Cache as Cache Can

With a bit of free time on my hands I've been paying attention to the string of geocaches that I have out in the world.  I mostly enjoy making and placing custom caches.  Finding them, eh, not so much.

Over time they tend to need maintenance.  Water gets into everything.  Put something inside a hollow tree and the tree blows over.  On occasion people who find the caches have their own eccentric ideas of how they should be rehidden.  

One cache I had near a ball field was called Brown Bat.  It was hidden inside a little plastic souvenir baseball bat.  I think it was something you could buy full of beer at the local minor league ball park.  Alas, it vanished, so I decided to replace it with something a bit more Lugosi themed...

That was a "one off", but I also have geocache series going.  Local History is rather unofficial.  Strange Fish is a long running series where I put a geocache - usually a custom container made to look like the species - where I caught some weird bottom feeding critter.  That's getting harder to do btw.  I'm up to 15 in this series.  HERE is an example.

Recently I started a new series that I'm calling Crossroads.  All at intersections of county roads.  For some reason these are designated with letters, and when they ran through the alphabet they started using double letters.   The juxtaposition of signs at such places provides, shall we say, opportunities.....

For instance......The House at Pooh Corner  What creative things could you do with semi random arrangements of two or three letters?

The Long Portage Moves. A Little.

A while back I had a look at an unusual and neglected monument.  It marked one end of a long portage that was part of the connection between Lake Superior and the Mississippi River system.  I put a geocache there, and it got a fair number of visitors.  Likely more than this obscure marker had seen in a while.

Well, a few weeks back a geocacher said the entire monument had been demolished.  Nothing left but a pile of stones.  As this would be an unusual degree of industry for most vandals I expressed the hope that the plaque had just been relocated.  

As indeed came to pass.  It's now a couple hundred yards to the East, right on County Road M outside the American Legion Post.  Hence the flags.  The ghostly image of Hank the Dog is just happenstance.

Alas, no good place for a geocache here.

Strange Fish - Smallmouth Buffalo

Perhaps because it is the "in between" times where not much is happening, but some of my hobbies might be getting a bit out of hand.  Several years back I picked up Geocaching.  It's harmless enough.  You follow gps coordinates and clues, you find something, you sign your name on a log.  Easy.   

But I decided it was more fun to make custom geocaches.  And series of hides.  Hence the Strange Fish series.  

The latest entry features this guy.  The Smallmouth Buffalo.  

This is actually an impressive fish.  It can get big, the Wisconsin state record is 81 pounds.  They can live a long time, perhaps a hundred years.  And while you've probably never caught one, or if you did thought it was just a carp, they are an important fish commercially and a prized target of bow fishermen.  This combination of growing big and being targeted by both commercial fishing nets and arrows has put their populations into a decline of late.....

So I needed a really good container for this geocache.  I started out with a slab of weathered, broken up railroad tie.  These are full of creosote and therefore pretty water resistant.  Here's the cache....

I think that's sneaky enough to avoid the casual eye..... But to those looking closely.....

These letters are engraved with a Dremel and highlighted with Sharpie.  A bit too evident at the moment but they will "age in" nicely in a month or two.  Oh, and if you open it up...

Hinges are straps of nylon from an old deer hunting harness.  Feet belong to me and to Hank the Dog.  Looking closer....

I've carved out a fish shaped hollow in the lower section to contain the waterproof inner container.  The latter has a laminated, hopefully waterproof picture of a Smallmouth Buffalo.  To help keep it waterproof there are various drain holes drilled into the bottom of the cavity.  The whole thing locks together with a peg that you can't see in this view.  Next time around I think I'll add some sort of locking pins making it a "gadget cache" to be figured out.

Here's the cache designation and coordinates.  Strange Fish #14.

Old Ghosts and a New Species

Sometimes I get tips, suggestions on where I might catch a new fish species.  Of course the easiest way to do this is to launch a boat and range far and wide, but I'm trying to place a geocache near each new species catch site, so we are mostly talking bank fishing here.

