What's a good guerilla spot look like

[strongbox18]

i did throw some flower and vegtable fertz on the spot that kinda got trampled i was hoping it would work, so hopefully it does it trick i havent been down there in about a week or so, so ill be sure to go down there in a few days and see how the black berrys are, hopefully i can make my new entrance.

 

[feral]

One thing we did as kids when we grew our weed back in the mid '70's was to plant inside a bamboo patch. Weaved our way in, cut out an area then put the plants in. Was no such things has flyovers back then around here. Problem bamboo has an extensive root system so you would have to use buckets or grow bags. Don't do what we did putting them in the ground, the roots of weed can't compete with bamboo roots
What I'm doing this year is semi urban again planting where no-one in their right mind would walk. People for the most part are scared of bugs and snakes and don't like to get dirty, so I plan on doing 4 sites of 3 plants each spaced a 1/2 mile or so apart. That way I'll get something out of the deal.
swamp/bogs are great and they can be found everywhere. and usually right before you get to those area's you'll find lush vegetation. But that usually means wildlife, esp. rabbits and with rabbits come snakes. In my area rattlers are unheard of we have to deal with the silent killer.....copperheads. snake leggings are a PRIORITY in those situations.
One last thing although Google maps are good go to BING maps. They have a birdseye view button that will bring you dead on top of the area. Whats also nice is that you can scout the area on bing maps in the birds eye mode at 360 degrees so you can see it from all vantage points and the maps are done year round so if your lucky the maps will show you the area from different seasons.

 

[feral]

oh one thing about growing in urban or semi-urban area's. Find out if you can where the local kids party. I don't know how today's youth is but back when we were teens in the mid '70's field parties and riding around in the wooded area's on our mini bikes or to shoot our 22's was a everyday thing and we found plenty of ditchweed in our outings. Thought we had hit paydirt until we were like no buzz and one hell of a headache smokin that crap.

 

[SagePreSkool]

I'm using sage to conceal entrances and visibility into my patch. Lots of sage around and it makes a nice thick, tick infested fence.

 

[feral]

also be careful of turtles. They'll get ya too.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/31/AR2008073101540.html

 

[strongbox18]

okay im not rely trying to get a bunch of tics tho that could be all bad dont you think?? and im checkingout bing maps and it seems cool i wish i could get the 3d feature to work though i try to install it and it wont let me install it, i have found a more heavily forested area on bing maps that would be good but we will see if its got black berry patches all over like i want it to if it does it should be great if not im sure theres a good spot in there for me =)

 

[smokeymacpot]

welll thats what i was thinking iw as thinking everything would grow much more by then but was not sure how much taller black berry patches got durring the summer so the spot i have now may acually be a good spot for me to do it at other then the fact that it is close to a trail but i did some research and foundout that the forest is used from late september to early march and is a site for greater sandhill cranes, but the area that i am thining about doing it is far off from the site viewing area and no one is allowed back in there. so im thinkking my spot may be better then i thought but i still have more plots to find heres a picture of wehat the entrace looks like from the inside of the plot i found

thats a real nice spot, wish it were mine where you cleared an entrance it made it stand out since you found a better way in, what i would do is where you cut back weeds and that, water them alot with fertilised water. a month or so should make it less noticeable, may have to brush surrounding vegetation about to cover it.

 

[hamstring]

the second picture is of the exit

as you can see my buddy walking through it, the problem is we find of hacked at the black berry bushed just a bit to make an open path for us but is it noticeable, how long do you think it would take you veg back to normal? CAUSE AFTER WE MADE THE ENTRACE I RELIZED A PERFECT WAY TO GET IN there is an oak tree to the right in the picture and in the front of our plot where we come in you can get under the tree if you push some branches and shrubs out of the way, so i figured to get in unoticed i would go under the tree and then cut out a little spot of the black berry bushes and it would be completely undetected, so back on track we did not kill the black berry bushed we just kinda hit them down a bit with a stick, so i was curious how long it would take to grow back or if i should just find a better spot but this spot has good sunlight great blackberry protection, the soil is good there is some clay but it is good and i planned on mixing some stuff into the soil anyways

For me anyways an exit strategy has more do with how you access your grow location NOT your grow spot. Both are extremely important but how you access you grow location is the one most often over looked.

Where are you parking? How often do you plan on parking there?
Where are you biking to and from? Etc.

I can tell you I have had my share of mistakes because what may seem perfectly natural to you sticks out like a sore thumb to someone who lives or works near your starting point.
I have had a little old lady drive up to me on my bike in their car and ask, "Why are you out here so many times." Just because you are on a bike doesn’t mean it’s not suspicious to the locals.

