Shocking Geocache!



Can You Spot The Geocache?  It's In Plain Sight

I posted a few weeks ago that I had found my 200th Geocache.  A lot of the caches that I find and that others find, are very similar.  Certain geocaches, such as the "skirt lift" light pole cache, are almost always the same.  But every once in a while there are some different caches that stand out. 

Here is one that I found the other night.  As you can see on right, it was around a number of electric boxes, but if you look closely the actual geocache is hidden in plain sight, do you see it?

Ah, A Simple Geocache

 Underneath the long horizontal box was this plate at left.  It is an outlet cover that is fixed with magnets to attach to something metal.  I have found several of these, usually attached to a metal pole or something similar.

When I noticed this, I thought I had found the geocache, there would be no other reason for this to be where it was.

The First Decoy Geocache I have Ever Found

As it turns out, this wasn't the cache, but rather a decoy intentionally placed nearby to get your attention.

This is the first time that I have ever seen a decoy cache, but it is a clever idea.  You get excited that you located the geocache, but you have to keep looking.  So I put the plate back and continued the search.

Does That Look Like A Geocache To You?

After looking around for probably 10-15 minutes in the dark, I noticed this box to the right.  It had a conduit that went all the way to the ground, but nothing else was attached to it. 

I also noticed that the paint color was slightly off, and the metal attaching it looked newer than the rest of the metal in the area.  I checked the base of the conduit and noticed that it went into the rocks below, but then stopped.  There were no wires actually going into it.

Locating the Geocache

The next step was to look and see what part detached and might hold a log.  The small piece of pipe sticking out on the left side of the box came out easily.  Inside the tube was a tightly rolled log.

It's always fun to find geocaches like this.  I've only hidden a couple geocaches, so far they have been very simple.  I enjoy seeing how creative people can be when hiding their caches.  Have you found a geocache that was hidden in a surprising location?  Let me know in the comment section below.

Big Brown Trout From Eleven Mile State Park



Back country camping at Eleven Mile State Park



Last weekend I got a chance to spend a few days fishing and camping at Eleven Mile State Park.  We camped in the back country sites and used the pontoon boat to go in and out.  It offered the convenience of car camping, bringing a stove, tents and food, without having to carry it on our backs.  But by going into the back country, we were able to enjoy the lake with some privacy.  It seemed as if we had the lake to ourselves. 

Unfourtunately, this fishing was pretty slow for pretty much the entire weekend.  We only managed to catch a few Rainbow Trout, the best being about 17".  We tried trolling with downriggers, lead core and flat lines. 

As we were getting ready to drop some items off at the car, we noticed some one fishing by the dock, having walked right past the "No Fishing On The Dock" sign.  We noticed that as we were unloading, he caught three small rainbows.  As we pushed off from the dock, my cousin caught a couple rainbows as we slowly motored away from the marina. 

Since we had more luck with the castin near shore, we decided to cast near one of the Eleven Mile State Park islands.  We caught a few more rainbows and had several more bites.  Shortly before we were ready to leave I got a pretty good bite on a Brown Trout colored spoon:

21" Brown Trout from Eleven Mile State Park

Once I got him on the boat, he measure 21", one inch shy of making a master angler rating.  It is by far my personal best for Brown Trout.  

Though the fishing could have been better, the trip was still an overall delight.  It's hard to beat camping and fishing, especially when you are right on the water and there isn't anyone else camping within sight of you. 



Eleven Mile State Park Camping

Here is a quick time lapse video I made of some of the weather at Eleven Mile State Park when I was camping there over the weekend.  We had beautiful sunny weather and parts of the weekend were cloudy, rainy and a little snow even fell.  Enjoy the quick video.

If you like the time lapse video, check out how to make them here:  Creating Time Lapse Videos

How To Prime A Backpacking Stove

I've been asked in the past, what is the difference between a liquid fuel stove and a canister fuel stove?  Both have advantages and disadvantages when it comes to hiking and backpacking.  When describing the difference, some people are a little apprehensive about the idea of "priming" a liquid fuel stove.  The process is actually very easy, it just takes a couple minutes and you can do it as you are getting your pots ready for dinner.

Here is a quick video I made that describes and demonstrates the priming process:

The video is with a MSR Dragonfly, burning white gas.  The process is similar for other liquid fuel stoves and with different fuels.  For example, I have used ordinary unleaded fuel in the Dragonfly before.

MSR Whisperlite stove

Are there any other how to videos you would like to see?  Let me know in the comment section below.

1000 Views And Counting

Well, I've hit another milestone, it took me about two months to get to 500 views here, but then in just under a month I received another 500 views, putting me at over 1,000.  Thanks to all of you that have been reading and leaving comments.  I have been getting a lot of traffic from Fishexplorer and Hubpages, so a special thanks to you guys.

Keep coming back and checking the blog out.  I went to Chatfield today and caught a couple fish, tomorrow I'll add some pictures from the trip.  Later in the month I am going to try and hit Eleven Mile State Park, so stay tuned!