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New Gear for 2023, Go!

TheBlindCat said:
They’re selling with a non locking carabiner, yikes. I plan to carry a second lineman’s belt this year for going around limbs, and a rappel rope, but I’m not going to be an early adopter of that one.
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They’ve taken minimalist to the next level, NANO.

Reading the minimalist description for that made my minimalist head hurt….minimalist.
 
I'll use a non-locking 'biner! Or trade it out if it's sketchy. They are plenty strong
 
Chrighton said:
I thought the same thing about the carabiner and I hope that is for display purposes only.
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Unfortunately, it's not. They describe the carabiner as "wire gate" in the specs. It is that specific Nano biner.

0AAB5FEA-06D4-430E-A02E-8319DB5ADD3F.png
 
kyler1945 said:
I’ve made the point about the purpose of a lineman’s belt dozens of times here. It seems to be ignored or argued with mostly.

I would be curious if some of our arborists can chime in. It’s my understanding they never leave the ground with just spurs and a lineman’s belt. If they do it’s a squeeze that offers the same protection as a tether. They’re 100% tie off outside of that. I could be wrong.

Most industrial facilities have 100% tie off rules above 3,4, or 6 feet. Sure, rear suspension harnesses suck.

Rock climbers (not free climbers - clearly)don’t leave the ground without 100% tie off.

Hunters are the only people who leave the ground to do a dynamic activity at height, not 100% tied off from the ground up. It’s my firm belief that this is mostly due to three reasons:

- Ego

- They truly believe that the purpose of a lineman’s belt, or at least one of them, is to stop them safely in the event of a fall.

- complete lack of organized and effective best practices, safety information, training, and cooperation with manufacturers to promote these things. It’s cowboy all the way down.


None of this is a judgement. But if we could get a couple key facts into peoples’ brains, I think the orientation towards risk management would improve:

- the second you leave the ground, your risk of severe injury or death goes up exponentially, regardless of the gear training and procedures used.

- a lineman’s belt has a single purpose: to provide two additional points of contact(your hips) to aid in balance while performing tasks at height.

- saddle manufacturers, and people on YouTube and Facebook talking about saddles, are currently not in positions of authentic authority on tree climbing safety. The gap between hunters and industrial/arborist/rock climbing industries is a yawning one.
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It’s been awhile since I was in the arborist industry, but still know a few company owners. It’s pretty common for climbers to use just linemen’s belts & spurs. I’ve witnessed numerous cut outs & slips and never seen anyone fall more than a foot or so. It absolutely could happen I’ve just never seen or heard of it happening in my regional exposure.

The major issue with linemen’s application in a hunting situation is the sticks below you causing injury.

The hunting industry is definitely the Wild West. No regulation or standards governing the hunting/climbing industry. The treestand association is really more of a marketing club than a regulatory body. It seems consumers take comfort in buying from companies or individuals as long as they have a social media presence. I would think experience would trump social media but it doesn’t. If a guy has few thousand youtube subscribers his is deemed an expert in the field!!!
 
I am going to offer a slightly different take on safety and see this more as arborists and rock climbers are doing only that with a different end goal, and due to that focus, safety equipment is way more embraced. If hunters are truthful, we all hate the process of climbing, setups, and all that entails. We just want to get to height as fast and as simple as possible to HUNT. Same coming down. We, as a whole, are willing to take calculated or sometimes dumb risks because we will not make that process more difficult. This is also why saddle hunting is and always will be a niche market compared to other options no matter how good Tethrd’s marketing is. Even if the avg joe buys one, he likely will not use it even a whole season.

It’s the same thing on my downhill mountain biking - I have a HANS neck device to connect to my helmet and significantly reduce the risk of a neck injury, but there are many times and factors that play in and I chose not to use it because it just isn’t as comfortable or as fun to ride with. Same with pads.

What is missing for the hunting saddle group is something not yet available that can provide the safety with 100x less fiddle factor than the ropes and other crap we have to use right now. Tying knots and moving a floppy tether, linesman, rappel rope, etc. up a tree sucks. Develop that better mouse trap and they will buy it! Still waiting for someone with better engineering skills than me to step up the game.
 
Cbigbear said:
It’s been awhile since I was in the arborist industry, but still know a few company owners. It’s pretty common for climbers to use just linemen’s belts & spurs. I’ve witnessed numerous cut outs & slips and never seen anyone fall more than a foot or so. It absolutely could happen I’ve just never seen or heard of it happening in my regional exposure.

The major issue with linemen’s application in a hunting situation is the sticks below you causing injury.

The hunting industry is definitely the Wild West. No regulation or standards governing the hunting/climbing industry. The treestand association is really more of a marketing club than a regulatory body. It seems consumers take comfort in buying from companies or individuals as long as they have a social media presence. I would think experience would trump social media but it doesn’t. If a guy has few thousand youtube subscribers his is deemed an expert in the field!!!
Click to expand...

One small technical clarification - were those guys who only used the “lineman’s” using a “lineman’s belt” or a “squeeze” type lineman’s belt? Not trying to pick nits but it does seem like an important distinction. I would be surprised if the former was the case, and it was done by most tree workers most of the time without anyone making a stink about it.

And I agree 100% that likely biggest risk is hurting yourself on stuff right below you(sticks). But that risk is enveloped by the bigger point - the device is not intended for arresting a fall.

Pointing out that it could help make a fall less risky, or some workers do it sometimes, without the proper context, can and will contribute to people getting hurt though. This is the leverage the internet creates. Bad advice scales. Even when the advice or information was meant for good or to help.

I don’t know what to do about this, other than stop giving advice or offering information on the internet that could in any way be misunderstood. A bigger topic for a different platform - how we are completely unequipped to handle the torrent of information being beamed into our eyes via the internet.

