First To Find

[+SMOOCHIES]

Waht ist he fastest way to find a new cache. Like everyone, I would like a FTF to my credit. SMOOCHIES

[+SkellyCA]

Select email notifications: On your My Profile page, on the hand side, select...Set Up Notifications

 

Set your email program to ring a loud alarm when you receive an email about a newly published cache

 

Quickly download it to your gps

 

Throw on a robe and some slippers

 

Run out of the house and drive like a crazy person until you get there!

Edited April 2, 2009 by SkellyCA

[+GrateBear]

Select email notifications: On your My Profile page, on the hand side, select...Set Up Notifications

 

Set your email program to ring a loud alarm when you receive an email about a newly published cache

 

Quickly download it to your gps

 

Throw on a robe and some slippers

 

Run out of the house and drive like a crazy person until you get there!

 

Better to sleep in your robe and slippers, or the time it takes to put them on may make you too late. I'm convinced that some cachers sleep in their cars just waiting for a new cache to pop up.

[+TwoSox Trekkers]

It can vary wildly how long it takes to get a FTF. I have 20 finds, and got my 1st FTF on the 14th find, because the cache happened to be posted 2.2mi from my house and I had nothing going on.

 

Sign up for the notifications and be ready- an opportunity will come up and you'll have the pleasure of FTF before you know it!

 

Good luck.

[+DiamondDaveG]

Select email notifications: On your My Profile page, on the hand side, select...Set Up Notifications

 

Set your email program to ring a loud alarm when you receive an email about a newly published cache

 

Quickly download it to your gps

 

Throw on a robe and some slippers

 

Run out of the house and drive like a crazy person until you get there!

 

I have mine set to go to my cell phone as a picture message. This accomplishes 2 things. It has a different tone than a regular text message and the text box is bigger so I get more info. Combine that with always having the GPS and laptop with me makes it easy to grab a FTF when I can. I havent been able to grab one this way yet, but everything is in place to grab a bunch.

[+pissedfish]

Maybe someone can answer this one for me. I friend of mine hid a cache and submitted it. All was well and it was published on the site on April 3, 2009. Another cacher found it and logged it FTF on March 29, 2009. He said he just stumbled on it. This cache is in a park of over 10,000 acres! How did he find out about it? Is there a way that unpublished cache information leaks out? I just don't buy that he "stumbled" on it. BTW, this guy has 70+ FTFs. It just makes me think that something fishy is going on!!!

[+DiamondDaveG]

Maybe someone can answer this one for me. I friend of mine hid a cache and submitted it. All was well and it was published on the site on April 3, 2009. Another cacher found it and logged it FTF on March 29, 2009. He said he just stumbled on it. This cache is in a park of over 10,000 acres! How did he find out about it? Is there a way that unpublished cache information leaks out? I just don't buy that he "stumbled" on it. BTW, this guy has 70+ FTFs. It just makes me think that something fishy is going on!!!

 

There is the rare chance he was looking for a place to hide a cache and accidentally found it. Without knowing details of the cache, I would bet someone dropped a TB in the cache before it was published and the finder did a PQ on local caches with TBs and 'found' it that way.

[+pissedfish]

Maybe someone can answer this one for me. I friend of mine hid a cache and submitted it. All was well and it was published on the site on April 3, 2009. Another cacher found it and logged it FTF on March 29, 2009. He said he just stumbled on it. This cache is in a park of over 10,000 acres! How did he find out about it? Is there a way that unpublished cache information leaks out? I just don't buy that he "stumbled" on it. BTW, this guy has 70+ FTFs. It just makes me think that something fishy is going on!!!

 

There is the rare chance he was looking for a place to hide a cache and accidentally found it. Without knowing details of the cache, I would bet someone dropped a TB in the cache before it was published and the finder did a PQ on local caches with TBs and 'found' it that way.

 

The cache is a micro. It is attached to a tree. If the cache is not published, how could someone put in a bug, and log it so that the cache would show up in a PQ? I think this guy had prior knowledge of this cache from someone other than the cache owner before it was published, and he logged the FTF.

 

Here is the cachers log that he reposted after having it deleted by the cache owner.

 

"The following is my story and I’m sticking to it.

 

I’ve been camping in OM, off to the side, for ten days. Post Whata-hike, returning to my hilltop campsite, I stopped to water a tree and while entertaining myself by counting the various bugs crawling on the ground I noticed something a bit out of the ordinary.

 

I said, to myself, “What the hell?” “That looks like a dang [REDACTED] stuck right in the [REDACTED].”

 

Shortly after reorganizing various appendages I found myself trying to sign the unblemished paper log but my pen won't write. I scratched my pen on a bit of other paper and it writes ok. I try the log again - not happening!

 

Steve had told me that my doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result was the very definition of crazy so after a few of minutes of that nonsense it’s decided to hike to the nearby BMX course because I had heard some racket from over that way. And where there be noise, there should be a pencil what-which I could make my mark.

