Shamanic Guide -- Treestand Safety

When I look back on my early years of deer hunting, it’s a small wonder I survived. Take tree stands for instance. Look at any good book on deer hunting. Go to any Hunter’s Ed class. Here’s what the Treestand Manufacturers Association says you don’t do:
• Wear a safety belt around your waist. If you should fall, this will flip you upside down leaving you dangling helplessly; or you could completely slip from the belt and fall.
• Hunt from a tree stand while under the influence of drugs, alcohol or if you’re physically impaired.
• Use a tree stand during high wind, lightning or if snow or ice is present on the stand or steps.
• Select a leaning, diseased, shaggy barked or dead tree to place a stand!
• Climb with a weapon! Use a pull-up rope.
• "Jump" or "Bounce" on a stand to "seat" it to the tree. Add weight gradually.
• Use a tree stand for anything other than hunting.
• Use a tree stand for climbing a utility pole.
• Use a stand without a "fall restraint" system. ALL tree stand manufacturers recommend use of these.
• Insert screw-in steps into previously used holes, or into knotholes, or where limbs have been broken off.
• Leave your stand or steps on the tree all year round. Remove and store them properly.
Now I can’t say I ever went up drunk or stoned. I was never stupid enough to put up a stand on a utility pole, and I was always too clumsy to climb with a bow in my hand.
High wind? Yep. Did it in an old stand I found in the woods attached to a dead tree. It was late January and it was one of those wild days with 50 degree temperatures and 30 mph gusts. I clung on for dear life and had several large branches fall off. Thankfully none hit me.
I had a shag bark hickory that I hunted out of for years-- only slid a little once.
My point is that I survived my early years of deer hunting. I don’t know how. It took a long while for treestand manufacturers and outdoor writers to collect enough horror stories to decide it was time to publish some guidelines for safe treestand use. I came of age as a deer hunter on the front end of that learning curve.

I can tell you all those points are worth following. I’ve got history on a lot of them.

Did I ever tell you about the time I went out with a climbing treestand for the first time?

Well, it was sometime in the mid 80’s. I had this kit built climbing stand I‘d made with a steel strap that went around the tree. I used my safety belt, noosed around the trunk to haul myself up. I picked a nice straight oak and had at it. I was up close to 25 feet when I decided I’d had enough climbing, and I undid the strap from the tree and looped it over a branch to better secure myself.

You know something? Trees get narrower as they go up. As a result, it’s usually a good idea to start off with your climbing stand angled up a bit, so that it will still be somewhat level when you get up to your chosen height. I did not know that, but I was about to find out why.

That treestand weighed about 18 lbs. I had the strap over that limb and was holding onto the carabiner when the stand let go and I found myself hanging from the strap (the end of which I was holding in my right hand.

Over the next hour or two I discovered a few new skills. First, I learned how to climb a tree with your feet tied to an 18 lb chunk of plywood, loosely tied to a tree trunk. Second, I learned it is a bad idea to unhook yourself from the tree and attempt to put your safety belt over a limb. There might be a time when you might want to unhook yourself and descend without benefit of slack. Third, 25 feet is a long ways up; it is always wise in similar circumstances to keep your eyes focused up the tree and not pay much attention to the downward view. Learning to maintain an optimistic, problem solving attitude is hard, but it is essential.

It took quite a while before I succeeded in getting up the tree the required foot or so to regain enough slack. I then went about re-attaching the safety belt to the trunk, and descending. Once down, I adjusted the treestand and got back up. Later in the afternoon, I was able to get my hands off the trunk and my feet off the straps and turn around.

Wow! What a view! I don’t think my testicles came back down for a week.

I actually hauled up my bow at some point and held it until sundown. In my memory of the event, there’s a lot of compressed time. In the end, I think it was a total of about 5 hours in the stand.

I then took my sweet time slowing inching back around, hooking in my feet and descending. I did not make it back to camp until after nine, even though it was 200 yards away. It just took that long, because my legs had jellied somewhat and I was having trouble walking.