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Anyone too discouraged to put out anything more than a micro?


Crab_Soul

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WEIRD. my origional post at the top disapeard. this is what a wrote

 

just lost my cache today. with all my stuff i put into it is gone too... im kind of afraid to make another cache that is capable of holding trade items...

 

can you guy possible give me an esstimate of the percentage of cache sizes youv placed?

exp. #% mico #% small ect.

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WEIRD. my origional post at the top disapeard. this is what a wrote

 

just lost my cache today. with all my stuff i put into it is gone too... im kind of afraid to make another cache that is capable of holding trade items...

 

can you guy possible give me an estimate of the percentage of cache sizes you've placed?

exp. #% mico #% small ect.

Larger caches should be hidden in private or remote areas. Some people will reveal the location of caches to muggles in higher traffic areas. Edited by TrailGators
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One of the hardest things to learn is what kinds of hide work and which don't. Most geocachers learn through experience by finding and hiding caches. If you place a cache in an area with lot of muggles, they will eventually find it. Often a muggle will just take the cache. A property owner, caretaker, or gardener may just feel he is removing trash especially if the cache was placed without permission. Other muggles will think "what a neat treasure I've found" and will take the cache even if you put the a note in explaining geocaching. Are you telling your friends at school about your caches? I'd bet the whereabouts of your cache may spread quickly to kids who think it would be funny to steal your cache. You might want to keep this secret from all but those friends whom you would trust with a secret. Don't give up quickly. However, you may want to find a few more caches just to get an idea of what works and what doesn't. Since you're limited as to where you can go to hide/find geocaches you may find that most are micros. Micros are easier to hide and less likely to be taken by a muggle who accidentally finds them. But sometimes you can hide a small cache where it won't be discovered except by a geocacher.

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Three years ago I hid two caches at almost the same time. One was a decent-sized box in the woods, and it's still going strong and has never been muggled. The other was a film canister in an urban area; it got muggled repeatedly and I eventually gave up on it. I'm not too discouraged to put out large caches, I'm just feeling cautious about any future caches in places with lots of people around.

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WEIRD. my origional post at the top disapeard. this is what a wrote

 

just lost my cache today. with all my stuff i put into it is gone too... im kind of afraid to make another cache that is capable of holding trade items...

 

can you guy possible give me an esstimate of the percentage of cache sizes youv placed?

exp. #% mico #% small ect.

Based on your other thread about your lost cache I think the problem is likely with your placement on a residential street rather than the cache size. Experience is a great teacher and I suggest that you take the time to find a lot more caches before you try hiding any more. I know it is exciting to hide a cache and it is hard to wait when you are excited, but you will most likely have a better experience as a cache hider and owner once you have seen more caches.

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WEIRD. my origional post at the top disapeard. this is what a wrote

 

just lost my cache today. with all my stuff i put into it is gone too... im kind of afraid to make another cache that is capable of holding trade items...

 

can you guy possible give me an esstimate of the percentage of cache sizes youv placed?

exp. #% mico #% small ect.

Based on your other thread about your lost cache I think the problem is likely with your placement on a residential street rather than the cache size. Experience is a great teacher and I suggest that you take the time to find a lot more caches before you try hiding any more. I know it is exciting to hide a cache and it is hard to wait when you are excited, but you will most likely have a better experience as a cache hider and owner once you have seen more caches.

 

Excellent advice.

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Over the past two years, 8 of my 18 caches have disappeared. I won't say muggled because most of them were subject to the landowner doing some building work, or clearing the land. I though one was safe as it was on an old disused railway line through the woods and which had been derelict since 1964. Withing two weeks, a bulldozer had moved in and flattened the place, including the cache! :D Another was in a hollow tree. That was cut down soon after placing a cache in it as it was deemed to be dangerous. Yet another was hidden behind a fencepost - you guessed it - the fence was pulled down! The only micro I ever had was indeed muggled. If the cache is well hidden, one way of preventing it from getting muggled is to make it a multi or a puzzle cache. That way, any casual muggle who gets the co-ords from the cache page will have a harder time in finding it. :)

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With one exception (a cache near downtown so that visitors can exchange trackables), all my trading caches are out in the woods. I choose spots totally at random, wandering off the trail at a random place. My caches don't go missing very often.

 

That being said, let me tell the story of the Pennsylvania DeLorme Challenge final cache. It's hidden more than five miles from the nearest paved road, and more than 500 feet from the nearest trail. Yet, it was found by hunters who took about $100 worth of trade items from the cache.

 

I have a micro near my city's convention center, along the river walk trail. It was hidden in 2002 and has never gone missing, despite being submerged in multiple floods, and being within feet of both an active trail and a four lane commuter artery.

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Not discouraged, necessarily - I'd say more....apprehensive. As in, more careful about what I place, & where.

