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"A Slow, Deliberate, Emotionless, Open Conversation" About Hunting Accidents

what are we discussing? That it is more dangerous to climb than to sit on the ground ?
100% agree.
Is it easier to stay undetected and kill a deer from a tree? also no discussion.
statistics of fall related injuries mean very little to me because I believe the majority of those can be avoided if the proper precautions are taken. I still know people that hardly wear a safety harness. There are a lot of yahoos in the deer woods.
 
Nutterbuster said:
I glanced at the most recent 5 years. I really like that they lead with 2-Party vs Independent incidents.

Cliff's notes? 88% of incidents were self-inflicted, 12% were a victim shot by a 2nd person, with only a percentage of those being deer hunting incidents. Out of 67 incidents, one was reported as a second person mistaking the victim for game. Mostly poor firearm handling, finger on trigger, accidental discharge, etc. Friends shooting friends, sadly.

63% of reported incidents were treestand falls. Alabama was 59%. So that is comparable, which is nice. Shows what I'd call a fair amount of consistency as you increase the sample size, and you have 2 separate entities measuring the same thing and getting the same general results.

Although, there's a bit of discrepancy between Maryland and Alabama when it comes to shootings. They had 12% 2nd party shootings, and we had 23%. So...we're more likely to shoot you and less likely to shoot ourselves down here...if I have that right?

For folks who prefer stories to numbers, Maryland has them. They list brief overviews of each incident in the report. One of my faves:

"A 49-year-old Cecil County (muzzleloader season) deer hunter fell approximately 12 feet when he fell asleep while on the stand. The hunter admitted to having a shot of Jagermeister and drinking a beer prior to sunrise while in the tree stand (also having been out drinking the evening before). The hunter luckily only sustained minor injuries, but was subsequently charges with six counts of violating natural resources laws and regulations, including hunting with a modern firearm during muzzleloader season."

But most of them are variations of the same old tired riff...took a tumble climbing a tree. May be a good read for folks who go crosseyed looking at spreadsheets. You kinda catch on to the pattern.
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Grew up in Cecil Co. in the '70s; the referenced episode isn't surprising to me...at all.

Never subscribed to the need for height to hunt deer; have been moderately successful from the ground for over 45 years, including some pretty nice bucks; mostly with trad bows and handguns. Got into the saddle thing a couple years back primarily as a way to get above the ticks, chiggers and copperheads during the early season here in VA, with a method that didn't take up a bunch of room in my garage. I saw it stated somewhere that one was more likely to fall from a stand or be shot while hunting than to be snakebit...having been struck twice, once on a warm December day, I figure I'm living on borrowed time with my aerial endeavors (both were boot strikes, and bounced off). Will still use the saddle on occasion; have a semi-permanent set right now where the platform is only 4-5 ft off the ground, about 15' back off a field edge, but honestly prefer the ground in almost every instance once it cools off. I still think tick-borne disease is the #1 threat around here; treat it on almost a weekly basis in our veterinary practice (and my patients have far better protection available to them than anything I've got), and know dozens of folks who've been afflicted...spoke with a client last week who contracted RMSF back in the spring and almost lost that battle.
I'm 61, in good health and shape (5'6", 140), but I'm far from an expert climber, and I know it. I'll probably hover around shrub-level with the saddle or clamber up into my Millenium tripod until killing frost, then hit the ground for good. Then again, my resident county just passed the 10' stand height regulation for centerfires, having been traditionally a shotgun-only county....hmmm.
 
Nutterbuster said:
Sleepy thought...how long is Maryland's firearms season?

Yall lemme know tomorrow.
Click to expand...

Maryland is 2 weeks from the Saturday right after Thanksgiving, and usually the first weekending of the Jan after the new year another Fri-Sun weekend.

There is also a late Oct Fri-Sun weekend and 3 weeks starting from mid of December to last day of the year for Muzzleloader. I'm actually really surprised that the muzzleloader season is so long.

And they started a primitive season near the end of hunting season for trad bow and flintlocks.
 
The main takeaway from all the stats for me is that hunting is one of the safest activities you can do, even more than basketball. Without "hard" data on exactly how many hunters climb vs stay on the ground, any educated guess numbers you want to use (you will also have to factor in multiple climbs per hunter per year) simply means that you have less than 1% chance of dying from any hunting accident. When you think about the sketchy and stupid things many of us have done on this site, that is very good news. The "dreaded" covid is much more likely to get you.

