First Saddle Hunt for First Time Deer Hunter

[mjbradshaw]

I had my first saddle hunt last week, it was 3 days in a tree, took a day or two off because of weather and got back in the saddle for 3 more days. Here is what I learned:

Starting with the good...
* I hunted on private property of a family friend in Kansas and I didn't kill anything. Not because we didn't see anything, but because I was either not where the action was or cutting my teeth learning how to call deer in. I was able to see, however, how versatile the saddle is. My hunt was surprisingly comfortable and I loved that I could see patterns in movement and the next day be in a tree closer.
* After climbing up and down trees 5-10x, I feel more comfortable with the linesman belt and tether, setting up my stuff once I'm in the tree and hanging out for long periods of time in a saddle.
* After a very rough start, I'm better (but still not good) at picking out "good" trees to hunt out of. I get that basically any tree will get the job done, but some are WAY better than others.

Even though I didn't actually kill anything, I had a blast trying to kill something, bow hunting is definitely a challenge and I loved it!

Now with the one thing I'm terrible at...
* I have lone wolf sticks, and man do I suck at putting them up. I mean, I'm REALLY bad. It takes me 30ish min, I let every deer from me to Missouri know where I'm at, I cant get the spacing down between sticks to save my life and I have no idea how to deal with 4 climbing sticks other than to constantly go up and down the tree to fetch and place the next stick. I'm not sure what to do about this other than to say screw it, its private property that the owners don't care what I put into their trees and set up some screw in steps in the off-season. This solution doesn't help me though when I go onto public land.

Any tips or advice ya'll have is very much welcome. I have sat in a stand and used a saddle, and I'm going to say that I cant imagine I would ever purposefully sit in a stand again given a choice.
-Mike

 

[Razorbak66]

Clip your sticks to your saddle that way it lessens you going up or down. Gear ties work good. Put your first stick at about waist high climb up then next stick raise your leg up as your going up and put at that height plus 2/3” as it will sag as you put weight on stick repeat process. Remember with cold weather gear your not gonna be able to raise your leg as you would in light clothes in early season or summer and be sure your tethered. Do this if your not using a aider and if you are same concept and use aider to same way you would bottom of stick. You might want to practice in off season with 1 sticking that way you don’t have all the sticks plus if you practice you can get up tree just as quick if not quicker with 3/4 sticks plus you can rappel down after hunt

 

[BTaylor]

What he ^ said.

 

[swampdonkey]

Strap the 4 sticks together and either buy a sling, I have a Hawk one, or make one from paracord or something. That's how I do it and it works great.

Walk up to tree, set first stick and sling the other three over my shoulder. Set second stick, sling the other two back over my shoulder climb and repeat. Super quiet and one time up the tree. My platform is on my back and the bow is attached to my pull up rope of course. I can go from the base of the tree to up and set up in under 20 minutes based on the tree and how many limbs and such.

As for spacing, set the next step about knee high up from the last step of the stick youre on as that's about how high you can comfortably step up. That will help you with setting consistent spacing with your sticks.

Good luck!