One of the things I feel that I see very little discussion about is physical saddle setups in trees for hunting situations. I find I look at trees and setups differently since I've been hunting out a saddle than I did when I was hunting from stands. With that in mind I thought I'd start a thread to discuss some of these differences as it may help with the learning curve for some of the newer saddle hunting adoptees. Also, I'm looking forward to hearing how some of you may approach things differently, not only in the given tree example but in a larger scale setup discussion as well.
To kick things off I'll take an example from a tree in my backyard and how I would have setup in it with a tree stand versus how I would likely setup in it with my saddle. In this example let's assume the picture was taken looking straight downwind and from the spot where I would expect the primary shot opportunity to be at. First off, I'll grant the tree is a bit small but for discussion's sake I think it will work. Honestly, if it was where I felt I needed to be I wouldn't hesitate to hunt out of it. I prefer multi-trunk trees when possible and this one does offer cover and is open enough to shoot out of.
First, back in my tree stand days, I would have climbed up the main trunk (on the right side of the photo) and set my tree stand as high as I could in the open spot. I'd have kept my back to the tree and used the trunk and branches coming out as back cover. For instance something like this (please forgive the rough Powerpoint representation meant to be a hunter sitting in a tree stand ). From there I'd have some cover and be able to primarily watch downwind. If something approached I'd likely slowly stand up and rotate for the shot keeping myself silhouetted against the tree trunk. Nothing wrong with this approach, I've killed many deer doing just this.
So how does this change when hunting from a saddle? For me it starts before I even get in the tree. With the saddle I'm not going to automatically climb the main trunk, I'm going to climb the secondary trunk to the left. In fact I'm probably not going to even climb the second largest trunk (the one behind) I'm going to pick the next largest one in front. The reason is that's the trunk I want to tie in to so that I'm hanging in front of the main trunk and can still use it as my background cover while providing the most open shot opportunities. From this tree, that location provides me with the most shot opportunities with the direct downwind shot being at my weakside 3:00 position, the least likely direction of deer approach. The point it that there is a different thought process that has to go on between effectively setting up a tree stand and a saddle set up.
To kick things off I'll take an example from a tree in my backyard and how I would have setup in it with a tree stand versus how I would likely setup in it with my saddle. In this example let's assume the picture was taken looking straight downwind and from the spot where I would expect the primary shot opportunity to be at. First off, I'll grant the tree is a bit small but for discussion's sake I think it will work. Honestly, if it was where I felt I needed to be I wouldn't hesitate to hunt out of it. I prefer multi-trunk trees when possible and this one does offer cover and is open enough to shoot out of.
First, back in my tree stand days, I would have climbed up the main trunk (on the right side of the photo) and set my tree stand as high as I could in the open spot. I'd have kept my back to the tree and used the trunk and branches coming out as back cover. For instance something like this (please forgive the rough Powerpoint representation meant to be a hunter sitting in a tree stand ). From there I'd have some cover and be able to primarily watch downwind. If something approached I'd likely slowly stand up and rotate for the shot keeping myself silhouetted against the tree trunk. Nothing wrong with this approach, I've killed many deer doing just this.
So how does this change when hunting from a saddle? For me it starts before I even get in the tree. With the saddle I'm not going to automatically climb the main trunk, I'm going to climb the secondary trunk to the left. In fact I'm probably not going to even climb the second largest trunk (the one behind) I'm going to pick the next largest one in front. The reason is that's the trunk I want to tie in to so that I'm hanging in front of the main trunk and can still use it as my background cover while providing the most open shot opportunities. From this tree, that location provides me with the most shot opportunities with the direct downwind shot being at my weakside 3:00 position, the least likely direction of deer approach. The point it that there is a different thought process that has to go on between effectively setting up a tree stand and a saddle set up.