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1st geocache


LECTRAGLIDE

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Went and found my 1st geocach today . Nice easy walk .

 

So decided to do another. Was a little harder to navigate . Found the cordinates ok but couldnt find the cach . So down the road I went to another . Again a bit more difficult but not hard just a longer walk .

Again Looked for the cach for several mins in about a 30 Ft square area , no luck no cach .

HELP !!! All fun walks I probably would not have done alone without a gps but it would have been more fun if I found the cach.

Any hint to this fun sport would be great

Thanks FLHTPI :)

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Most common newbie mistake is to assume the cache is right at the coordinates.

 

Keep in mind the accuracy of most of our handheld units is around 20 or so feet. Add your error to the hiders error and you have the potential of being up to 40 or so feet away. Typically you will find them closer but you really need to search a circular area up to 40 - 50 foot across.

 

And sometimes you just won't find them - that is life - go log a "Did Not Find" log and share your story. That gives good feedback to the cacher hider and future seekers. Don't look at the DNF logs as some kind of demerit. A DNF story is often as good as a found story.

 

Have Fun!!!

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Oh I remember my first, but I got help from a seasoned pro.

 

Here are some tips if you get stumped. Think like the person who hid it. If it was your cache, WHERE would you hide it? Also, always look for something "out of the ordinary". (i.e. Why does that tree stump have a bunch of rocks piled up against it?). Chances are, if something is out of the ordinary, your cache could be there.

 

One tip I learned the hard way, print ALL the logs of the cache BEFORE you go. Sometimes log entries can assist you with others who've been stuck at that cache.

 

Also learn some of the muggle rules of the road. (Your GPS looks awfully like a cell phone! I have done this before!).

 

The biggest thing to remember is, have fun! This is a really fun sport and the limits of it are almost endless!

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If it makes you feel any better, when we went out for our first find, we had goofed up the coordinates, entering only the longitude, and leaving the latitude as the home coordinates (we knew better, we just entered it wrong). So we drove about a mile up the road, and wound up walking through the woods, over railroad tracks, across a creek, through a high school track field, back down to the street two blocks over from the house, only without the car. It was quite embarrassing, and for a little while after that we stuck to park-and-grab micros to work on our GPS skills, then got into regulars.

 

Ditto StarBrand's comment about GPS accuracy. It's tempting to think of the GPS as "homing in" on the cache container, but it's only putting you in the vicinity. Read the logs, decode the hint, and kick around a bit, and eventually you'll get a good feel for where geocachers hide things.

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Congrats to all who had their first finds. It is an exhilarating feeling, and each Find (or DNF) triggers the desire to learn more from seasoned cachers here on the Net & in the field.

 

Each hunt is so different; yesterday it took me 15 minutes to make my first Florida find; then I ran into tough Florida foilage, wasps and fire ants that stopped me from getting the next two. My final stop was rated a 1/1 No BushWhacking cache and it took over an hour to find it :( . Really felt dumb after I did located it, realizing the cache hider meant what he said: If ya can't find this one, better trade the GPS for an IPOD. No way do I want an IPOD, so I looked till I found it :)

 

Enjoy the experience and don't worry about the totals, is what I've been told; and it is great advice :)

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Congrats on your first find and welcome to this highly addicting adventure game... :(

 

You have received some very good advice from other posters and one thing I would like to add that I did not see mentioned.

 

You wrote that you looked for "several minutes" after arriving near the coords.

 

I'm not sure what several minutes means exactly but perhaps you gave up looking to early. Several caches I have found required looking for quite some time before finally finding tha cache. Perhaps I'm stubborn and refuse to give up. :) Next one that has you stumped try looking a little bit longer before you move on. Just a suggestion.

 

Above all, have fun!

 

Bob

Edited by Mofino
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We found our first caches today too. We found 2 out of 4. We walked away from trying to find the first one since it was at a Park and Ride that was filled with litter & broken glass, and we're searching with two small children - didn't want them picking up something dangerous. But the whole thing was a relative success -- it got the whole family outside and walking around and together on a beautiful day. I definitely think my first lesson learned will be to print the whole log before setting out to look.

 

Enjoy!

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We only found our first one a couple of months ago and then had a dnf, then another then a find, then another DNF a few days later. All the DNFs were in the same area, and I guess muggled. One however looked muggled but wasnt. I emailed the cache owner and he gave a gentle hint as to where to look.

 

Try this yourself after all its meant to be fun.

 

Enjoy the hunt even those you cant find will take you to some pretty good places and thats what its about.

 

Happy Hunting

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I'm new to this amazing game as well. I was working on a multi yesterday and failed to correctly read the instruction for obtaining a number for the final coordinates....spent about 15 min @ the wrong place! I have the correct coordinates in the GPSr now and will look again.

 

Hang in there and read more than 5 logs before you go :-)

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Went on my first geochching adventure 2 days ago with a friend who is a regular. It helps having someone with you to answer questions. We were 8 for 8. Had a little trouble with a couple of the finds. Tall structures or trees overhead can mess with your signal and throw off your readings. Just look around for a place you would likely hide a cach. I think I have found a new hobby. Good hunting!

Oldthumbs :anitongue:

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Definitely a lot of cachEs take more than just a few minutes to find. A "park and grab" might take a few minutes but a cleverly disguised cachE can take quite a while. Normally a 30-minute look is my maximum for a toughie. But I definitely don't expect to find a cachE in just a few minutes.

 

Don't give up. When you do find the cache, you'll be so excited!

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Congratulations on your find(s). I am a relative newcomer to this sport (not even 1 month yet) and I sometimes feel embarassed to log DNFs, but this is a fallacy. The DNF could be legitimate. There was a 1/1 micro in my area and I found the exact spot where I think the cache should have been, but searching through the neatly stacked unnatural pile of rocks lying on top of a bed of tree bark, there was no cache. I logged the DNF and suggested that it may have been muggled or was this some type of decoy to distract me from the real cache somehow. Well I emailed the owner and he told me that it sounds like I had found the right place, so I just sort of kept my eye on the logs. Sure enough, about a week later another very experienced cacher (who I happen to know personally) also logged a DNF for the same cache. So it had actually disappeared. Since that time the cache is now listed as temporarily unavailable. I hoped it gets reactivated someday. Moral of the story is that a DNF does not necessarily indicate a failure of the seeker.

 

;)

 

Best of luck...

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