 

Extending from your prior post about cache disappearance - one thing you'll need to learn (or realize) is, not only will you need to consider being secretive & not letting 'muggles' see you hide it, but also, the potential for muggles seeing cachers unexplainedly showing up at that place & looking for it. In many if not most urban areas, this means the muggles, curiosity roused, will go looking for it too after the cachers leave. This holds extra true in residential areas, especially when there's local kids who "know their turf". And trust me on this, they will find it! I'll let you do the math about what likely will happen afterwards.

 

Another thing which I learned (the hard way) is - even though I find a 'site' good for a hide, to consider the potential for what might happen due to future 'grounds maintenance', in determining exactly where to place the hide. That one factor has nixed my placing a cache, several times!

 

Hope that's helpful!

~*

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I think you hit it on the head in your later post. What I have found with almost 100 hides is that just because you can hide a geocache does not mean that you should. In other words there are very good fun places to hide geocaches and there are others that people do not think through and stuff happens. Not to say that yours fell in that category but you know what I mean.

 

People need to think in all seasons because the thick lush greenery that is there in the summer may be completely gone in the winter leaving your geocache exposed. You also mentioned grounds keeping which can also find your geocache discovered.

 

Even in the best of circumstances your cache can be muggled. I had one disappear in the middle of a woods with absolutely nothing for .05 a mile a way. So it does happen, have given up trying to figure out why.

 

my .02c

 

-HHH :)

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Larger caches should be hidden in private or remote areas. Some people will reveal the location of caches to muggles in higher traffic areas.

And conversely, some muggles will reveal the location of caches to cachers in higher traffic areas.

 

I had someone, unsolicited, tell me "oh they put it under there a few years ago" one morning while I was out caching. This person knew I was caching, but obviously wasn't a cacher herself.

 

It really put a damper on my morning. I like the "aha! moment" and she stole it from me.

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+1 many of the above posts.

 

Also, don't automatically assume your cache is gone if it is not in the place where you left it. I'm going though another episode where I thought a cache was missing, but wasn't. This time I even got a replacement out there and folks are commenting on things common only to the original. :)

 

Attrition is part of the learning curve in placing caches. Some would rather take a short cut. I'd rather folks take the initiative and place caches that stick yet are full-sized. It's less likely to happen in a corporate setting. Most parks and recreational folks love for folks to visit and many ground crews look out for your caches. Small children don't know how to play well with things they find. "Finders Keepers" Too many cachers don't practice trading and signing in away from the hiding spot; they do it right there with a much higher chance of exposing the cache to muggles.

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It's location, location, location.

 

I've hidden 116 caches. I'd say no more than 3 or 4 were ever muggled. One blew away in a storm. One was removed by a city because some idiot climbed a fence into a waterfowl sactuary after finding my cache. My hides are probably pretty evenly split between micro, small and regular. I've got rural, suburban and urban hides.

 

The trick is to match the cache with the environment. The higher the muggle factor, the more you need to balance size and camo to the location.

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It's location, location, location.

 

I've hidden 116 caches. I'd say no more than 3 or 4 were ever muggled. One blew away in a storm. One was removed by a city because some idiot climbed a fence into a waterfowl sactuary after finding my cache. My hides are probably pretty evenly split between micro, small and regular. I've got rural, suburban and urban hides.

 

The trick is to match the cache with the environment. The higher the muggle factor, the more you need to balance size and camo to the location.

 

Good advice!

To answer your question. I have 26.5 cache hides (waiting for one to get approved.) 8 are micros. The rest are small/regular. Three have been muggled. Two small, one micro. (Okay, The micro probably got dropped off the staircase...) I moved one small twice and changed it to a micro, to find the best muggle-free location for it. The other small got muggled twice. Great location, but no other acceptable place to hide it, so I had to archive it. Oh, well. :(

Most of the regular caches are a mile hike in from the parking area.

As bflentje says: Location, and match the cache with the environment.

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Larger caches should be hidden in private or remote areas. Some people will reveal the location of caches to muggles in higher traffic areas.

And conversely, some muggles will reveal the location of caches to cachers in higher traffic areas.
Yes, the higher the traffic the more likely the cache will be muggled. This is also why you should not hide TBs, geocoins or anything worth anything in high traffic caches.
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I'm not down to hiding all micros. Here's one I put out last week.

 

Edit: typo

 

Someone must be proud. Second or third time now I've seen this picture in the forums. Nice construction, though might be a wee off topic. I don't think that would work for the cache I have in downtown Minneapolis at 5th and Marquette. I'd definately convert that one to a micro.

Edited by bflentje
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I haven't put out any ammo cans- but then I haven't found a place to get them- even so I'd hate to have someone steal one. I've been using plastic food containers to see how well they do before I commit to using ammo cans. I might try putting out some ammo cans deep in the woods. Would just hate to see them get muggled and very leery about a using them here in the city.

