Attention Hunters: Wear your safety harnesses!

In My Humble Opinion
1

As you might have seen in the other thread: Recently 32 year old Timothy E. Bowers, an Indiana deer hunter and father-to-be was left paralyzed after falling from a tree and chose to end his life.

If you want to comment on the decision to end his life, please do so in that thread.

This thread is to urge all hunters to be careful! Wear your safety harness. You must have one because they come free with all treestands.

Unless you are hunting from a ladder stand, always secure yourself from the moment you leave the ground. Use a lineman’s belt or use a rope with a prussic knot the entire journey up the tree.

It’s very easy to forget something at your house or at your car. I’ve walked a mile into the woods carrying a 25 lb climber to get to my best spot only to realize that I forgot a carabiner or something. If that means I can’t safely attach my harness to the tree that means I’m not going up. I’ll switch plans and do some still hunting.

Non hunters: If you are walking in the woods and you see a treestand don’t touch anything! You probably don’t understand how it works and you don’t know if it’s even been ratcheted to the tree yet.

Every time I climb into one of my stands I’m making the assumption that no anti-hunter, prankster kids or anyone else has messed with something that would cause me to fall.

Hunting is dangerous. You’re dealing with lots of adrenaline while twenty feet up in a tree with freezing rain and lots of things can go wrong. Stay safe.

Tell a family member where you are going. Just make sure it’s someone you trust with your best spots. :wink:

Never make or get into a homemade stand. You can get fixed stands for under $50 now, which is probably cheaper than the parts to make one yourself.

Carry a whistle, knife and cell phone on your person, not in a pack. If you fall, you’ll need them.

Use a harness with a relief strap so you can take the tension of your legs if you fall.

Check your gear every year. Replace worn ropes and beware of those fake “not weight bearing” carabiners that every store seems to be selling these days. Keep them out of your gear.

Note: This is in no way a pitting of Bowers. I have no idea what went wrong on his hunt. I don’t know if he didn’t use a harness, or if something failed or what happened. Regardless of what happened to him, this is a good reminder to always stay safe.

My new errand this week: Renew my spot messenger and always hit that to send my GPS coordinates to family and friends when I get into my stand.

2

If I encounter any hunting stands on our property, which is visibly and legally posted no trespassing / no hunting, they will be removed, and law enforcement/game warden notified of the violation…

…thankfully that hasn’t happened, we do get requests for permission to hunt, but decline them due to safety reasons, very limited safe shooting lanes on the property, bordered on three sides by rural neighbors

Still, good advice in the OP, safe hunting is critical

3

Make sure you spray your equipment with bear repellant, not bear attractant, just to be safer. :smiley:

4

I’m not a hunter, but I heartily endorse this recommendation. My mother works for a major spinal cord injury rehabilitation facility and a lot of their patients are hunting injuries. Most of the hunting injuries are from falling out of deer stands. It’s so common, it has it’s own code.

5

Since it’s never happened, I wouldn’t worry about it too much.

But if you ever did end up with a fixed stand inside of posted signs, I wouldn’t bother removing it. I’m sure that would be an honest mistake. A note on the stand would result in the hunter removing it for you, I’m sure.

If someone wanted to be illegal, they wouldn’t leave a fixed stand up to get caught. They’d use a climber or hunt from the ground.

6

I like attention, so I will wear a safety harness from now on. :wink:

7

That’s what I figured, I have no issues with responsible, ethical, humane hunters (most hunters fit this category) I have issues with liars, poachers and trespassers

We’ve had “game killers” (I refuse to call them Hunters) claim to have shot a deer on the marsh at the border of our property, and “it ran onto your property, can I have permission to go and retrieve it?” When asked the location of the kill so I can glass the field to verify, or offer to walk them to their alleged kill, they get all evasive and drop the subject, some have even attempted to sneak on to the property via our side of the marsh

For the last 3 weeks we’ve had hunters spotlighting our field as well, a call to the game warden seems to have solved this

Is there any wonder why when I take Cooper for a walk in the field, we both have on blaze orange, and I’m either carrying my S&W 686 .357 or my AR-15 slung over my shoulder?

(Yes, open carry is legal in Maine…)

8

I’m sorry for derailing the thread, I will not post any more on the subject, I may open a different thread if there is any interest in this.

9

Okay! Might look a little foolish wearing one while upland hunting though.

Some of this is common sense, but very good point. This should be analogous to you assuming your gun is loaded even if you’re sure you checked 5 minutes ago and it was empty.
Not just tampering either, but accidental changes in the stand, like temperature-related expansion.

That’s why you should invite Camp Batman on every trip. Double goes for scuba diving, never know when you might need to scare a shark away.

10

Most of the yahoos in our neck of the woods would be up in their treestands with a 12-pack. You’re up in a tree with a gun, now the idiots want to add alcohol to the mix…

11

I know a friend online whose brother sustained a severe head injury after falling out of a tree stand. He now requires full-time care in a nursing facility, leaving his wife to raise his two young sons on her own.

Good OP.

12

Why do you need a harness when attention hunting? Couldn’t you do it just by starting a thread on pit bulls or whether deities exist or gun control?

13

Princhester, I had been thinking about that question myself. :smiley:

In the meantime, why climb a tree when hunting?

ETA It really sounds like an accident waiting to happen.

14

Right… just like the people who park their expensive SUV’s on my property, which is liberally posted with “no parking, private property signs”, do it by mistake…

Sorry, if you make a mistake like that I don’t have a lot of sympathy for you. I support the land owner removing the stand.

15

Older style harnesses were just a loop of seatbelt material that you stepped into. It’d stop a fall, but it looks like it’d also snap you back. Modern harness marketed to hunters (camo everywhere) run a $100. This year, I bough two climbing rated locking carabiner and black tubular webbing and made my own for $20. The second biner is for the length of tubing that goes around the tree and locks back onto itself.

16

As mentioned but to be clear you’re not so much ‘climbing a tree’ as going up an in place ladder or steps secured to the tree so that you can have a lofty perch from which to observe and fire your weapon. Most tree stands also have a seat so you can patiently wait for the game to appear after arriving early before their normal browse time. The advantages are twofold, one, you can usually view a larger and more widespread area for approaching game. Two, deer and many other game animals usually tend to focus on things at ground level and don’t look as intently up in the forest canopy. In short, you can see them better and they see you more poorly. Advantage hunter.

17

No worries. I get the concerns that you have as a landowner to keep out the shady hunters that do exist out there.

But, since I regularly hunt in Maine, I have to ask: Can I get permission to hunt on your land? If safety is a concern, I can promise only bowhunting from a treestand!

:wink:

18

This is all true. I’d add that scent is another factor. If my human scent is 25 feet up, there’s a better chance that the deer will miss it.

The ground level sight thing is especially true in the east. The whitetails here don’t have to worry about mountain lions. I hear that out west the muley deer do look up because of this.

19

I’m pretty sure the bear was considering smacking the guy for shooting the video sideways.

20

Sure. I do to. It’s just that it’s work to remove a stand. Work that could be avoided with a simple note. But, yeah, if there’s indications that it’s a deliberate trespasser, I’m all for removing the stand. Or even better yet, calling the authorities.