Any close calls? Did you fall?

From the D&DH Forum

Funny you ask this question. I just submitted my first story to D&DH magazine based on my 20+ years as a treestand survivor.

I can’t claim any falls, but I have had a few very rapid descents. I always had a safety belt on, so things never got all that bad, but they could have.

The worst was 1988. I had a kit-built climbing stand that was just a platform. You were supposed to go up and down either by bear hugging the tree or using your safety belt to pull yourself up. I was twenty feet up a maple in Switzerland County, Indiana on a frosty October morning when the steel band that went around the tree snapped while my boots were still bungeed on. The bark was slippery and I rode it all the way to the ground.

About two years later, I had a second one of these kit-built jobs. I was up in Michigan on a WMA. I had added a hand-climber/seat to the kit. I was sitting on the seat when the platform decided to fall about four feet further down the tree. I spent the next hour coaxing it back up using my haul rope. After that trip, the kit-built climbers were sent to the attic. I never again went up a tree with a climber that did not have the top half attached to the bottom half with a rope.

My first climber that anyone here would recognize was an Amacker. Back in 1987 they got 300 lb Ben Rogers Lee to endorse a stand. Since I was a walking landform myself, I decided what was good for Ben was good for me. They have changed their design many times over since, so please don’t take this as a slap against Amacker. However, I was forever having trouble with the bottom half or the top half slipping. Usually it was only a few inches, but it always led to a jolt. It was also twice the weight of my kit-built climbers.

It did not help any that I frequently fell asleep on my stand. Since I wore a safety harness at all times, it wasn’t that big a deal. However, you just have not lived until you get jerked awake by your safety harness coming taut over your chest and you wake up and see nothing but air under your feet. Couple that with the occasional spontaneous letting-go of the stand, and you can see why I thought deer hunting was so exciting in those days.

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