It really is very hard to find a great spot to launch your grow operation. Don’t forget you also have to have a spot to off load your supplies without drawing attention. So you have it all planned out to bike 5 miles to a remote spot hide your bike and hike another 2 miles. Sounds well thought out but how and where to you plan to drop off all materials. If you like many of us you think well its risky but I will just drop off all the materials ONCE right here and hope for the best. From my experience there is never just ONCE at any location.

StrongBox
I bring this up because in my opinion it is impossible to have an entrance to the actual grow spot with out some sort of trail. Impossible, I don’t believe it can be done especially in the fall when native vegetation dies back that same spot will look much more vulnerable. So we all have to pray to the MJ gods at some point it won’t be found and if we do all of our up front planning right we have hopefully tilted the odds in our favor.
Good luck and don’t emphasize to much over the exit from the grow spot it cant be hid completely especially if you have to access to water on a regular basis. Just cant be done. Deer don’t run through the woods with out leaving a trail so none of us clumsy footed humans are going to be able either.
PEACE

 

[strongbox18]

welll i always have my girl friend drop me off so my car is never seen and i grew up on this river and fish it pretty much everyday of my life so everytime i go to my plot i have a fishing pole and i usually catch fish im a pretty serious fisherman and i think anyone that saw me would definitly believe so when i go it doesnt seem suspisious if you ask me and i have acsess to both swamp and a beautfull river so watering will not be a problem i already threw some fertilizer on the ground the peleted kind just to cover up my trail not my herb nutes, and it has now rained lightly for 2 days wich should allow those nutes to work. i dont bike down there i just hike all the way through, first i go through trees, then a nlack berry patch, then it looks like its either gona be corn butr im leaning more toward toolies because they are already pretty tall like up to my head so i walk through a field of that, then i go through more trees, once i get through those trees i go into a meadown with 1 treee smack dab int he middle and then meadown is surrounded with thick black berry bushes and then i can acsess my plot im just hoping to make a new entrance and possible find a few more plots im acually going down there today so we will see what else i find and the thing about my location is when i found it the spot thats cleared out well it was pretty much cleared when i found it i just made it a little bigger, but there werre no signs of growing and the dirst was just like all the other dirt in my area cause i dug and there werend any old roots, or perlite or anything except my native dirt and i know what my native dirt looks like feel like and smells like i love the rver i grew up on ive had so many good times on it and if i cant find anymore good sections to grow in at this spot wich i think k ill find plenty then ive got plenty of other spots on the river that i know well and would be home to a great grow spot well hopefully today i can get some work done i rely wish buddies of mine had some seeds cause im rely on a tight budget this year cause theres been alot of stuff going on

 

[.clunk]

Human activity in the area isn't the worst thing, you just have to know the traffic patterns, how to blend in and be discreet. I actually use the traffic in my area to help conceal me, I just throw my bike on the back of my car and blend in with alot of other mountain bikers in the area. The main difference is that most Mountain bikers are focused on getting to the trail they're riding that day, not about stashing their $4000 rig on the side of the road and going for a hike straight up the mountain.

My spot this year is in a fairly busy area, but I've made it hard for people to stumble across it by selecting a site straight up the mountain, you'd have to be really motivated to sweat your ass up there. As long as there is no trail I'm not concerned about rippers, they'd have to stumble across it by shit luck. I only used the closest access once to carry in materials, and the next use will be at harvest to get the finished product out. Otherwise, I randomly jump off the logging road and start hiking towards my patch, this way I never follow the same route twice.

One key point you have to realize is that we don't really know just how many people do see our spots, it's entirely possible for people to stumble across the patch and not give a damn, they might just get out of there ASAP in fear of violence from the grower or whatever.

 

[bombadil.360]

Deer don’t run through the woods with out leaving a trail so none of us clumsy footed humans are going to be able either.

As long as there is no trail I'm not concerned about rippers, they'd have to stumble across it by shit luck.

hamstring is wise... nowdays, I can pick up the spots at the entrance of trails where couples usually go off the trail to make out and stuff... I stopped following them trails they leave from just one time visit after I started stumbling upon panties and condoms... yuck.

 

[strongbox18]

i wish i had a mountain to hike up that would be perfect unfortunately where im from the closest mountain is about 45 minutes away or so, all i have is forests and a river wich i think is great but i think if it had a mountain it would be perfect cause id go so far up that thing no man would want to even try to get my shit, and yes i stay away from all the trails i see, sometimes ill follow a deer trail for a bit and then hop off the train into black berry patches, thats what i have the most of in my area is black berry patches and i want to make a good use of them without making a big trail i dont have poisonous snakes in my area cause its to cold for rattle snakes, but there are spiders here and there and im down to crawl through under the black berrty bushes i just dont know what to expect to be in there and what to do if i got bit by something but its a risk im just gona have to take ill wear a sweat shirt my jeans and boots and i guess hope for the best and hope to find a clearing or just make one

 

[RudolfTheRed]

Just because your plants are high in the mountains don't mean the cops wont get them or rippers wont either. Just because its hard to get to don't mean some ripper wont make the trip. I grew up in the Appalachian mountains near some of its highest and steepest points and growers out there still go there shit ripped. If you have deep forests and water nearby that is all you need. People aren't afraid to hike mountains. Hell I do it recreationally and for fun and so do a lot of other people that grew up here. I can hike miles and miles out here in no time and im not the only one.

