Building a Cache Critter III:  Frog on Log
This one will need a toy frog, a cigar tube, a short length of chain, a bison tube, a few wood screws, a log base and a…fly.

First, we’ll prepare the frog by removing the squeaker from the frog’s mouth and making a few small cuts just big enough to allow the cigar tube to slip through.  This tube will keep the bison tube and its chain from dropping inside the frog and making it more difficult to retrieve, plus it gives it a good presentation. Determine the angle the tube will need to sit at to go through the hole and sit at the tail end inside. Mark the angle on the tube and use the side of a bench grinder stone to take off material creating a flat base with the tube at the correct angle. Next drill a hole big enough for the shank of a wood screw to go through easily. Push the tube through the  hole in the frog’s mouth and make a mark on the tube so that when cut it will protrude just far enough past the inside of the mouth to take a bead of silicon glue all the way around. Cut and smooth the edges.

Open a link of lightweight chain, like what would be used on a screen door chain, and run it through the hole for the keyring on the bison tube, then paint both cahin and bison red. The cigar tube will hold this chain and part of the bison tube ‘tongue.’ Allow the chain to slide into the tube, loosely building up until the bison sits at a point it will be supported but not be completely inside the cut off tube, this is important to make retrieval easy. Adjust the length of the chain by opening links and removing them from the free end.

Make sure that the wood screw will go through the chain link easily yet still be held securely; depending on the type chain you may be able to adjust it with a pair of pliers. Slip the chain into the tube and using a twist tie or string attach the last link so that the woodscrew will go through both.

Apply a little bit of glue to the flaps at the mouth and slip the tube into the frog and by cutting a slit in the frog’s back to allow access, screw the cigar tube and chain link through the frog’s tummy and into the wood base. Run an additional woodscrew into each leg to attach it more securely to the log.

If you’re lucky the screw head will bury itself into the leg and won’t be visible, if not touch the screw head up with a little paint. Load the chain into the tube and set your bison in place. Apply a bead of the silicone glue all around the tube and lastly glue a plastic fly onto the end of the bison. This fly probably won’t last long but it adds a nice touch for the first few to find.

You could mount several frogs all on one wooden log and only one have the paper log, (eeney meeney, miney frog, which one of you fellas has the log?)

I hope you've enjoyed the critter series, I'll have at least one more to share and I think that one will make quite a splash. If you have a creative cache or techniques for camo, please consider sharing it with your fellow readers.

By catsnfish

A couple of empty-nesters who caught the caching bug not realizing it was incurable. So if we’re found in the woods waltzing with Garmins, lifting lampskirts while tying our shoe or looking for “gum” underneath benches, be sure to stay away... it’s contagious and the only temporary relief can be found in finding bison’s, ammo’s, nano’s, or passing coins and spreading travel bugs!

Publisher's Note: Catsnfish write the periodic column The Adventures of Catsnfish. Subscribe (free) to The Online Geocacher to get an email alert when a new article is published.