I went out this morning with my bow to try out a new area my brother had seen a quite a few deer when we took our kids on a youth hunt last weekend. After a two mile hike through the mountains I arrived there just after daylight so I could find a suitable tree. With a tree picked out up I went and got to hunting height. For reference I climb using the one stick technique to cut on weight and have been successfully doing so for the past 5-6 years.
There I am standing on my top step about to hang my pack and pull up my bow, when looking around at the main route the deer will take through the funnel I'm in, I decide to adjust my stick a little more to the left for a better shot angle. So I lower my prussic knot a little to hang down and adjust the stick quick and move it to the desired angle. The only problem is I was hanging low enough to barely reach my stick and when I slid it over, the back side of my whoopie sling drop without me noticing. The stick slipped down a little bit and when I went to put my weight on it, it slid down even more. Now I'm grabbing the top step with my out stretch legs and toes and successfully "hook" it with my toes and go to lift it up, well this made the back side of the rope drop again. When I inevitably let the stick go because the toe method isn't working the stick really slides a ways down without any weight on it to make it lock in (about half way down the tree). That moment was a true OH SH!T!!! moment.
At this point I wrap my legs around the tree and hang there for a minute to collect myself and try to think clearly how to access what to do next. First thought is I have two screw in steps I'm going to have to maneuver my way down on. Nope! Took those out of my pack when I brought my daughter on a youth hunt the weekend before. Second thought was to call my brother and have him hike in with his sticks and get me down. That would be around a 3 hour free hang by the time he grabbed his stuff and made it to me. This thought was put in the back of my head as a last resort. My third idea was to create an aider out of my pull cord. Looking at the pull cord I highly doubted it would support my weight. BUT! while looking at the cord an idea hits me. Maybe I can pull up my bow and hook the stick and pull it up to me.
Luckily while hooking the stick with the bow my silencer bracket wedged itself into the bottom standoff on my stick. Only problem is you can't just pull the stick up because the rope activates and locks itself in being pulled up the tree the same as when it has down pressure. So after an hour and a half of shimmying the stick back and forth cm by cm using my bow as a grappling hook at the end of my pull cord, I finally got it to where I could reach the stick and detach it and set it right in front of me at chest height where I could put the proper pressure on the rope so it would bite in with the stick. I also tightened my whoopie sling as the tree was skinnier the further I went up and it being a pretty narrow tree exacerbated the problem even more.
Just a reminder...don't take shortcuts or do things without thinking when you're 20 feet up a tree. I should have lowered myself so the top of my stick and its treestrap were around head height and properly adjusted them. Instead with out thinking I made a quick adjustment and was up a tree without a ladder.
There I am standing on my top step about to hang my pack and pull up my bow, when looking around at the main route the deer will take through the funnel I'm in, I decide to adjust my stick a little more to the left for a better shot angle. So I lower my prussic knot a little to hang down and adjust the stick quick and move it to the desired angle. The only problem is I was hanging low enough to barely reach my stick and when I slid it over, the back side of my whoopie sling drop without me noticing. The stick slipped down a little bit and when I went to put my weight on it, it slid down even more. Now I'm grabbing the top step with my out stretch legs and toes and successfully "hook" it with my toes and go to lift it up, well this made the back side of the rope drop again. When I inevitably let the stick go because the toe method isn't working the stick really slides a ways down without any weight on it to make it lock in (about half way down the tree). That moment was a true OH SH!T!!! moment.
At this point I wrap my legs around the tree and hang there for a minute to collect myself and try to think clearly how to access what to do next. First thought is I have two screw in steps I'm going to have to maneuver my way down on. Nope! Took those out of my pack when I brought my daughter on a youth hunt the weekend before. Second thought was to call my brother and have him hike in with his sticks and get me down. That would be around a 3 hour free hang by the time he grabbed his stuff and made it to me. This thought was put in the back of my head as a last resort. My third idea was to create an aider out of my pull cord. Looking at the pull cord I highly doubted it would support my weight. BUT! while looking at the cord an idea hits me. Maybe I can pull up my bow and hook the stick and pull it up to me.
Luckily while hooking the stick with the bow my silencer bracket wedged itself into the bottom standoff on my stick. Only problem is you can't just pull the stick up because the rope activates and locks itself in being pulled up the tree the same as when it has down pressure. So after an hour and a half of shimmying the stick back and forth cm by cm using my bow as a grappling hook at the end of my pull cord, I finally got it to where I could reach the stick and detach it and set it right in front of me at chest height where I could put the proper pressure on the rope so it would bite in with the stick. I also tightened my whoopie sling as the tree was skinnier the further I went up and it being a pretty narrow tree exacerbated the problem even more.
Just a reminder...don't take shortcuts or do things without thinking when you're 20 feet up a tree. I should have lowered myself so the top of my stick and its treestrap were around head height and properly adjusted them. Instead with out thinking I made a quick adjustment and was up a tree without a ladder.
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