I found the "how did you come into saddle hunting?" thread to be interesting. As a follow-up to that and based around some of the safety-related discussions that come up and what seem to be some common assumptions in those, I'm curious what folks' safety practices were like before they got into saddle hunting?
I hunted both hang-ons and ladder stands and always wore an HSS-style safety harness. For hang-ons, I always used a lineman's belt when hanging/removing my sticks and stands. Then once those were set, I rigged up an HSS lifeline and stayed attached to that the entire time I was off the ground. All the up-and-down and hassle with rigging these up was a big motivation for moving to a saddle.
For ladder stands, I'd rig up a tree strap and hook into it while on the stand, but I almost never used anything to protect against the fall when going up or down the ladder. The closest thing to a safety feature for that was having a hoist rope tied to the stand to keep both hands free, but it wasn't too atypical to climb with the bow in hand too.
