Hunting from a Climbing Stand

[Patocazador]

I use a fired .45 ACP cartridge case to cover my nipple. Yours is much nicer but mine is cheaper. :grin:

 

[Kapow]

http://www.thegunworks.com/custprodgun.cfm?ProductID=406&do=detail&Cat2Option=yes


$13 at The Gunworks. Best $13 you'll ever spend. A bit of rubber marine fuel line hose may also work. Haven't tried it yet. Would also be silent and water proof.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Climb into a tree?

EGAD! :shocked2:

The vast majority of crippling and fatal hunting accidents in my state are from falling out of trees and tree stands.

Dave don't worry about that, as Dave don't climb no trees, and there is venison every year though without being arboreal.

LD

 

[Spikebuck]

The vast majority of crippling and fatal hunting accidents in my state are from falling out of trees and tree stands.

The older I get, the less I like it, and for the most part for ML hunting don't. For treestand hunting one really should employ a line and Prusik knot to be attached to something all the way up and down...and certainly a safety belt while on stand.

A friend of mine went down 25 feet when his stand broke just as he was attaching his safety belt. I was 200 yards away and heard the break and fall as he thumped through branches, then a solid thud, some groaning, some gurgling, then silence. I thought sure he was going to be dead when I arrived there. He was lucky. Just ripped open his leg a bit, but nothing broken, no internal injuries. He was knocked out cold and just coming to when I got there.

Most of these accidents occur while entering or leaving the stand. One cannot be careful enough.

 

[crockett]

You need to move the safety strap up/down as you climb/descend the tree. It takes a little time so most don't do it.

 

[Hawkins54]

I never hunt from any stand without a harness. Even when climbing up and down my harness is wrapped around the tree. It does take longer but I'm a bit of a safety nut when it come to things that cause pain. Remember: it's not the fall that kills. It's the sudden stop at the end.

 

[nchawkeye]

Never have understood why any fool would climb a tree without a safety harness...

I climb when needed, sitting over a bean field, the view is great, but I have my safety harness on all the way up and all the way down...

 

[Loyalist Dave]

THEN there was the guy last year..., who fell as he went from ladder into stand, and the harness caught him, BUT...., it sorta hung up a bit too, so he was upside down. Now it wasn't a very tall stand, only about 8' to the base, so his outstretched hands was about 2' from the ground. So, solution cut himself down... then he dropped his knife as he didn't have a wrist lanyard on the hilt. So he's dangling, his knife 2' from his finger tips. Kinda like a piece of bear bait..., phone dropped out of his shirt pocket, so it's lying next to the knife. Like a scene from that old TV series Gilligan's Island, and he's caught in a man-trap. Only thing to do was yell. Somebody came by and cut him down.

:shake:

LD

 

[Hawkins54]

I was waiting for you to say he fell and landed on his knife!

 

[sidelock]

I have known many hunters who have lost lives or legs from tree stands. I have taken around 200 deer and several elk and a lot of other game and I have never been in a tree stand. Makes no since to me!!!!!!

 

[Patocazador]

Not when all you see there is the side of another hill. :haha:

On flat land it helps a whole lot.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Maybe on flat wooded land..., but where I am it's a meadow, flat, and the max range shot is 110 yards.

LD

 

[Dave Marsh]

Must be something wrong with me. Gonna turn 65 in December and still climbing those trees. I live in New York now but used to live in Chatfield, Mn. and was raised in Rochester.

Dave

 

[nchawkeye]

Heck, there is something wrong with all of us!!!!

I've killed over 300 deer, probably 85% came from tree stands...It's all about the terrain and vegetation... :thumbsup:

Like guns, hammers and chain saws, a tree stand can hurt you!!!

If you don't know what you are doing, leave them alone... :rotf:

 

[Spikebuck]

I was waiting for you to say he fell and landed on his knife!

Read story about a young man bowhunting from a treestand, and like I'm sure many of us have done, he dropped an arrow. Didn't think anything of it and at the end of the hunt he climbed down in the dark and jumped the last 3 feet. Well, the arrow had stuck in the ground by the nock...broadhead up, and he landed right on it driving the arrow through at the heel, completely up the lower leg, and out the knee. :shocked2: I just cringed reading about it. He dragged himself to the farm house and survived.

 

[Spikebuck]

I live in New York now but used to live in Chatfield, Mn. and was raised in Rochester.

Have a good friend from Chatfield. He was big into Rendezvous, still does some Blacksmithing and other primitive skills stuff.

 

[oldfrank]

I will be 67 next month and I still use climbing tree stands.I climb with the uncapped rifle in a soft,light case secured to my stand.
I use a harness and slide the tether up and down the tree as I go.
Once everything is secure I cap the rifle and settle down.If I shoot, I reload in the tree, never been a problem, like anything you have to know what you are doing and pay attention.
I killed a doe yesterday morning with my .50 Lyman Trade Rifle, she fell over and kicked once and that was it.I was about 20 feet up and she walked almost under my stand.
I enjoy sitting on the ground also but you can see much longer distances when you are elevated in the places I hunt.
I may stop hunting from up in the trees when I get old :wink: but right now I am good to go.

 

[Patocazador]

I'm 70 and killed a mangy coyote from my climbing stand this morning with my sidelock at 75 yards. (Not legal for this forum due to scope.)

Caution and awareness are what's necessary, not just 'youth'.

 

[don hepler]

I really can't visualize hunting in Montana, or any where out west. I've hunted the ridges of West Virginia and Virginia, and sometimes the heavy laurel and thick vegetation make it almost necessary to hunt from elevated stands. Say for instance you have 25 to 40 acres to hunt on, which is common, and you hunt with a friend, stand hunting is the safest option. Wading through marsh and heavy laurel, on public land is very dangerous. In the east we get in our stands before daylight, and stay until dark. On some game department land, hunting from elevated stands is mandatory and you are not permitted to be on the ground, even to retrieve game, without having a game management person with you. Safety harness is also mandatory. There are dangers, in a variety of hunting situations. Statistics say that hunting from a stand, is more dangerous. But safety measures must become second nature. I personally feel a lot safer in a stand, I can see farther, my scent is off the ground, I have a rest and can make better shooting decisions. My shot will be down into the ground, the best place for a back stop. Can't compare western hunting to the eastern mountains.

 

[Kylongrifle]

I cant stress enough a quality stand and harness. Im a pretty big guy and I tried to get by with a cheap stand once when I was younger..It was rated at about my weight..I was hunting on my local WMA and got about 15' up in a slick bark hickory. I hear a deer coming around the point so I stand up with my bow.. I hear "errrr,creeee" and think "Huh? that aint good" Then Im in the middle of drawing my bow and the whole stand floor lets go!!! Thank god I had a hardness on because I would fell right over the side of a east,Ky mountain but also with a brand new muzzy broadhead in my hand.