My personal spiritual belief is that each of us has an appointed time to check out and there is nothing you can do to make it happen early or later, so none of this really matters in the end. Let's say you are having a bad life and decide to put a bullet in your cranium to check out early. If it is not your time, the primer won't fire, the gun will fail, etc. If it is your time, you can wear 3 tethers and triple backup everything you climb with only to get t-boned at the intersection on the way home.
 
Bwhana said:
The main takeaway from all the stats for me is that hunting is one of the safest activities you can do, even more than basketball. Without "hard" data on exactly how many hunters climb vs stay on the ground, any educated guess numbers you want to use (you will also have to factor in multiple climbs per hunter per year) simply means that you have less than 1% chance of dying from any hunting accident. When you think about the sketchy and stupid things many of us have done on this site, that is very good news. The "dreaded" covid is much more likely to get you.

My personal spiritual belief is that each of us has an appointed time to check out and there is nothing you can do to make it happen early or later, so none of this really matters in the end. Let's say you are having a bad life and decide to put a bullet in your cranium to check out early. If it is not your time, the primer won't fire, the gun will fail, etc. If it is your time, you can wear 3 tethers and triple backup everything you climb with only to get t-boned at the intersection on the way home.
Click to expand...

This is very true, basketball is one of the most dangerous sports especially for ankles and knees.

While I do believe that when it is our time, it is our time. But that does not mean we shouldn't do our part to control what is within our control. God help those who help themselves. Don't be the priest that drown in the church during a flood because he was waiting for God to save him.
 
paradocs said:
Grew up in Cecil Co. in the '70s; the referenced episode isn't surprising to me...at all.

Never subscribed to the need for height to hunt deer; have been moderately successful from the ground for over 45 years, including some pretty nice bucks; mostly with trad bows and handguns. Got into the saddle thing a couple years back primarily as a way to get above the ticks, chiggers and copperheads during the early season here in VA, with a method that didn't take up a bunch of room in my garage. I saw it stated somewhere that one was more likely to fall from a stand or be shot while hunting than to be snakebit...having been struck twice, once on a warm December day, I figure I'm living on borrowed time with my aerial endeavors (both were boot strikes, and bounced off). Will still use the saddle on occasion; have a semi-permanent set right now where the platform is only 4-5 ft off the ground, about 15' back off a field edge, but honestly prefer the ground in almost every instance once it cools off. I still think tick-borne disease is the #1 threat around here; treat it on almost a weekly basis in our veterinary practice (and my patients have far better protection available to them than anything I've got), and know dozens of folks who've been afflicted...spoke with a client last week who contracted RMSF back in the spring and almost lost that battle.
I'm 61, in good health and shape (5'6", 140), but I'm far from an expert climber, and I know it. I'll probably hover around shrub-level with the saddle or clamber up into my Millenium tripod until killing frost, then hit the ground for good. Then again, my resident county just passed the 10' stand height regulation for centerfires, having been traditionally a shotgun-only county....hmmm.
Click to expand...

Thank you for your post. A very good perspective.
 
Bowmanmike said:
what are we discussing? That it is more dangerous to climb than to sit on the ground ?
100% agree.
Is it easier to stay undetected and kill a deer from a tree? also no discussion.
statistics of fall related injuries mean very little to me because I believe the majority of those can be avoided if the proper precautions are taken. I still know people that hardly wear a safety harness. There are a lot of yahoos in the deer woods.
Click to expand...

Is it easier to stay undetected in big open timber in January with no leaves, no wind, dry air, and very hunted deer?

Or is it easier to sit on a stool in CRP in November during rut where your longest shot distance is 7 yards, and the deer literally cannot see you when you draw?

Your point is probably “of course, but it’s almost always better to be in a tree to stay undetected, almost all the time.”

Mine is “there’s a pile of opportunities to kill big deer from the ground reliably and consistently. Anyone telling you otherwise is selling koolaid.”


As I mentioned in my thread on similar topic. I’ve killed deer that couldn’t have been killed from the ground. I’ve also killed half my deer from the ground. In 8 different states. All kinds of different terrain and vegetation.

The point isn’t one is better than the other. It’s that the difference in success potential and reward gathering is not as big as perceived, and the difference risks to the hunter is much bigger than perceived.
 
A deer's eye is shaped in a way that being elevated gives us an advantage.
 
kyler1945 said:
Is it easier to stay undetected in big open timber in January with no leaves, no wind, dry air, and very hunted deer?