 

The first group of people that I come upon was an unusual group of Mexicans and Muslims; plenty of battery powered radio-controlled devices and cell phones; some oddly attired and tattooed rabble looking for a bit of martyrdom, maybe; but nothing virgin-like in the bunch. I don’t “se habla espan-terrorist”; so I continued onward looking for someone that appeared less threatening to my way-of-life.

 

The next group appeared much less radical; two under-dressed women watching a kid fly around the BMX track. But after a bit of polite and hopeful conversation it’s not their kid and there’s no pen.

 

The last groups of by-standers were around to the other side of the track. There, a guy says he has a pen and goes to retrieve it from his pickup truck. The woman nearby was pretty bright; she recognized the gps'r that I carry like a six shooter strapped at my waist and asked, “You've been geocaching?”

 

Her husband is a geocacher. While her husband is fetching the pen I'm telling the wife that I've just found a cache. She indicates that her husband had recently placed one nearby for their son, the BMX-er!

 

Before the husband returns I learn that the kid on the track is the geocacher in the group, Ashtro-J.

 

When dad returns I learn that uncle trippinmushroom is the geo-counterpart but dear ole’ dad does the fancy cache work. He is a Pelham local with the crafting and camouflage skills to rival big BobndWoods from the Gang of PHAH.

 

There was a bit of geo-conversation about how someone walking through the woods might stumble into his disguised container. It seems that three ingredients are required: a bit blind luck to prove that though highly improbable odd things are possible; experience in the form of dumb blind luck, and a small dash of plain blind luck.

 

So with the cache owner’s own pen, I signed the log, replaced the container, and disappeared into the woods hunting my campsite."

 

I still think that he had prior knowledge of this cache!!!

[+briansnat]

Maybe someone can answer this one for me. I friend of mine hid a cache and submitted it. All was well and it was published on the site on April 3, 2009. Another cacher found it and logged it FTF on March 29, 2009. He said he just stumbled on it. This cache is in a park of over 10,000 acres! How did he find out about it? Is there a way that unpublished cache information leaks out? I just don't buy that he "stumbled" on it. BTW, this guy has 70+ FTFs. It just makes me think that something fishy is going on!!!

 

There is a way to figure out a cache location before it's published if you have TBs or trackable geocoins in it.

Since you said there are no travelers in it, then the only way for the coords to leak out is if you tell someone.

 

I guess in theory a reviewer can leak the coords, but that would be a breach of confidence which would get him canned. Between that and the fact that doing so serves no purpose, it's highly unlikely that a leak would come from a reviewer.

 

I have to believe the finder. I've stumbled on caches before. I've also had very well hidden caches in large parks discovered by non geocachers. It happens.

[+Isonzo Karst]

I've found 3 caches that hadn't been yet been published while hunting for places to put multi-cache stages.

 

Often a good place to hide a cache is a good place to hide a cache.

 

I'd believe the log of the finder.

[jbuffethed]

It can vary wildly how long it takes to get a FTF. I have 20 finds, and got my 1st FTF on the 14th find, because the cache happened to be posted 2.2mi from my house and I had nothing going on.

 

This happened to me this weekend. Actually woke up at 10am, scrolled through and was like crap a new listing. Got dressed real quick and told my wife Id be right back.

[+eagsc7]

Select email notifications: On your My Profile page, on the hand side, select...Set Up Notifications

 

Set your email program to ring a loud alarm when you receive an email about a newly published cache

 

Quickly download it to your gps

 

Throw on a robe and some slippers

 

Run out of the house and drive like a crazy person until you get there!

 

Better to sleep in your robe and slippers, or the time it takes to put them on may make you too late. I'm convinced that some cachers sleep in their cars just waiting for a new cache to pop up.

 

You must have been watching me...

[+TomToad]

You could just wait for a cache that no one can find, then go and find it.

 

There is a cache about 10 miles from where I live. When I saw the next day after it was published that no one had logged a find on it, I thought it might be an opportunity for a FTF. Went and searched for like an hour. I saw footprints around and was sure someone had beaten me to the FTF, but I didn't want to give up just in case. Eventually I decided that I needed to clear my brain and would search out other caches for a while.

 

After finding a couple of other caches in the area, I found a StarBucks and logged onto the Geocaching site. I expected to see a FTF logged on the one cache already, but to my surprise, there still wasn't one. I went back to the site and searched some more. Searched for about another 10 minutes before that geosense kicked in and had my hand on the cache within seconds.

 

I half expected there to be several names logged on the log sheet, but to my surprise, it was empty. I was the FTF. My First, and so far only, FTF.

 

Now over a month later, and I'm still the only person to find that cache. Would that be an OTF?

[+TwoSox Trekkers]

It can vary wildly how long it takes to get a FTF. I have 20 finds, and got my 1st FTF on the 14th find, because the cache happened to be posted 2.2mi from my house and I had nothing going on.

 

This happened to me this weekend. Actually woke up at 10am, scrolled through and was like crap a new listing. Got dressed real quick and told my wife Id be right back.

 

Sweet- congrats!