Your last paragraph I agree with wholeheartedly and is what worries me the most with regard to hunting and saddle hunting
 
Yep, already planned on not using those carabiners. Other than that any reservations ?
 
kyler1945 said:
One small technical clarification - were those guys who only used the “lineman’s” using a “lineman’s belt” or a “squeeze” type lineman’s belt? Not trying to pick nits but it does seem like an important distinction. I would be surprised if the former was the case, and it was done by most tree workers most of the time without anyone making a stink about it.

And I agree 100% that likely biggest risk is hurting yourself on stuff right below you(sticks). But that risk is enveloped by the bigger point - the device is not intended for arresting a fall.

Pointing out that it could help make a fall less risky, or some workers do it sometimes, without the proper context, can and will contribute to people getting hurt though. This is the leverage the internet creates. Bad advice scales. Even when the advice or information was meant for good or to help.

I don’t know what to do about this, other than stop giving advice or offering information on the internet that could in any way be misunderstood. A bigger topic for a different platform - how we are completely unequipped to handle the torrent of information being beamed into our eyes via the internet.

Your last paragraph I agree with wholeheartedly and is what worries me the most with regard to hunting and saddle hunting
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Yes linemen’s belt without a squeeze.

Let me add these climbers are experience, which is key. They don’t get over their belts even in a slip or cut out. Hunters aren’t & they are going to react by trying to grab the tree & get over their belts. Without leaning & weighting their belt it’s going straight down.
 
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kyler1945 said:
One small technical clarification - were those guys who only used the “lineman’s” using a “lineman’s belt” or a “squeeze” type lineman’s belt? Not trying to pick nits but it does seem like an important distinction. I would be surprised if the former was the case, and it was done by most tree workers most of the time without anyone making a stink about it.

And I agree 100% that likely biggest risk is hurting yourself on stuff right below you(sticks). But that risk is enveloped by the bigger point - the device is not intended for arresting a fall.

Pointing out that it could help make a fall less risky, or some workers do it sometimes, without the proper context, can and will contribute to people getting hurt though. This is the leverage the internet creates. Bad advice scales. Even when the advice or information was meant for good or to help.

I don’t know what to do about this, other than stop giving advice or offering information on the internet that could in any way be misunderstood. A bigger topic for a different platform - how we are completely unequipped to handle the torrent of information being beamed into our eyes via the internet.

Your last paragraph I agree with wholeheartedly and is what worries me the most with regard to hunting and saddle hunting
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The modern dilemma! What is real truth and more importantly, how do you stand a chance of finding it in the sea of spam and AI advertising algorithms call the web.
 
Zero One Actual said:
This is how I would do it also. I’ve been running a chest rig myself for the last three seasons and this pouch would hold the same items for me allowing me to ditch the chest rig and use this pocket to hold my items plus be my gear hanger. One strap. One pocket. Pack stays at base of tree.
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not saying you are wrong in any manner, but we hunt a little differently. i use a movable aider just to get scent further off the ground. you ever have any deer smell your pack? i had deer bugger when they smelled my bottom step before i started using movable aider. maybe i just stink
 
Will Harris said:
not saying you are wrong in any manner, but we hunt a little differently. i use a movable aider just to get scent further off the ground. you ever have any deer smell your pack? i had deer bugger when they smelled my bottom step before i started using movable aider. maybe i just stink
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By the time you’ve gotten to height climbing, you’ve left enough of your scent at the base of the tree you’re in, that it doesn’t matter if your stick is down there or not.

You do stink. Not relative to any other person though. Just to an animal who doesn’t want to get eaten by you. And you stink so bad that these little details don’t make a difference.

I’ve had deer smell my stick, me, my boot print, hell @Allegheny Tom has had them smell his thumb print.

I’ve also shot em while they seemingly could care less about what they should be smelling and running over…
 
BuffaloBill said:
Yeah I don’t think it would work with Stealth Strips either. They just seemed quite a bit noisier than my Novix sticks. Difference in materials I suppose.
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I had a buddy buy a set. He used XOP’s tape and they are pretty quiet. Yes he can side stack them.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Here we go again with the odor discussion.
I don't think enough guys stop and think about residual odors we leave behind that may effect future hunts at that tree.
They also seldom talk about the lesser intensity of our odor in the fringes of our scent cone.

And as far as I know, I'm the only one that questions exactly which human odor alarms deer more than other human odors. Our feet don't smell like our pits, doesn't smell like our crotch, doesn't smell like or breath, doesn't smell like our fingerprints, doesn't smell like our ear wax. They all have different odors each of them produce. Logic says some of them are more volatile and should dissipate sooner (meaning less residual odor). And we humans don't smell alike either. We all know of some folks that emit more odors than the next person. In the last few years, I've noticed that my pits seldom stink. Is that due to diet? health? Meds? I have no idea.

Varying environmental conditions like humidity plays a roll in odor intensity and longevity.
On top of it, we are dealing with critters that have individual personalities and may have had all sorts of encounters with humans which makes it nearly impossible to predict how a particular deer will react if they catch the faintest whiff of us.

No doubt that we get busted far more often than we realize. Even though a deer may smell us, that doesn't mean they will always blow out in a panic.
I'm going to continue trying to address every detail that I can. Odor reduction in all parts of my body, play the wind as best as possible, keep gear clean, resist touching anything on my way in or out along my access, and a dozen other things, too.
And you know what? Most of the time the deer will still win, but occasionally they will slip up. If I put as many odds in my favor as I can, those odds will shift my way....just ever so slightly. It's all part of the fun and challenge of deer hunting.
 
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