Or is it easier to sit on a stool in CRP in November during rut where your longest shot distance is 7 yards, and the deer literally cannot see you when you draw?

Your point is probably “of course, but it’s almost always better to be in a tree to stay undetected, almost all the time.”

Mine is “there’s a pile of opportunities to kill big deer from the ground reliably and consistently. Anyone telling you otherwise is selling koolaid.”


As I mentioned in my thread on similar topic. I’ve killed deer that couldn’t have been killed from the ground. I’ve also killed half my deer from the ground. In 8 different states. All kinds of different terrain and vegetation.

The point isn’t one is better than the other. It’s that the difference in success potential and reward gathering is not as big as perceived, and the difference risks to the hunter is much bigger than perceived.
Click to expand...
You do you,I don't care much what others do.
I can count on one hand how often deer that I didn't want to shoot when on the ground did not wind me after passing by.
 
HuumanCreed said:
Maryland is 2 weeks from the Saturday right after Thanksgiving, and usually the first weekending of the Jan after the new year another Fri-Sun weekend.

There is also a late Oct Fri-Sun weekend and 3 weeks starting from mid of December to last day of the year for Muzzleloader. I'm actually really surprised that the muzzleloader season is so long.

And they started a primitive season near the end of hunting season for trad bow and flintlocks.
Click to expand...
Immediately after that 3 day October weekend is a week of antlerless only muzzleloader as well
 
@Plebe, do you have a link to the screenshots? I'm curious as to why New York has an almost perfectly inverse ratio of falls/gunshots. I'd like to know the season length too if you've got it, in days.

@HuumanCreed, forgive me, but what's that season work out to in days?

BlessdHuntr said:
Just wondering if there were any mention of any impairment such as (alcohol, drugs, etc.). It's just like driving. Any kind of impairment affects not only yourself, but everyone around you.
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Alabama records whether or not the responsible party was intoxicated. I'd assume that covers any drugs and alcohol in their system notated by LEOs or other first responders, but I'm not positive. "Intoxicated" and "under the influence" seem to be universal terms for us here though. Covers everything from fentanyl to miller lite. I'll have to go back and look, but alcohol seemed to play more of a roll in social hunts (dove and waterfowl) than solitary ones.

Bwhana said:
The main takeaway from all the stats for me is that hunting is one of the safest activities you can do, even more than basketball. Without "hard" data on exactly how many hunters climb vs stay on the ground, any educated guess numbers you want to use (you will also have to factor in multiple climbs per hunter per year) simply means that you have less than 1% chance of dying from any hunting accident. When you think about the sketchy and stupid things many of us have done on this site, that is very good news. The "dreaded" covid is much more likely to get you.
Click to expand...

I don't know much about basketball, other than exponentially more people participate in it than hunt, and I have a hard time believing the incidents are as severe as gunshot wounds and 20ft free-falls can be. I just read a report from the Maryland data where the guy cracked his skull, broke 4 ribs, and shattered his pelvis. That's a BAD day on the court. Regardless, the discussion here is hunting accidents. I'd say there's strong reason to believe that there's room on the table to make hunting significantly safer. Given that I don't play basketball but hunt way more than most, that's important to me.

I'll also say that I don't believe in predeterminism. Determinism I can get behind. Today's choices absolutely determine tomorrow.
 
1664889061656.png

Some regions have extended muzzleloader due to bigger deer populations I think. So on public you get 13+2 days total for firearms, same amount for muzzleloader, except region B you get another week of muzzleloader.
 
Plebe said:
How many people aren't shot because they are in a treestand?
Click to expand...

i think you are more likely to catch a stray squirrel hunter 22 lr if you are up in a tree....less ground stuff to deflect block a whizzing bullet
 
HuumanCreed said:
View attachment 72936

Some regions have extended muzzleloader due to bigger deer populations I think. So on public you get 13+2 days total for firearms, same amount for muzzleloader, except region B you get another week of muzzleloader.
Click to expand...
So...15 days of firearms season? Is that pretty much consistent across the state?

Typing out a hypothesis prematurely, mainly so I can get it into words and understand it better for myself.

I'd theorize that the shorter the season, and the less acreage available, the more dangerous.

On Alabama WMAs with limited gun days, those gun days see piles of people in the woods on those days. On properties with a season-long or at least more generous season, there may be more hunter-days total, but fewer people on any given day.

Alabama has a 91 day firearm season. Plenty of time for folks to spread out. Plenty of acreage too, which I'd imagine helps.
 
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