Excellent question!So you still attach your retrieval rope in the same manner? On the same side of the link, and not to it? I thought @ckossuth attached to the other side or even to the link/carabiner. I didn't know if one way was better than the other when trying to work the rope through limbs. Have you tried it both ways? And if so have you found that it makes a difference one way or the other?
Hooking direct to the link is better for pulling out of busy limbed trees because you only have to pull the tag end through the limbs. The downside is that it takes a bit more force to break the girth hitch loose if you connect to the loop end because you need to overcome the friction of the rope in contact with the entire diameter of the tree in order to loosen the hitch. The way I hooked it up in the video you only have to overcome the friction of the rope through the link to loosen the hitch.
If I'm in a tree where the last limb I've gone over has a sharp crotch that's likely to wedge the rope I'll hook it up as Carl does to keep from wedging the link in the crotch of the branch. Most of the time though I end up doing it like I showed since it eases the pull loose force on the girth hitch.
Edit Example shown below:
Blue line = Climbing Rope, Grey line = Pull down string, Red Arrows = where rope has to move to come loose
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