I'm one of those old guys who hunted before there were many options is commercial tree stands. We hunted standing on branches and the tree you picked had little to do with where the deer sign was but more to do with whether you could reach a branch to climb. I've fallen out of more trees in my life than I care (or am able) to remember. Luckily I was never seriously hurt. I've also had several close calls in tree stands but still hardly ever wore a safety harness.
My moment of truth for saddle hunting occurred early in my saddle hunting experience. I documented it more fully in the referenced thread if anyone is interested but the cliff notes version is as follows:
Instead of investing in some purpose built equipment, I was repurposing an ancient, highly corroded bottom end of a set of interlocking steel climbing sticks to one stick. The stick partially broke in mid climb and I made another bad choice in trying to continue up with it further cobbled together. In the transition to my platform it failed completely and I dropped 3-4 feet before coming to rest. Luckily I recognized I was on shaky ground (literally ) and was tied in with both my tether and my lineman's although the tether was not taut when the stick gave way. I managed to self rescue with only a minor laceration but the incident pushed home the value of using real equipment, inspecting it regularly and being tied in, especially when making the transition to the platform.
The tree I was climbing was part of a clump of maples located in a really thick beech thicket. Had I not been tied in I would have ended up wedged in the crotch of the trees to far up to get out but not far enough up to be seen. I doubt very much anyone would have been able to locate me for quite some time. Take the care to use good solid equipment, practice regularly with it, inspect it as often as you use it and always stay tied to the tree, preferably on a taut line, especially making a transition to an platform.
As we all know @redsquirrel has declared 2019 The Year of Safety. With the rapid growth of this site and large number of new saddle hunters I thought it might be beneficial to start a “lessons learned” thread focusing on safety where we can share some of our close calls, lessons learned and...
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