I had a hot tip on a species called "Mooneye".  I've been after this one for years.

On the way down to the site I passed a really old cemetery.  Said to be haunted.

Old stones.  Felled by time, but still trying to preserve memories.

And then on with the fishing.  On about the second cast up came this guy!

Yes he does have weird eyes, but this is a Sauger.  And is a new species for me.  So of course I had to work it up for a Strange Fish geocache.  This cache container is not fish shaped - this would be a tough one to do - but does contain a handy guide to help folks tell the difference between Sauger and their close cousin the Walleye.

Strange Fish #13 - Sauger

Strange Fish #12 - Yellow Perch

This is sort of an accidental cache.  When I knew I had to do something about the geocache that had been incinerated in a campfire, I decided to bring my fishing gear along on the retrieval mission.  Three casts, three nice yellow perch.

Now, you might question the "strange" status of this fairly common fish.  Well now.  The reason they were biting like crazy is that it was their spawning season.  And speaking of crazy, these guys are promiscuous to a degree that I decided to give them Strange status.  Geeze, fish orgies, who knew....

Anyway, here's the new custom container.  It's not a perfect match but I do have practical limitations.  I don't for instance want people to hurt themselves on nasty dorsal spines.

It will go near the location of the previous cache, but I think I'll hide this one carefully.  Its kind of showy.

Heraculeum, Wisconsin.

Well, no.  There is no such town in Wisconsin, but we do have a Sparta, a Troy and a diminutive Rome, so its not entirely implausible.  But Heraculeum would have been considered bad luck.  It was one of the communities destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.

Its the less famous cousin of Pompei.  But conditions at Heraculeum were a bit different.  Without getting too far into the technical weeds, Heraculeam was hit with a blast of heat so rapid that all the oxygen vanished, leaving organic material to be preserved, albeit in a charred state.

Most famously, an ancient library was discovered at the Villa of the Papyri.  The conservation challenges associated with preserving, unrolling and reading 1800 priceless ancient scrolls are considerable.  Suffice it to say that it can be done.  Slowly.  Carefully.  Imperfectly.

But getting back to Wisconsin.  I had a fun geocache on the banks of the Chippewa River.  It had photos and information on a local historic landmark.  I had it nestled inside an odd bit of hollow masonry.  Imagine my surprise when a geocacher reported back that they had found it.  Incinerated.

I've had caches be chopped up by loggers, swiped by kids, swept away by high water.  But this was a new one.  You see, it turns out that somebody had built a fire ring out of the abundant rubble on the banks.  Including.....

Yep.  The poor geocache was still inside the masonry.  And very much the worse for its roasting.

Charred PVC pipe.  Entirely melted on one end.  The darker, crispier part on top was a metal fastener that of course transmitted even more heat.  Looks bad, but hey, if scrolls can withstand a volcanic eruption........

Let's saw it open.

Remarkably there were things still intact inside.  The melted plastic is a ziploc that had contained the photos and sign in log.  Geocachers use these as moisture is the bane of geocaches.  Well, this was the driest geocache log in recorded history!

Some of the photo could still be made out.  Its of the dam just up stream.

And the log.  I'll have to post this on the local geocaching site.  If there is not a Hall of Fame yet, this should start one.

There are lots of videos out there on how they Xrayed the scrolls and used some very sophisticated software to reconstruct the text without the need to unroll these delicate items.  Here's a short overview.  It's pretty amazing.

 

A New Sturgeon

There is good news/bad news to the Strange Fish geocache series.  Because the containers are usually in places where there are people around, they get swiped or moved by accidental finders.  And the cooler the container the more likely this is to happen.  But that's OK.  For me the fun is mostly building a good "fish" container and I don't mind replacing them with an upgraded version.

