While I’m usually the one being cited as the author of a conflicting puzzle location, I have been on your side of the fence and know the feeling. I have learned to precede any new puzzle creation by first asking the reviewers if my target Final locations are clear and I usually submit two or three options at once, knowing there may be a conflict.

Fortunately, in almost every case, am I able to determine who owns the conflict cache either through the reviewer discretion or just by local knowledge of what others have placed in the area. Then I have to decide if it’s worth the effort of contacting the CO to request a move or just look for an alternate location for mine, which I have to do more often than not.

The frustrating thing you are running into is the fact that you can’t simply find out where those other puzzle caches are so you can work around them. You may be given the CO’s name by the reviewer in which case you can contact them and ask for the cords or ask for a general area to stay away from. As a puzzle owner, I respect the trust the reviewers are given and their duty to protect final puzzle locations.

As far as distance conflicts, there isn’t much anyone can do about strict adherence to the 528′ rule for final caches nor the fact that there are many hidden puzzle finals out there that we cache creators will stumble on and have to deal with. I think a little bit more flexibility with the distance rule – applied specifically to puzzle finals – would help, but also appreciate the slippery slope it would create.

I have almost always been able to work around the issue by working with cache owners or tweaking mine. Try not to get discouraged because of this one incident, though I know after 3 days of tacking and set-up, the frustration must be substantial. I’ve been there too.

One potential solution would be to run the tack course to a “clear” point where you could place an intermediate waypoint with final coordinates to a final cache some distance away, but also in a clear zone. There is no guideline for firetacks conflicting with caches, so run the course anywhere you want without regard of the 2 placed caches that are in conflict. Ask the reviewer to check on a couple potential new final locations and see what comes of it.

On the flip side, I would like to take a moment to say how pleased I am that there are so many great puzzles in Green Bay. We have made several trips to Green Bay where the only reason we went there was to hunt puzzle caches. I wish we had more puzzles in our area. I can understand the op’s frustration, but don’t flame puzzle hiders, as there are those of us that enjoy puzzles much more than any other type of cache.

@sandman4182 wrote:

I wanna take a moment and say how I’m not please with the amount of Mystery caches in the areas. We went and spent THREE days setting up a night cache and come to find out there are Two finals for mystery caches by the area I places my cahes and for me to be able to figure them out I have to do the Stupid puzzle and its bonus which for me to figure out the bonus I have to do EIGHT PUZZELS. I think this is rediculus I know MacGyver74 had the same problem.. Any thoughts on this.. I was told that where you start your Mystery cache you have to be withing 2 miles.. Why two miles that takes up so much more area for just one cache!!!, !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ❗ ❗ 👿 👿 👿 👿 👿 😕 😕 😕 😕 ❗ ❗

One thing that might help is to find the GIS map for your county, now that most counties have on-line GIS maps that show who owns each parcel of land. You would be surprized by the number of parcels owned by cities and counties that are not commonly known to be parks and dont yet have geocaches, where your geocache can be placed.

Check out this website to see if your target county is included, and I will bet a nickely that by poking around a bit on the interactive GIS map you can find a place to put your cache.

http://publicrecords.onlinesearches.com/Wisconsin-GIS-and-Mapping.htm

zuma

@Team Deejay wrote:

Actually, what you don’t see is for every “dedicated” hider like Sandman who runs into this in the Green Bay / Fox Cities area, there are 10 newbies who walk away from the game because it is too hard to find a spot for their first cache.

Seriously? I know there are a limited number of guardrails and a limited number of parks, but I’ve identified over a dozen possible hide spots within 3/4 mile of downtown Neenah without even being “creative”. There are also hundreds of thousands of acres of untapped DNR properties that people are just to lazy to utilize because they don’t lend themselves to P&G scenarios.

@Team Deejay wrote:

Part of me would like to see a rule where you need to place 5 traditionals or multis for each mystery cache, but I know that this would just lead to a bunch of throwaway caches that no one likes.

I’d quit placing if it came to something like this. Just curious if you would also require that everyone find / log one puzzle for every 5 traditionals they find as well? Extreme? Maybe, but jut playing the devils advocate from a Mystery lover perspective.

Just my opinion (take it or leave it).

I’m personally a fan of puzzles, if they put restrictions on placing puzzles I think we’d see a lot more field solve puzzles listed as multis which seems to bother people even more.

DeputyDog – I’ve found that most puzzle owners are more than happy to give you a hint or help with the solve, which will hopefully give you some ideas on solving others. Otherwise, try to find an experienced cacher in the area who might be willing to assist you a bit with some of the puzzles. Personally, I’ve talked to a couple people who didn’t give me solves, but gave me some ideas on how people create puzzles and some basic solving tricks.

Another option is to poll the “legends” in an area and ask if they’re aware of any untapped areas. I did this here in Neenah and got some great feedback from cachers that “know where everything is”. Just ask them general questions about any areas that they may know of and you’ll be surprised what you get back.

What does that mean when you didn’t ask me? 😯

This is the same issue you have with multis. I don’t see what the big deal is.

Also I might point out that since you were proposing a night cache, which has by definition an unpublished final location…