 

[strongbox18]

yeah i know what you mean i hike through the woods all the time where i grew up cause i fish that whole river pretty much everyday and i just hike up and down it all day and explore all the land, so today im gona hike quite a few miles to find some more locations im gona be praying to jah not to get ripped thats for sure and in my area i dont have to worry about choppers too much and im always wearing a good amount of camo when i go in there

 

[strongbox18]

once im done looking around some more today i should be able to post up some pics of the new spots and the work ill do on them =)

 

[hamstring]

Great input everyone and I agree you can grow near humans, they don’t become people until I get a chance to meet them and decide, I have done it too it’s just not my first choice.

Like everyone has said study the movement or habits of humans. I once chose a spot that I used for a few years by pure luck but when I sat down to think why it helped me in future spots choices

I was accessing the spot via a forest preserve. No problem parking there and no problems being seen with a backpack as long as it was accompanied with a fishing pole. The spot was on private land but butted up against the forest preserve and at least a 1/2 hour walk threw nettles and briars it was a stinging nightmare. The nettles went right through your pants every step and the underbrush was terrible tripping over unseen logs.

I found what I thought were 3 good locations and once spring rolled around the nest year I put a few plants in each spot (all my experience comes out of failure and I have had a belly full of failure). Everything was cool I cared for the plants and not many people were willing to trespass to find a better fishing spot not many but a few it was obvious.
Then school let out and 4th of July came around and all the weekend warriors hit the forest preserve. I came back and found tracks everywhere people had been all over the private property by either walking in the water or on the banks right next to my plants. FUCKED except one area and I never gave it a second thought just harvested that year and a couple other years and moved on.

I sat down and thought why aren’t they coming here and it hit me there was a private camping area just across the river I was on and I had to very careful because I could have been easily seen and there was even an old home made bridge (no longer functional) on my side that they used to use many moons ago. No one fished (trespassed) here because of fear of being seen by the owners across the river. Funny how the worst spot was really the best.

I learned two things


1. Don’t ever fucking believe no one else but you will go through the nettles and thorns or no trespassing you are fooling yourself.

2. Think about (do a autopsy) on why a spot works or doesn’t work.

PEACE

 

[strongbox18]

wow thats a very good point hamstring what you just explained to me sounds pretty much exactly like my area except there is no camp site but on the other side of the river there is a big park with a huge lake but im a good ways away from that place and where im at is trespassing its an old wildlife preserve i called yesterday and they no longer do tours on it even.

 

[PermaBuzz]

Although rural locations have alot of seclusion, keep in mind that, in the country, a person who doesnt belong there really stands out.
Thats why I prefer suburban-ish locations. Railroad tracks, powerlines, even abandoned/foreclosed commercial proeprties can be good choices. I've had success with "microspots" 50 ft away from roads and in overgrown retention basins behind fast food restuarants. Swampy land or "near swamp" is best at repelling people although out west, that may be a people magnet instead due to overall dry climate.
If you make a trail, try to fix the the grass as you leave. Strategically places branches or a curtain of brush all help. I've had some small scraggly plants growing in a thick grassy spot that couldnt be seen from 5 ft away - where's waldo.

 

[strongbox18]

welll im definitly learning alot from this thread and thats what i was hoping for and today i decided not to go acually because of the weather but if the weather is good tomorow i will go out there and check things out and see if my trails dissapeared even tho i only made 1 obvious trail wich was the entrance

 

[feral]

when it comes to trails I think some overlook the obvious and that is 'small' game trails like for rabbits,etc. I'll explain.
About 2 weeks ago I went out to a spot that I thought was good. Extremely lush vegetation everywhere surrounded by swamp on 3 sides. Found what I thought was a 'perfect' spot. Soil was fantastic, water close by, etc. So I'm getting ready to leave the area and where I jumped in at I noticed a 'small' game trail. Normal person would not notice it. I followed it for a while and it dead ended. But about 20 feet away was the SPOT I had just visited.
Point is people can and will see the small unnoticeable trails and follow them just for whatever reason.
This is why I will NEVER put all my eggs in one basket. Split that grow up so if worse comes to worse you'll harvest something at the end