I've done various things in the series, not all of them look like the fish they commemorate.  But they do have to be waterproof and big enough for the geocache log and maybe a pencil and some "swag", things people leave behind and exchange.

This was version 1.0 of the cache container.

Not bad, but the shiny duct tape was not an ideal covering, and I got the fins wrong.  The head is removable to get at the inner ziplock with the cache log.

Strange Fish Lake Sturgeon 1.0 vanished once completely after about a year in service.  I replaced it with a 2.0 version that was tossed together quickly.  This version was based on a Rapala lure, and sat on top of a screw cap section of PVC pipe.  Alas, a screw on cap that allows grit to get into it soon becomes difficult.  So, time for version 3.0.

Here's 2.0 and 3.0 side by side.  I rather like the newest version.  The fins and tail are now flexible but sturdy bits of mouse pad material.  The head unscrews.

The exterior is wrapped with friction tape.  It is better visual camoflage especially when it picks up various bits of dirt and bark on its slightly sticky surface.

I also think I have the head and eyes much more realistic, even if the body is a bit too skinny.

The newest version of the geocache was based on this:

This is some kind of in ground sprinkler nozzle.  If you squint you can see that I got these for a buck each at the surplus store.  I had to slice off the side port, as it was a bit thick for a fin, but otherwise did not have to do much to make a nice waterproof cache container.  It is a bit long and thin for most species.  Next time I do a new container I'll have a start to finish tutorial.

White Sucker

In my ongoing campaign to put "Strange Fish" geocaches out into the world I have had to concentrate on certain species.  The nature of the project pretty much requires shore fishing, and some reasonable access by foot.  So, its a lot of fishing rivers and streams, and that limits you a bit.

One species I've been trying to add to the portfolio is shown above.  May I introduce Catostomus commersonii.  I guess most people would call this a White Sucker.  Eh, in the age of NSFW internet searches that might not be the best name.  And besides.......

Way back in the early days of what is now Wisconsin there was a tiny corner down in the southwest part that had an early mining boom.  There was a little bit of trade in lead with the natives in the 1700's, and when the land was opened up for exploitation in the 1820's a rush of miners turned up.

Some of these miners wintered over.  They just took the shallow pits they had excavated and put a roof on them.  As they were living in their burrows they came to be nicknamed "Badgers".  This moniker was extended to cover all denizens of what is still The Badger State.

Ah, but what of those faint of heart, those delicate flowers from (mostly) Illinois who ran up the river in the spring and back down in the fall?  As this replicates the behaviour of our friend Catostomus, the term "Suckers" was applied to them.  I can report that the term is no longer used here to describe residents of Illinois.  They are usually called something worse.

Anyway, I was happy to catch the little guy shown above.  And will this lead to a Strange Fish Catostomus Geocache?

Why yes indeed.  And if I may say so, the technique has continued to evolve such that the representation is more accurate.  Thank goodness I won't have to try anything really challenging like a flounder!

 

Logperch

This cute little fella is a logperch.  It's been on my "try to catch one" list for a while now.  I was out in early May trying to find places for Strange Fish geocaches.  I was actually trying to catch something else but this over achiever kept hitting a worm/hook combo that was bigger than he was.  I downsized it a bit and got him on the second cast.

It takes some work to catch logperch.  They favor fast moving streams so people out casually drowning worms to catch panfish won't encounter them.  

And yes, the catch did result in a cache. Specifically: Strange Fish #7.

Redhorse Redux

With geocaches you can either go boring or high maintenance. 

For boring you use one of several standard geocache containers.  Things like film canisters, ammo boxes, or one of several commercially available waterproof containers.  And you put them somewhere predictable and sheltered.  Roadside signs in our part of the world are often supported by wooden 4 by 4 posts.  These posts have holes to, I suppose, deal with temp related expansion and contraction.  Film canisters fit neatly, but how boring.

