I'm glad this thread came up. Climbing trees to hunt a deer is dangerous. To think of the risks that myself and friends have taken over the years makes me cringe. 40-50 years ago there there was no such thing a safely harness. Even when they did come around, they were for sissy's. All of my mentors or friends NEVER hunted w/ safety harness. With that said, I have numerous friends and family that have fallen. Too many stories to tell on here. I will tell you some that hit close to home. I was Building a stand w/ Dad in a cedar tree. The branches grew out and straight up. He sat on one and leaned back against it to nail in a board. It snapped and Out he went backwards, he landed on his back right next to an old stump. He got the wind knocked out him. He rested for bit and then we finished the stand. Never gave it a 2nd thought as to how bad that could have been. I think I was 12. This next one didn't turn out so good. Dad went hunting and showed my stepmother on map right where he was going. He didn't come home. she called 911. She showed them where to go and they walked to within 100yd before they called for him. He was at the bottom of the tree for 4 hours. He fell asleep and fell out. Landed head 1st. There are 2 ways to break your neck. One way you die, the other you break the vertebrae. he broke 3 vert. in his neck. They had to fuse them together. It took months for him to heal. I was in my early 20's. Safety harness were just coming out. Do you think I wore one? Heck no! I was fearless and stupid. I had a close call w/ a homemade Baker that my dad had made. The bottom was too heavy and pulled off my feet. It went to the bottom and I was sitting in the seat. Bear hugged the tree down. Baker's were death traps! Several times I've had a screw-in pull out. Three points of contact saved me most of the time. Couple times however I had to act like a cat and claw the tree. Skinned up my chest a little. Those times were due trusting existing steps in Bow Elder trees or Cottonwoods or not making sure i had good solid wood. start new hole every year boys! In soft trees, they will pull out if left over a year. These next 2 stories are a big reason why I now use a saddle. Both would have been avoided if I was wearing a saddle. I was setting up a tree. It was spot that I saw MULTIPLE big bucks. I wanted to hunt that spot bad! The tree's sucked. There was 2 Box Elder's that grew apart in a big V. They had a Huge lean to both. Very difficult tree to put a LW in. You couldn't get any height. 15' was the max. Plus you couldn't hardly move and the tree shook. It would have been hard to draw your bow undetected with tree shaking. My bright idea was to pull the 2 tree's together w/ guy wire. It would have added cover and each tree would stabilized the other. I wrapped the come-a long around one tree and clipped the other end onto my Bolt that I had driven in. Then I started pulling them together. I got the trees close together and was about ready to start attaching the guy wire. Then the Bolt pulled out and the trees flew apart. I was about 10' up. I held on for dear life. The 2nd bounce back my feet slipped off the peg and down I went. I landed on my feet but my ribs grazed a bolt about 4-5' off the ground. I had red stripe right up my rib cage. If I landed couple inches closer to that bolt, it would have gutted me. Extremely lucky. Do you think I wore a harness after that? Nope. Dumb! Couple years later I came across some some old homemade Screaming Eagle chain on's. I didn't build them. They were free so I hung them in some likely spots. Do you think I inspected them closely? Nope. Dumb! Anyway, one morning I decided to hunt out of one of them. Passed up a nice buck at daylight. At sunrise, here comes 2 dudes walking thru the brush about 75yds in front of me. As they walked out of sight, I stood out on the front edge so I could see where they were going. Then one of the support cables gave way. I knew I was going to fall. There was tree right in front of me w/ a big branch. I figured I could jump to that and maybe hold on. I hit that branch and it broke. Down I went. I hit the ground flat from 17' up. Totally knocked the wind out of me. I called for help. Those 2 guys came over and helped me up. I thanked them and told them to go back hunting. I figured I would be alright in few minutes. I finally figured out that I wouldn't be hunting that day. I spent the next three days on the couch pissing blood. 3 days after that I killed a nice 8pt. Do you think I was wearing harness? Nope. Dumb. This continued on for years. I was taught to hunt a certain way and thought a harness too much of a PIA. Then one day I found out about saddles and their virtues. I bought a New Tribe Aero Hunter. I integrated it into my treestand system. I kept it in my pack for certain trees and situations. Then one day I was hunting one of those old Screaming Eagles. I inspected that stand when I hung it. I knew it was solid. It was great morning with a lot of action. However the whole time I had this uncomfortable feeling like I was going to fall. Then I remembered the saddle in my pack. I decided to use it as safely harness and ALL of that uncomfortable feeling went away. I sat in relative comfort and had peace of mind the rest of the day. Right then and there I decided that I was going to hunt from saddle from then on. I haven't looked backed since. I NEVER hunt or set up trees without my saddle. I also don't let any one that hunts with me to hunt without a saddle. I figure in 45 years of hunting, I've been in 20-40 trees a year. Conservatively 1000 trees total. 2 falls. 1 in 500 chance of falling. Both would have been avoided if I was wearing saddle. Saddle hunting is the way. Be safe guys!
