lengthy logs, others have written the standard "TFTH", and the rest are somewhere in between. I don't find anything disrespectful about leaving a short log, especially if the cache is of no special noteworthy value. There are so many different personalities in the geocaching community, and there is no way to please everybody you interact with. I've learned to accept those differences and do what I think is best.

Thank you Lone R, I agree with you. You sum up the situation perfectly. We weren't in his way, we didn't stand in his line of fire, we just happened to be in the general vicinity. I apologize to you all for going back for a minute but I hope you all undestand how we felt we were being unecessarily bullied when we had a right to be there. If the cache was in his line of fire or directly next to him, of course we wouldn't have returned. We felt our interference was negligible though, we were on top of a hill and he was shooting down into a valley- could we really have scared the deer away with our mere presense way up there in relation to them? Maybe our scents could be noticed by the deer a thousand or so feet away, I don't know, but just the fact we were there would have ruined that whether he spent two more minutes at GZ or not so that is a null point. Also, to those who said we had a lack of awareness to our surroundings because we didn't see him- did anyone notice how he was camo'ed into the tree and was like 40 feet above us?? How were we supposed to notice him? And for his safety shouldn't he have been wearing bright orange as well? I'm frankly a little shocked that people would even toy with the idea that what we did here could possibly be seen as illegal or worthy of charges whether we would be acquited of them or not. Not that there haven't been a lot of frivolous law suits in the past, but this would be beyond the pale and just sounds like the musings of people who antagonize us for what you perceive as an anti-hunter "liberal" opinion. I don't hate hunters, just thought that one was rude the end. You still do not understand hunting. He was not "Hunting the valley" he was hunting a 360 degree radius around him, that included the cemetery. Human have a very distinctive walk, no other animal tramps though leaves the same way, and hunted animals are extremely tuned in to any differences, any deer within earshot knew you were there long ago. During deer season here, and I presume elsewhere, hunter orange is only worn during firearms season, bow hunters are heavily camouflaged as they must get much closer to the deer to have a chance of killing it, so no, he should not have had orange on. You were blameless until you spotted him, at that point the correct move was to shut up and quietly leave the way you came in. It was only after you saw him and continued looking around anyway that he became pissed off enough to speak, and while he was rude, at that point he was simply responding to your rudeness in not having left yet, the original rude behavior was yours. When you decided to return to spite him it became illegal harassment of a hunter no matter how you rationalize it away. Many times when people behave badly towards us it is because we did something to them first unintentionally, a little understanding on both sides helps. I suspect your words are falling on def ears. All the OP wants to hear is "Good for you. That's showing him." despite the fact that his return trip was rude and self serving. Long live the ME FIRST mentality! Screw the other guy. I'm forced to agree with you. Most postings have acknowkeged that the hunter was wrong for being rude, but when Vartan84 is made to face his own faults and responsibility in escalating this situation, he immediately changes the focus of the conversation back onto the hunter's failings, and not his own. This is a typically "ME FIRST" mentality. Any further conversation with Vartan84 and Llano would be pointless, since neither of them seem to be "tuned to receive".

...and in fact we of course make a very hasty retreat out of there instead of doing anything heroic. A VERY HASTY RETREAT?? After leaving the immediate area, you debated amongst yourselves about going back just to "spite the hunter". And sure enough, you and your female friend walked right back to the spot where this entire train wreck occurred. The hunter was wrong for cursing all of you, but you were just as wrong, and quite honestly stupid, for going back to "spite the hunter", especially when you knew he had a crossbow. The last thing I would do is antagonize someone who has a weapon that could potentially kill me or my friends. That's not saying he would have shot you with it, but you never know for sure. You had the chance to show the world that you are the bigger person by respecting a rude hunter's hunting space, but instead, you chose to come down to his level. You've done nothing to improve the image of geocachers. I would argue that these geocachers were self-centered, arrogant, and borderline confrontational. Retreating from the situation would have been the most prudent action that the geocachers could have taken, but instead, they chose escalation. Taking a bad situation and making it worse never looks good. I'll tell you that I have a right to be on public land, whether you are cursing or have a gun or whatever. That doesn't make me stupid, and only imprudent because people can be volatile or insane. And what does that say about me and the other party? If the hunter had shot them with his crossbow, would you still insist that they WEREN'T stupid by going back to the cemetary a second time just to "spite the hunter"? Just because the hunter was being a jerk doesn't mean the geocachers needed to throw common sense out the window. Yes, they have a right to be in that cemetary, but common sense should tell you to give the guy with a loaded weapon his space. The last thing they should have done was antagonize him, because if he is "insane", he could have shot them and they would have most likely died. Your rights mean nothing if you're dead. Duh. Again you should read the posts. I said they were dull. I said they were stupid. I said they were arrogant and rude IN KIND with the hunter. However, they were not wrong in any legal sense as far as what is reported about the situation. Most states have laws against harassing hunters. The geocachers first encounter with the hunter was a mistake, but when they left and returned a second time, it could be viewed as "intent to harass". Unless you know where this incident occurred and know for a fact that there is NO law in that state against hunter harassment, I would surmise that your assertion, "they were not wrong in any legal sense as far as what is reported about the situation.", is baseless.