I like to make custom containers and hide them in odd places.  Hence the Strange Fish series.  With considerable effort I've managed to catch enough weird, unloved fish to place ten geocaches.  One of which is Strange Fish 3 - Silver Redhorse.  

If you've never caught one, Silver Redhorse are a sort of sucker.  Not much good to eat but fun to catch and an indicator of good water quality.

They are kinda dopey looking, mostly because of the vacuum cleaner mouth, but have variable degrees of red color in their fins that makes them jaunty.

I've gone through three containers now at this geocache.  The first was hidden inside a chunk of wood....which was obliterated by brush clearing.  The second was a crafty bit of bark colored tubing that was attached to a gnarly shrub of similar texture.  When this lost its waterproofing abilities (a season or two of temperature extremes can do that) it was winter and I was busy. So I threw together a more or less fish shaped container with what I had on hand.  But I never liked it much and it too started to get damp inside.  That makes the geocache log hard to sign and is generally poor form.  So, down to the workshop.  My latest iterations are made of pvc pipe with snug end caps.  But can you make it look like a fish?

Here's container three below, underneath what I consider to be a much better version 4.0.  I even figured out a way to have surface texture similar to scales!

The fins are a bit over the top, but in part they are to keep the cache off the ground and hopefully a bit drier.  Construction technique is similar to the Strange Catfish cache but I'm with some effort getting better at this.

Catfish Geocache

Sometimes there is a logical progression from one "season" to another.  As the robotics storage closet got cleared out I, as usual, got a bunch of stuff that had to come home with me.  I refer to my basement as Area 51.  And some things actually proved useful for geocache construction.

I take my geocaches seriously.  Oh, lots of folks just cram a piece of paper into a film container, maybe add a little camo tape and call it good.  I regard that as unambitious.  I want my containers to look cool and to remain water and damage proof for years.  Trying to keep up roughly 30 caches when I'm busy with other things is a pain.

One series I've had fun with is Strange Fish.  I try to catch some weird denizen of the muddy depths, then commemorate them with a geocache on the spot.  When possible, in the shape of a fish.

One of these was Channel Cat, Strange Fish number 6.  

It was getting a bit weathered and beat up after a couple of winters "in the wild".  Time for a new one.

Lets start with a section of PVC pipe.

When you want something to be waterproof....start with a pipe designed to keep water in.  Should work to keep it out too.  There are end caps that we'll get to shortly, but I wanted this to look a bit "fishier".  A series of plastic discs cut with a hole saw and glued into place.  The bolt is tightened in and serves as an anchor point for the tail.

Like everything else so far, the tail is made of old robot supplies, in this case thin polycarbonate plastic, later covered with black duct tape.

Tail assembled, attached and covered, similar set of fins made the same way.

The head is just an end cap, not glued on of course, with a couple of bolts for eyes.  Memo to self, purchase more stick on googly eyes.  The cache now being near complete it only required a bit of covering tape( the grippy stuff used on baseball bats) and whiskers, and to be released into the wild....

I know it does not look too much like a channel catfish, but I enjoy a bit of whimsey in such matters.  There are various ways to mount these with hangers and such, but the head is press fit well enough that a ground hide should be fine, especially since the paper log and a small pencil are contained inside a heavy duty ziplock.

I look forward to refining the technique further to approximate other Strange Fish.  Good thing I don't live near an ocean, a flounder would be a tough mod!

Chippewa City - A Gently Fading Ghost Town

When you think of Ghost Towns you usually imagine somewhere out west.  Maybe a prospector struck gold and the town sprang up overnight....only to wither and die when the lode ran out.  A life cycle that starts with nothing, booms into full life, then rapidly fades leaving only some tumbledown buildings to remember that it was ever there.

But there are other life cycles for Ghosts, and Chippewa City has had three or four stages of existence.

Technically it got going in 1825.  That's when a treaty was signed in which the Ojibwa natives gave up rights to some of Wisconsin.  And as a provision of this treaty a combination farm, trading post and blacksmith shop was to be established at a convenient point on the Chippewa River.  After some delays it seems this was actually done in 1838.

