Treestands -- A survivor looks back

Something occurred to me this summer as I was getting ready for the start of deer season. I was in the shed, moving unused stands around, and it hit me how far removed from my earlier hunting experiences I had become. I’m now 48. I’m now well into my 20-something-th year going after deer. What has changed?

The biggest change is my choice of treestands. My first few stands were home-brew jobs. The first was an ill-conceived bit of wrong-headedness based on the assumption that a nice piece of marine plywood could be hung on a tree with a piece of chain and not a whole lot of thought had to go into it. The second was a kit-built climber that got left in the forest after a pre-dawn ride down twenty feet of maple. This was all tried after a couple of seasons that had me thinking I could just climb a tree and sit on a limb and shoot deer with a bow. Yes, you can do that, but it quickly left me looking for easier, safer ways to enjoy my hobby

There’s a lot missing from those days—bruises mostly. I never had a real honest-to-goodness fall, but I had a lot of extremely rapid decents. Along the way I learned a lot of things:

1) Stay out of other people’s abandoned stands. They are abandoned for a reason.
2) Stay out of dead trees. One white-knuckle afternoon in a 20 mph wind will convince me.
3) Use store-bought stands.
4) Do not exceed the weight rating of a treestand. Figure in at least a 20% margin for your gear plus an extra margin for wear and tear.

If you had asked me half-way through my career as a treestand maven, I would have pointed you to a sturdy self-climber like the Summit Viper or the API Grand Slam Super Magnum. For a guy who could not trust that his stand was going to be there from week to week, a climber made sense. The weight was always a problem. Finding the right tree was always a problem. The bulk was always a problem. The noise of getting set up and climbing was always a problem. Still, it was a fairly luxurious time once I was up there. For a guy who used to climb up the nearest pine tree and lash himself to the trunk, this was heaven.

The biggest revolution in my career as a treestand survivor came when I started choosing ladder stands over the others. My weight had exceeded the limit on several of my older stands, and I had recently acquired land that allowed me to put permanent stands up. I immediately went trolling through the discount stores for last-year’s closeouts and scored several simple ladders, a buddy style ladder, and a cheap chain-on that I figured I could use with my existing climbing stick. I already have several climbers, a lightweight strap-on, and oodles of strap-on and screw in steps.

By the end of the first season under the new regime I counted bruises and deer and realized that a 15 foot ladder stand had won hands down.

1) I had one near miss on a deer out of one climber that I’d had to lug clear back to a tree and use to climb up into the nosebleed range. I had zilch out of the others, including the ones that I had left in the trees from week to week.
2) I had put up a couple chain-on platforms out in some good areas. Nada.
3) I had some short (10-foot) ladders out. Zip.
4) I had two deer from the 15 foot Buddy Stand.

As the years have progressed, I have gradually migrated away from my other options and gone with a moderate-height ladder stand for all of my primary hunting venues. The disposition of the remainder:

1) My API Grand Slam Super Magnum climber has been in mothballs since 2003, but largely unused since 2001. I keep telling myself that if a unique situation arises, I can deploy a climber to the right tree on a moment’s notice. The more I scout, the less that becomes an issue.
2) My lightweight API strap-on is mothballed. I just do not need a lightweight stand to carry in on my back anymore.
3) The low-altitude ladders are out there, but I get busted too often to make them anything more than a secondary choice.
4) When I want to explore a new venue, I’m using a climbing stick and a sturdy Hunter’s View chain-on. I used this combination successfully in 2003, and replaced it with a buddy-style ladder stand the next summer so I could hunt with my kids.

What really got me making this fearless assessment occurred a few days after my clean-out in the shed. I had brought out the climbing stick to help me install a new buddy stand. I was dressing for work midweek and noticed a myriad of bruises that had popped up all over my legs and arms. In the years before my switch to ladder stands, I had stopped noticing the punishment I gave myself every season. I looked like I’d been back playing football, instead of having a nice quiet afternoon erecting a new stand. The trips up and down the climbing stick, and the various acts of climbing up, reaching around, and hanging out had left a mark. I didn’t mind the bruises, but it reminded me of how far I had come.

