Ok I guess as a complete saddle hunting novice I all ask the obvious.
Can a buch of the most seasoned hunting saddle users please get together pool your thoughts and come up with a sticky listing multiple self rescue options geared towards both seasoned saddle user but especially complete novices like me about to take the plunge into saddle hunting.
They would need to be very detailed listing all the equipment one would need and where to buy it.
I never ever gave a moments thought about having to self rescue from a saddle due to having a climbing stick fail or a platform fail as I will also likely be using one as well.
Been hunting out of hand on treestands for 35 years and mostly use screw in tree steps and never had either my pin-on stands or a screw in step fail me in any way. But now I am wanting to use 32" LWCS as they go up faster at 3 steps at a time VS screw in steps and require much less effort than screw in steps, and increasingly my land owners are madating no screw in steps.
I have been using a FBH for over 20 years now and recently switched to a RCH while stand hunting and about 5-6 years ago included a safety rope at all my stands.
To be frank one of the most attractive and strongest motivations for me giving saddle hunting a try is the fact that it is not only a safer method of hunting from a tree than hang on stands it is in theory the safest way to hunt out of a tree period and it is far simpler as it eliminates the need for a safety harness and a safety rope placed at every stand location, a potentially very expensive must have safety item if hunting from a traditional stand.
I have had two stand instances that had immense affect on me. The first one convinced me to NEVER hunt with out a FBH EVER again, the second swore me off climbing stands forever. I had bought along with four of my friends Summit Viper II climbing stands. We got together on my friends acreage he lives on and literally spent an entire day learning the proper way to use climbing stands. Summit provided an excellent DVD with every stand and I watched mine 10x+ before I ever tried my stand.
I then went to my local state public hunting grounds 3 more times and practiced on all sizes of trees I could find. I very quickly discovered shag bark hickory trees were at least for me a no-go due to excessive noise and difficulty climbing them, especially climbing down. By the time bow hunting season rolled around I had practiced climbed and at least 30-40 trees taking care to climb trees of the smallest in diameter allowed to the largest allowed. I felt I was well prepared and ready to hunt from my climber.
Did about 5 or 6 climbs and hunts with absolutely zero issues other than trying to find pencil strate trees with either no limbs or very small limbs. Then I did a evening hunt in a large black walnut after what my land owner told me was one of the wettest weeks in november in that part of the states history. I had zero issues climbing up the tree to about 25-30 feet. But did notice how wet and slippery the bark seamed. When it came time to climb down at first my foot rest wouldn't bit into the tree and simply slid down which was very very startling. At first I thought I must be doing something wrong. Then I tried again and again with as much care as I could but the results were the same stand wasn't biting just sliding. Several times I went down so low I had great difficulty getting back up to be able to sit on the seat section of the stand.
Finally I started descending in as short of distances as I could and it worked, but I was still slipping some, my biggest problem was the fear if the stand slipped to far I would get stuck in the seat portion and wouldn't be able to bring the foot rest back up stranding me in the tree with no way down and this was before cell phones and I was hurting all alone.
Once I was on the ground I decided then and there never again to use a climbing stand as I would never trust one again. Now I do not know if the bark being saturated by the heavy rains was the cause for my slipping problems or not, but that was the first and only truly wet tree I had ever climbed with the climber. I was surprised beyond measure as I felt Summit makes the best climbing stand out there and still does. None of my friends have ever experienced a similar problem but they are all at least 90-100lbs lighter than I and ( I weighed about 255lbs at that time) none can ever recall climbing a tree who's bark had been essentially saturated by heavy rains.
So I am looking to try saddle hunting as I feel it offers the simplest and safest method to hunt from a tree. I hope I can learn from the saddle experts here a equally simple means to self rescue so I can saddle hunt with complete confidence.
I have no intentions of using SRT, DRT climbing methods so any self rescue system will need to reflect that.