I'll answer it. This was a good question, overdue and well framed.
1. I'm after a particular type of cache, not just any cache. I'm a hobbiest hunter and don't want to go full time. That way this stays fun. So I look in specific type of lead material, be it newspaper, old book, word of mouth, or other source. This makes my 'to be studied further' list.
2. I go to the library, cross reference the area, ie. local county history books, newspaper articles, often personal papers donated to a university collection, or other sources of local lore. I'm looking more to throw the lead out than to find other leads. I'm looking for the 'doesn't make sense' evidence so I can throw it out. However, sometimes I find corroboration. This makes it to my "A" list. Once there, I break out my GIS, and googleearth and look at terrain and build up of the area. Quick and easy, then I take a recon trip to the area and find the local history guy, there's always one. Chat with him, it's easy, I have good social engineering skills. Pick up more info to narrow the scope, or find out it's been found. Usually I have to do some genealogy to narrow it down, and people LOVE talking about that crap. I may have to pull county records to figure out where farmer John held his land in 1921, but I know my GIS, metes and bounds calls (or Section township range). (sometime this winter I'll publish a open source GIS how to)
On rare occasions when I get stuck, I'll write an article in the local newspaper about some of the history and ask for old folks to contact me if they know about xxx.
3. Once I make it my active chase, I find the landowner. Call ahead, saying I'm coming out to the area to do some historical research in a few days/weeks. Show up on their door, dressed neatly for the area, but not dapper. Make sure you have something interesting to show of your research on history. Chat with the owners, discuss the interesting history and oh, by the way I'm interested in doing a little metal detecting on your land. I traditionally bring them a gift from my local area. Wine, book, honey, something. One project I had to pay 4 farmers $100 bucks per year to hunt their property. Took me 2 years (a few weekends a month) covering 460 acres, but I found the goods. If I can't reach the people in advance, I show up on their door some weekend with a map in my hands and I use the "I don't THINK I'm lost, but is that cross-street over there where the old store was..." Everyone want to help the lost guy, it defuses most defensiveness right at the door. Of course, it helps when I'm clean shaven and appropriately dressed. Other angles I've used, is that I'm also a beekeeper and can take care of bee problems they may have in their shed/barn/wall of house etc. So some hunts I may not find the goods, but I get a few gallons of honey and a good hive.
4. I use a Pulse Star 2, with a ten foot wide coil on a cart. Good down to 10m on big targets maybe 15m if my friends are telling the truth on their Argentine capers. In trashy areas and woods, I have to use the 3' wide coil or down to a 1.5' coil. Pinpoint with a old crappy Whites Eagle 2. I've tried using a probe, but the one I have isn't useful in most soils I've found. Also, it doesn't travel well to other countries.
5. I keep what I find if I got permission to keep all that I dig up. In the odd case where I'm forced to play my hand on what I'm after, we divvy it up by pre negotiated percent; and usually I'll buy out his half. In 2 cases, my friend bought me out, as I brought him along because I thought we'd find it that trip. 4 days of hunting and we found it 1 hour before he had to leave.
90% of your time in at #2 doing research. Have the brains and emotional courage to throw away leads that look like garbage and don't pass the smell test. Like the missing Bowie mine, KGC treasure, or a nun's hidden moonshine money. Remember the Wizards 1st Rule - People will believe a lie because they want it to be true, or because they are afraid it is true. Just look at the KGC treasure myth - Dirt poor backwoodsmen guarding a treasure for a cause that is 150 years dead by a organization that never had access to large sums of money. Does that pass your smell test?
I think the best leads are small town leads of miser hoards or bachelor farmers who die in the 20s, 30s or 1940s with a strong likelihood of buried savings.
Whatever you do. Make sure you have fun. Enjoy the history, the landowners, and the footwork. Life's too short to do something just for money.
Oh, and buy Treasure Hunters Manual #7 by KVM and a copy of Sudden Wealth.
chirper97 said:
Do you know of a successful researched cache recovery AND the details of what went into its resolution?
This thread is a request for those T-Net members who know of SUCCESSFUL cache location projects to share the abc's of the project.
I personally would not relate my successes, but I would feel comfortable sharing step by step recoveries by other trusted "individuals" including Joe the Hoe, Hardrock Marciano, or Max the Excavator.
Example:
1. How did the cache's existence become suspected or known?
2. What resources such as libraries, interviews, photographs, topos, and archives were used?
3. How did the THer gain access to the cache location?
4. How was the cache pin-pointed and extricated? Ex. MD, bottle probe, removing a board?
What challenges did you overcome?
5. What happened after the cache was located?
Items such as the city, state, size of cache, any identifying information can be eliminated.
It would be nice to know the type of cache...or not, if discretion is required.
I am requesting no digression and humor posts.
My favorite one was where he found that trunk with thousands of dollars in Confederate money inside and started the rumor that he'd found a bunch of money. The local lawman, mayor, and a judge visited him offering their services in "protecting" his find. When he told them it was in Confederate money, they got pissed at him for his joke. 
