Brand new to Geocaching. Searched 5 sites and only found 1. Need some pointers

[Shadon1nja]

Hey guys. I just want to say that this is seriously one of the coolest ideas I have ever heard of. I am 21 now and wish that my parents had introduced me to this hobby yearrrrs ago. I want to get pretty involved in the community (I think) and went on a 3 hour search today with a friend for the 5 closest caches to my apartment. We were only able to locate 1 of them! The one I did find was limited to a very small area because it was explicitly stated to be within the confines of a round about. I feel like I must be doing something wrong. Is there a general range from which the cache deviates from the gps location? I felt helpless on these hunts and it was mainly due to the question I kept asking myself: "am I too far away from the gps location now?" I am aware of the hints, but I am bad.

 

Any pointers you guys have to get started on this would be greatly appreciated!

[+RTechS]

The location may deviate somewhat, but I would say you may need to build your "geosense" a bit more. Watch some youtube vids on how folks hide geocaches and you will be surprised at how many things are right under your nose and you are staring right at them - especially with urban caches.

 

Also, you can look at previous log entries for clues as to where it may be hidden, what container type, etc.

[Shadon1nja]

Thanks! I will check out Youtube this evening.

[+MtnMutt-ProDuckShins]

Contact a few Cachers in your area and see if you go wander about with them. Please an eye out how they search in the general location, take mental notes.

Contact the local group around your area, meet and greets are helpful.

Good luck...

[+niraD]

A common recommendation for beginners is to stick with small size, regular size, and large size caches. Until you're more experienced, avoid micro size caches, some of which are smaller than most beginners can imagine (sometimes called "nanos"). Save those for later, after you have some experience.

 

Also, stick with caches that have a difficulty rating of no more than 2 stars . Save the more difficult ones for later. You may also want to choose caches with easy terrain ratings. (The difficulty rating tells you how hard it is to find the cache once you get there. The terrain rating tells you how hard it is to get there.) And it is often best to start with traditional caches, which will be at the published coordinates. Multi-caches or mystery/puzzle caches or other cache types can require more work just to figure out where the container is located.

 

Under ideal conditions, a consumer GPSr will be accurate to about 3m (10ft). That applies both to your device, and to the cache owner’s device, so you may find the container 5-6m (16-20ft) from ground zero under ideal conditions. Under less than ideal conditions, both GPSr readings can be much less accurate. Once you get within that distance of ground zero, put your device away and look around for places where a container could be hidden.

 

Where would you hide something? Do you notice anything unusual? Is anything too new, too old, too organized (e.g., UPS: an Unnatural Pile of Sticks/Stones), too symmetrical, not quite the right color or shape, etc.? Don’t look only on the ground; the cache may be knee-level, waist-level, eye-level, or overhead. How might the container be secured in place? With magnets? With a hook? With string? With fishing line? With something else? Does anything move when you touch it? (Be careful when touching things though.)

 

Go ahead and read the cache's additional hints (if provided), and read the past logs and look at any photos in the cache's image gallery. They may help you understand what you're looking for, and how/where it may be hidden. It may also help to look at some of the cache containers available online. For example, check out the cache containers sold by Groundspeak. Also, take a look at the Pictures - Cool Cache Containers (CCC's) thread in the forums.

[+Ranger-Eyes]

We are new to geocaching also. Right now we are only looking for easy (1 star and 1.5 star) low difficulty terrain. We have found more than we've missed, and have gone back to some later on and found them. It's getting easier to spot likely cache hides. We've been reading the hints, but now may stop doing that as finding these less difficult caches is not so difficult anymore. I've also been looking at the Google satellite map for terrain, which is helpful but sometimes spoils the fun.

 

We are sooo "hooked" on this sport. Eventually I expect we'll "graduate" ourselves to more difficult caches. But we really want this to be fun, so the easier ones are best right now.

[+MKFmly]

One of the best pieces of advice we stumbled upon is to change your approach.

 

"Think like a cache hider not a cache seeker."

 

Approach the problem as "Where would I hide a cache in this area?" instead of brute force, random (or guessing) searching.

[+J Grouchy]

Also, quite often folks will post pictures of the cache container itself or post some sort of hint in their logs. Say it reads "spend several minutes checking all the obvious places first, then looked up and made the quick find". For anyone that has cached for even just a few weeks, "obvious places" will vary per region, but often included light post skirts, guardrails, a hole in the base of a large tree, etc etc. Then the "looked up" will tell you a couple things: that it's not on the ground, that it is readily visible but camouflaged in such a way that it may not be apparent to a non-geocacher but may stand out to someone who is looking for it. Also, if there is a log that says "swapped TBs", this implies that the container is large enough to hold a Travel Bug, so it won't be a nano or a bison tube.