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Even in the best of circumstances your cache can be muggled. I had one disappear in the middle of a woods with absolutely nothing for .05 a mile a way. So it does happen, have given up trying to figure out why.

 

I have a cache that requires at least 11 miles of hiking. Most of it is down a lightly used fire road. There's also 1 mile of nearly impassable abandoned trail to get through and then a 500 foot scramble down a completely unmarked, random hillside. The cachers that visited all agreed that a cache could be left out in the open with virtually no chance that anyone would ever find it. As it turns out, the cache was left out in the open by a cacher by mistake. Several muggles found it and signed the log in the last month. Fortunately the cache was left behind. After that experience I'd say that absolutely any cache could be muggled.

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I have only placed 10 caches, and have been worried about one of them, that was only when I was alerted to have a look because people are dumping rubbish.

 

I have tended to scout the area prior to placing the cache, to see the type of person (sorry being stereotypical now), and to see what they are doing.

 

The best thing to do is have a look at the area, and to look what type of people use it. If there is rubbish around move on a little, if there is dog walkers needs a nice little hide.

 

Takes a little while but you will get there. I have a nice cache in a busy area,outside one of the main entrance/exits to Longleat also it outside a public house, the whole area is muggle central. That is my most hit cache so far.

 

Hope all goes well with your next placed cache

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...Also, don't automatically assume your cache is gone if it is not in the place where you left it.

 

Good reminder - & AMEN to that one, sistah!!

 

+++

This might be a good opportunity to offer this to the OP. (And some of the Ol' Grizzled Veterans might could use a refresher course, too!") :(

~Read & Heed!~

http://geocacher-u.com/content/blogsection/4/33

http://geocacher-u.com/content/blogsection/6/35/

 

~*

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Not discouraged at all. Just put out 4 new caches. Only one was a micro. Of the 265 caches that I've placed maybe 12 have been micros.

 

I've lost a few caches over the years, but just a small percentage. The ones that went missing were for the most part ones that I figured would go missing eventually. Hide a regular sized cache in a popular park and/or where searchers are likely to be observed, then your cache is far more likely to go missing.

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Not discouraged at all. Just put out 4 new caches. Only one was a micro. Of the 265 caches that I've placed maybe 12 have been micros.

 

I've lost a few caches over the years, but just a small percentage. The ones that went missing were for the most part ones that I figured would go missing eventually. Hide a regular sized cache in a popular park and/or where searchers are likely to be observed, then your cache is far more likely to go missing.

 

there is a nice park nearby. but strangly there are no caches in it already.. and its very well known... im wondering if there is a problem with putting caches there or im just lucky....

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Not discouraged at all. Just put out 4 new caches. Only one was a micro. Of the 265 caches that I've placed maybe 12 have been micros.

 

I've lost a few caches over the years, but just a small percentage. The ones that went missing were for the most part ones that I figured would go missing eventually. Hide a regular sized cache in a popular park and/or where searchers are likely to be observed, then your cache is far more likely to go missing.

 

there is a nice park nearby. but strangly there are no caches in it already.. and its very well known... im wondering if there is a problem with putting caches there or im just lucky....

I would check with your local reviewer first...
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I can say from my own experience that what people are saying about location is totally true.

 

I have caches in all sizes from nanos to 5gal buckets and the larger ones are always in the woods, or in places with almost no people. None of those hides has gone missing, yet.

 

When I first started out, I hid 11 nanos in those bus stop shelters throughout the city. Of the 11, only 6 remain. Within a few weeks of having them published, I already had one or two go missing. It was a neat idea, but ultimately it didn't work so well because the caches still got muggled, or got lost easily in severe weather. I chalk it up to a learning experience. The ones that are left are in bus shelters that are used far less frequently than the others, hence they have stuck around longer.

 

If you want to hide caches that have tradeables and such, then you're going to need to find good places to hide them, where they won't get discovered by prying eyes.

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Anyone too discouraged to put out anything more than a micro?, wondering...?????

No, not at all. Sue and I own a wide variety of cache types and sizes, and in a wide variety of settings including a number of extreme terrain caches with a D/T rating of 4/5 or higher. I do not think we have ever had a cache go missing, and this is a non-issue for us. Of course, most of our caches are listed as PMO caches, and that likely helps a lot.

 

.

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Nope, we have a couple dozen active now and 3 more coming up this week. Only 3 are micros and in 3 years we've had a couple go missing via wildlife, storms, etc., but only one actually muggled. I think it really comes down to placement and maintenance. More often than not on my maintenance runs we'll have to rehide our caches after they've been made very obvious by past finders or changes in weather, digging animals, curious birds, etc. Actually as I'm writing this and thinking back I think 85% or more of our issues over the years have been actual wildlife muggles and not actual muggles. :(

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