My conclusions after all this time and all this investment in stands—money, bruises, and the occasional cold-sweat in the middle of the night are as follows:

1) If you have any chance of putting up a stand for the season, the moderate-height ladder stands are the way to go. The deer do not mind the ladder and if my boots are up 15 feet, and the rest of me is behind a waist-high camo blind, they ain’t gonna know until its too late. Before I sunk $300 into another system, I’d risk losing a stand to robbers and spring for three $100 dollar ladders. I was also a nosebleed cowboy for a few years. I’m now hunting at half my old favorite height, and I see and shoot more deer.
2) I’ve got a bunch of deer to show you that climbers work, but I wonder how many big bucks I honked off over the years that heard me climbing in the darkness and decided to take the road less traveled. Ladder stands are absolutely the quietest way for a deer hunter to get airborne.
3) My collection of screw-in and strap-on steps is gradually being converted to gear-hangers on my buddy stands. The older they get (and the older I get), the less I trust them.
4) If bruises were my sole reason for picking a stand, climbing sticks and screw in steps would win. If I was looking for the shear thrill of riding a treestand to the ground, I have a couple retired climbers in the attic I could break out. If I’m solely thinking about a stand that ceases to be an issue after it’s up: a ladder.

Super Double Secret Ultimate Outdoorsmen

From the 24hour Campfire:


I've got a very strange hunting partner (deer -) he's a new hunter and doesn't have near the drive as anyone else I hunt with.

Last year he called me on the radio at around 9:30 and said he was done.

Turns out he had forgot his shells, went to the stand, didn't even think about loading the gun until he saw a deer.
He said he pulled up, clicked the safety off and CLICK.

hehehehehehe.... This guy is really a character ...

The next weekend I took a two does in the morning and he didn't see anything but decided he'd stick around until I came back from dropping my does off.

When I drove back I found him sleeping under a tree with around a dozen turkey walking around him. Understand this is directly in front of the cabin I'm driving to. His gun was up against the fireplace (10 yds away). Aparrently his snoring didn't bother the turkeys.

Of course the turkeys started flying away as I pulled up so I hooked the horn and a couple darn near hit him as they flew past to get into the trees.

The best part, he heard the ruckus but didn't see the birds so I told him it was two deer... man I haven't ever see him get that mad....

Just what fun ya can have out in the woods.

Spot


Dear Spot:


See, in Hunters Ed circles, that right there's a "Sportsman."

I'm referring to that goofy Evolution of a Hunter thing they always toss into the Hunters Ed courses.

First you start with the couch potato, dragging himself off the couch, and entering the world of the outdoors for the first time.

You have the neophyte that wants just to shoot anything that moves.

Then in works its way through stages like "Trophy Hunter"

Without boring you with the whole line of drivel, finally you get the supremely evolved Master Outdoorsman Emeritus that does not even have to pull a trigger all season and be fulfilled just by the mere experience of being in the outdoors. In fact, he can now just stay home on the couch and watch football games like the couch potato and still be an ultimate outdoorsman-- his appreciation of hunting and its role in the web of life is that subtle and serene.

Spot: I think your buddy has achieved this exalted state. You should attempt to emulate him. Bow down to him and ask him for guidance. . .



. . . I'd better stop now, it's starting to leak in at the top of my boots. Anyhow, I got to thinking about this very topic as I was helping #3 son study for his Hunters Ed class in a month.

BTW: It always amazes me how many of these Super Double Secret Ultimate Outdoorsmen there are in the world. I run into them all the time. They seem to have achieved all their infinite insight in just 1 or 2 deer seasons, and they now sit back and chuckle dismissively when they find out I've been at it over twenty years. What the heck have I been missing all these years? Why do I feel the need to go out and bust my butt every season?

Arrgh! The humanity of it all.