A VERY HASTY RETREAT?? After leaving the immediate area, you debated amongst yourselves about going back just to "spite the hunter". And sure enough, you and your female friend walked right back to the spot where this entire train wreck occurred. The hunter was wrong for cursing all of you, but you were just as wrong, and quite honestly stupid, for going back to "spite the hunter", especially when you knew he had a crossbow. The last thing I would do is antagonize someone who has a weapon that could potentially kill me or my friends. That's not saying he would have shot you with it, but you never know for sure. You had the chance to show the world that you are the bigger person by respecting a rude hunter's hunting space, but instead, you chose to come down to his level. You've done nothing to improve the image of geocachers. I am certain that the legal, albeit dumb, actions of these geocachers in the presence of one self-centered hunter on public lands did little to impact world perception of geocaching. I would argue that these geocachers were self-centered, arrogant, and borderline confrontational. Retreating from the situation would have been the most prudent action that the geocachers could have taken, but instead, they chose escalation. Taking a bad situation and making it worse never looks good. I'll tell you that I have a right to be on public land, whether you are cursing or have a gun or whatever. That doesn't make me stupid, and only imprudent because people can be volatile or insane. And what does that say about me and the other party? If the hunter had shot them with his crossbow, would you still insist that they WEREN'T stupid by going back to the cemetary a second time just to "spite the hunter"? Just because the hunter was being a jerk doesn't mean the geocachers needed to throw common sense out the window. Yes, they have a right to be in that cemetary, but common sense should tell you to give the guy with a loaded weapon his space. The last thing they should have done was antagonize him, because if he is "insane", he could have shot them and they would have most likely died. Your rights mean nothing if you're dead.

A VERY HASTY RETREAT?? After leaving the immediate area, you debated amongst yourselves about going back just to "spite the hunter". And sure enough, you and your female friend walked right back to the spot where this entire train wreck occurred. The hunter was wrong for cursing all of you, but you were just as wrong, and quite honestly stupid, for going back to "spite the hunter", especially when you knew he had a crossbow. The last thing I would do is antagonize someone who has a weapon that could potentially kill me or my friends. That's not saying he would have shot you with it, but you never know for sure. You had the chance to show the world that you are the bigger person by respecting a rude hunter's hunting space, but instead, you chose to come down to his level. You've done nothing to improve the image of geocachers. I am certain that the legal, albeit dumb, actions of these geocachers in the presence of one self-centered hunter on public lands did little to impact world perception of geocaching. I would argue that these geocachers were self-centered, arrogant, and borderline confrontational. Retreating from the situation would have been the most prudent action that the geocachers could have taken, but instead, they chose escalation. Taking a bad situation and making it worse never looks good.

A VERY HASTY RETREAT?? After leaving the immediate area, you debated amongst yourselves about going back just to "spite the hunter". And sure enough, you and your female friend walked right back to the spot where this entire train wreck occurred. The hunter was wrong for cursing all of you, but you were just as wrong, and quite honestly stupid, for going back to "spite the hunter", especially when you knew he had a crossbow. The last thing I would do is antagonize someone who has a weapon that could potentially kill me or my friends. That's not saying he would have shot you with it, but you never know for sure. You had the chance to show the world that you are the bigger person by respecting a rude hunter's hunting space, but instead, you chose to come down to his level. You've done nothing to improve the image of geocachers.

I love being outdoors, and geocaching has taken me to many beautiful places that I may not have gone to if it wasn't for the fact that I was out looking for a chunk of tupperware.

A bruised ego when I don't find the cache that everyone else on planet Earth has already found.

I wanted a walking pole for utilitarian reasons only, so I went to Ace Hardware and bought a replacement wooden broom handle. I'm also 5' 9'' and the handle is about 5', so it's the perfect height for me. I drilled a small hole near the top of the broom handle, ran a length of camo nylon rope through the hole, and tied off the ends. DONE! Total investment: Less than $10 and 30 minutes of my time if you count driving to the harware store.

I've used the Rayovac Hybrid Rechargables (2100 mah) for years and they have a great shelf life after being charged back up. Run-time is great in my Venture HC.

Because the Venture HC doesn't have an electronic compass, the compass only updates when the GPS signals update to your GPSr. Not moving very quickly, not moving significant distances, and/or overhead obstructions (i.e. trees) will produce inaccurate readings of the compass. Personally, I don't use the compass to find caches. By using the map page on my Venture HC, I continue to move until the cache is 90 degrees to my left or right, then I move in that direction until my GPSr tells me I'm there. 95% of the time, I'm close enough to the cache that I don't even use my GPSr any more to find the cache.