There was frankly very little European presence in this area for many years.  One event of note that did occur here was a summit meeting of sorts between the Ojibwa and Dakota tribes.  These groups had been contesting the area for several generations.  They met, gestured a bit, went their own ways and remained antagonistic towards each other.

There is little information on what was at the site later to become Chippewa City in these early days.  A Lyman Warren had a log dwelling and presumably was in charge of things.  He had an Ojibwa wife and remarkably, a library.  This was also the site of the American Fur Company post.

In 1856 there was a rumor that the railroad would come to this spot and build a bridge.  The economic impact of this would be gigantic, probably putting Chippewa City on a path to eclipse its rival, the later established town of Chippewa Falls five miles down stream.  A bank was established, at least on paper.  There land was surveyed and platted.  Homes and of course saloons appeared.

It was an illusion.  Or yet another real estate scam.  After this brief second phase as a true boom town Chippewa City began its long decline.  Here's a plat of the area in the early 1870's.

By 1888 things had changed.  The originally platted village was mostly abandoned and there were newer buildings along a road that had since appeared.  Note the school and post office.  There was also said to be a church.  The peak population of Chippewa City somewhere in this time span was around 200.

Looking at these two maps something very odd strikes me.  The mill is in the wrong place.  Pretty clearly O'Neill Creek has been dammed to form a mill pond, so why is the mill that far away, and up a hillside to boot?  Not all these maps tell the gospel truth, and in my reading I have come across references both to a mill near the pond and an unspecified "Eagle Steam Mill".

The world has passed Chippewa City by.  No railroad.  The lumbering industry sent all the logs right on past to the larger and more powerful sawmill at Chippewa Falls.  But there were still people living here.  The farmland around it was filling up and there was a need for a few basics.  School for the kids.  Salvation for everybody.  I'd be surprised if there was not a store.  

But with the advent of automobiles it became less important to have these things in walking distance.  And the third phase of Chippewa City's life was related to the new mobility.

People wanted recreation.  They wanted to stay in a cabin for a week or two.  Go fishing.  Maybe have a beer or two.  So a resort appeared.  This post card is in the archives of the Wisconsin Historical Society.  It is thought to be from the 1920's.

From the same source, a detail of one of the images....

If that indeed is the proprietor, Prosper LeDuc, then I suspect the photo might be later.  With a name that distinctive you'll pick up a few biographical details.  Prosper was evidently from the area but was living in Montana in 1909, and in Canada in both 1928 and 1934.  He and Mrs. Leduc were married sometime around 1910.  To me these look like people in their 50's, even given the hard work associated with these times.  The first I can definitely place him in Chippewa City is 1938.   

Here's the spot today.

And down by the river, what looks to be remains of a stone dam that once held back the mill pond.

The cabins from (?) the 1940's are slowly falling apart.  The tavern is gone other than a wind mangled sign advertising a brand of beer that is also extinct.  But people still live here.  It is after all a very pretty spot on the river and a string of nice new homes along the river represent a fourth wave of life in the oldest community along this stretch of the Chippewa River.

If such things are of interest I do have a geocache here.....   Ghost Town on the Chippewa

The Flying Fish of Wisconsin?

It's been a weird non-winter.  As a result some of my spring activities are happening a bit sooner than expected.  Fishing for instance.  Geocaching for another.  And where they overlap, the Strange Fish geocache series where I pay homage to the weird and mostly unloved minor fish species of Wisconsin.  The gimmick is that I catch something strange then put a geocache at the spot.  

It's not an easy task.  I'm limited to places where you can fish from shore, and by the increasing list of fishy weirdos that have already gotten a cache.  In fact.....its getting pretty hard.

So I've taken to scanning Google Maps to try and find new locations.  And recently I spotted something tempting.  An area of DNR owned land that has both Chippewa River frontage and more interestingly, about two dozen abandoned gravel pits.