You just have to read into the wording on posted logs sometimes. This has helped me countless times.

[+JockoPablo]

One of the things that helped me a lot in the beginning was just getting to know my GPS. At first I would just follow it until the distance to coordinates read zero, then I'd put it away and start looking. But I learned that walking around a bit in the general area would help my GPS settle in and I'd get a more accurate reading after a few passes.

[+Wacka]

Sometimes people have amazing camo. I found a cache under a footbridge. The name was Ben, which told me it was a fake rat, but it had real gray fur on it. It looked so real I had to poke it with my hiking stick several times.

[Shadon1nja]

Wow thanks for all the tips! You guys rock!

Edited April 9, 2014 by Shadon1nja

[+Booknooker]

I was just coming to the forums to post something similar so I am so glad to have found this thread. I'm a newbie also and have DNF more than I've found so far but feel fortunate to live in an area with an abundance of caches to practice on so I'm enjoying the hunting. The biggest concern I've had so far has been the caches hidden in some of the park settings I've found; I don't want to go tromping through all the vegetation like a wildebeest to find things but sometimes I'm not sure where else to look if it's not hidden in/under the bushes near where I can stand. More practice needed, I suppose!

[+T.D.M.22]

I was just coming to the forums to post something similar so I am so glad to have found this thread. I'm a newbie also and have DNF more than I've found so far but feel fortunate to live in an area with an abundance of caches to practice on so I'm enjoying the hunting. The biggest concern I've had so far has been the caches hidden in some of the park settings I've found; I don't want to go tromping through all the vegetation like a wildebeest to find things but sometimes I'm not sure where else to look if it's not hidden in/under the bushes near where I can stand. More practice needed, I suppose!

 

There's two rules.

 

Rule one. You do NOT have to find every single cache. If for whatever reason you don't want to go for it-like yo don't want to damage any plants-it's OK to leave it.

 

Rule Two. You WILL find a cache where you go through thick brush, take a long hike, climb a steep hill, or any other highly inconvenient thing to get to the cache. After you find the cache you will turn around only to see a trail, or some form of shortcut. The harder the trip to the cache, the easier the way out will be.

[+Sealand Rovers]

I started out finding a 1T/2D cache. It took me a good hour of searching and not knowing what on earth I was looking for. Once I finally found it, everything to do with the cache including the name and the hint just made sense.

 

Now that I have developed a bit of "geosense" I have done a few multis and moving into nanos and harder caches. I still check the past logs, the clue and description to make it easier for me though, so don't underestimate this.

 

I remember one cache which the hint provided no information at all, but two past logs read "Searched everywhere, then went back to where I entered and found it immediately" and "Looked up and got a fright!" which told me two things:

 

1. When I get there, find the spot where I would probably enter to find the cache and;

2. Be prepared for the unexpected somewhere above my head.

 

It turned out to be a toy animal nailed to a tree. Looked so real but I would not have spotted it as quick if I didn't look up or enter where I did.

 

I would also say for the most part, familiarise yourself with the traditional containers like bison tubes and klip-its. Some cachers make their own though which are particularly brilliant and only add to the hobby (like my little stuffed animal mentioned above)

Edited April 21, 2014 by Sealand Rovers

[+ButtercupDW]

My wife and I started out very slowly as well. It is indeed very frustrating to look and not be able to find. In addition to the pointers left here, I would suggest searching only for those caches that have recently been found. Made a HUGE difference for us. We were actually looking for 3 caches that had not been found for quite some time. At least on eof those has now been replaced. And we found that one. Have fun!

[+Chrysalides]

Sometimes people have amazing camo. I found a cache under a footbridge. The name was Ben, which told me it was a fake rat, but it had real gray fur on it. It looked so real I had to poke it with my hiking stick several times.

 

I found a dead squirrel near a cache at least once, maybe twice. After a little investigation with a stick, I determined that it was only a dead squirrel and not some crazy camo.

 

Back to the original question. In addition to excellent advice from others, another thing you may want to do is to see when is the last time the cache was found. The more recently a cache is found, the more likely it is to still be there.

 

Another thing : phone location can be off by a long distance. Even dedicated GPS unit can be off in some locations, such as in a big city (tall buildings can cause reflection of signals known as multipath, for example). If I have time, I'll scout out the area on Google Maps before going there.

 

I would say don't restrict yourself to easier / larger caches, but be prepared to walk away BEFORE you get frustrated when searching for a tougher hide.

[+ByronForestPreserve]

I'll throw in some advice. If your first approach doesn't yield results, come at it from a different direction. The CO won't want muggles to come across the cache, so if there's one direction hikers or others might pass the location from, the cache might only be visible from the other side. I will often walk 50' or so away and start again. Might seem obvious, but it works for me a lot of the time.