Climbing in the dark

[Empostarr]

The arborist in me cringes at the idea of climbing ANY tree without a good solid pre-climb inspection. the TLDR is that you CANNOT do that in the dark. Its just not possible to verify the condition of the tree adequately to see if you're putting yourself in a needlessly dangerous situation. Let alone setting yourself up for an unproductive sit because of bad shooting lanes etc.

If you're going in cold with no previous scouting of a property, go for an afternoon sit, and GPS pin other possible trees for future use. If it has to be a morning hunt due to circumstances, I'd stay on the ground.

I agree here too. If I go in during the dark, I'll tether in at ground level and sit until it gets light enough/late enough to move around and find a suitable tree or area to hunt.

I rarely go into a new piece of land during the dark. I'd rather wait until early morning where I can see sign better. No sense in setting up if you don't know the deer are there!

 

[Jammintree]

I agree here too. If I go in during the dark, I'll tether in at ground level and sit until it gets light enough/late enough to move around and find a suitable tree or area to hunt.

I rarely go into a new piece of land during the dark. I'd rather wait until early morning where I can see sign better. No sense in setting up if you don't know the deer are there!

I’m with these guys. I use arborist techniques for climbing and only climb in the dark on trees and under conditions that I’ve verified during daylight hours to be safe. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with spending the grey light hours hunkered down at ground level. I’d rather play it safe and daylight allows me to get into the best location possible.

also, the region where I hunt has fairly low deer density. So going blind into a new area and randomly picking a tree in the dark is very unlikely to result in success.