My first walk around was with Hank the Dog.  He makes it hard to sneak up on anything, so while I did see various little fishies scooting away from shore I could not make any positive IDs.  But they were small, and at least two different species.

So how do fish get into gravel pits?

Sometimes there is proximity to say, a river, and in flood conditions a possible connection.  Pretty unlikely for most of these.  Sometimes people just ignore the rules on such matters and pitch a bunch of fish into new bodies of water in an impromptu stocking scheme.  Maybe....I did see evidence of other people fishing here - old worm containers mostly - and they probably had some reason to do so.

But mostly the fish fly in.

Oh, in egg form.  Ducks and geese love these little ponds.  And hop from one to another in search of whatever it is that makes them happy.  Along the way they pick up various fish eggs that stick to their feet and feathers.  Eventually, and with the right combination of factors, they do the stocking for us.

And those conditions are?  Well for most fish it would have to be a deep enough pond that it would not freeze solid.  Also it is helpful to have some kind of organic material.  Sticks and timber in the water, various aquatic plants (see also bird transport).  Big holes dug into gravel are not ideal for the sort of nutrients that feed small fish and the even smaller bugs they feed on.  Oh, and it is helpful if the water is not so shallow and nasty that oxygen levels vanish later in the year, although even that is sometimes not a deal breaker for bullheads and such.

My first attempt to catch fish here was not a success.  I was using micro-tackle, as none of the fish I saw scooting around were more than about 2 inches long. 

Not a single bite.  I think it is just a bit too early in the year.  Water temperatures, availability of hatching bugs etc.  I'll be back periodically.  In the meantime I did put out a "gateway" cache at the parking lot.  If such things interest you....

The Flying Fish of Wisconsin???

Farewell Mushroom March

I've been putting out geocaches for about four years now.  Some are basic.  But in most cases I'm trying for more.  An interesting container or highlighting an obscure bit of local history.  A couple of series caches have been on nature themes, such as the Strange Fish series.

One such series I did a couple of years ago was called The Mushroom March.  There was a woodland trail known to be popular with people out looking for edible mushrooms, so I decided to make things a bit more interesting and have five geocaches along the way.  Each had a specific theme.  Each one got harder.

Geocaches are rated on a star system.  One star is easy, five is really hard.  So MushroomMarch-1 I figured would be walk up and there it is.  MM-5 would be devilishly difficult.

As it happens I succeeded all too well.

Most of the containers I placed "weathered in" to the point that my star ratings were not nearly hard enough.  

As this series was pretty isolated it did not get many visits.  It's a very pretty walk, but lots of mosquitos.  So recently I decided to discontinue it and add more caches closer to home.  Here's a retrospective view.   That is, if you can see 'em!

Mushroom March 5 - Illusions.

The slight angulation could be a tip off, the container was starting to sag.  It had not been found in 18 months.  For those who did it was very popular.  Over 60% Favorites rating.

Mushroom March 4 - Alice.  Sometimes geocachers decide to change things on you.  This one was left upside down which makes it far easier.

In its proper configuration it was at least the four stars I gave it.  A hunk of wood in the middle of a forest full of downed lumber..

Mushroom March 3 - Attack of the Mushroom People.  This one honored a cheesy Sci Fi flick of my youth.  By now your eye is trained in so of course you see this paltry three star...

Mushroom March 2 - Homer Price  This one you can see.  Note that it actually has mushrooms growing not only next to it but ON IT!

Which brings us to Mushroom March 1.  This is right next to the parking lot and as such does get a bit of traffic.  I was tempted to leave it in place.  It's only a simple one star difficulty, right?

Well maybe not.  Here, lets sweep away some leaves.

Anyway I did decide this one could stay "in play" albeit with a higher difficulty rating.  In case any intrepid geocachers have read this far, congratulations and here's an even better hint.