Treestand nostalgia

Another thing along these lines. I used to use a climber a lot when hunting on military bases. One year I got busy and didn't have much time for scouting. On the bases I hunted access even for scouting was controlled to a select period with sign-in/sign-out. So, when the season rolled around I just headed out to one of my year after year tried and true spots. I hook up my stand to my favorite oak tree and climbed up. I pulled up my bow and got ready to hunt. In about 20 minutes or so shooting light arrived. I was focused on listening for the sounds of deer approaching when "boom" a large branch fell to the ground. I looked up only to find my favorite tree in that area had died and I was sitting perched in a widow maker.

I think it is our nature to focus on hunting and really have to work to keep safety first.

Thanks,

Jack
 
Amen, Badger !! Holy crap that pic sends shivers. I think I'd have jumped if I saw that thing coming down toward me.

No more building stands into trees for me. I use ladders 100% now. Too old and back aches mean no more shinnying up with climbers !! I like the quiet of metal ladders, too.
 
NH Mountains said:
The wooden tree stands were around many many years before loc-ons came on the market. I'm pretty certain loc-ons and the modern ladder stands would not evolved if the "mental idiots" who hunted from wooden stands hadn't started hunting from them. Back then deer didn't look up in trees much like they do today. Their senses have evolved quickly to the modern dangers of hunters in trees. Most people on here wouldn't drive a nail into a tree but, evolution happens. Most people look at hinge cutting as stupid too from a logging perspective. Right Spud?
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I agree except I'd clarify that you are using the word "evolution" in a broad context. It is actually a learned behavior and takes less than a month. I've related the story before of an area where deer were not hunted and fed by hand by humans. When the property changed hands the developer brought in our group of archery hunters. Our rules required hunting from a treestand for safety reason. In less than a month, deer learned that humans on the ground were still not a threat but humans in a tree were a threat. You could walk within 20 yards of a deer. It would look up at you and then continue feeding. The minute you climbed a tree deer would take off.

No doubt our youthful foolishness led to the market for commercial stands and liability lawyers were the driver for safer stands.
 
yoderjac said:
I agree except I'd clarify that you are using the word "evolution" in a broad context. It is actually a learned behavior and takes less than a month. I've related the story before of an area where deer were not hunted and fed by hand by humans. When the property changed hands the developer brought in our group of archery hunters. Our rules required hunting from a treestand for safety reason. In less than a month, deer learned that humans on the ground were still not a threat but humans in a tree were a threat. You could walk within 20 yards of a deer. It would look up at you and then continue feeding. The minute you climbed a tree deer would take off.

No doubt our youthful foolishness led to the market for commercial stands and liability lawyers were the driver for safer stands.
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Why would hunting from a treestand be safer than hunting from the ground?
 
Satchmo said:
Why would hunting from a treestand be safer than hunting from the ground?
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This was land that the public was used to hiking, running, bicycling, etc. on. It was now owned by a developer. They wanted downward angled shots of 20 yards or less to minimize liability with the public. The hunting group all signed liability waivers and carried insurance so the developer was less worried about hunter injury than the liability and negative publicity an injury to the pubic would bring. This was not in a rural setting. I'd characterize it as a large tract in the suburbs about to be developed. This was more of a population control situation than recreational hunting. But the point about learned behavior applies.

Thanks,

jack
 
NH Mountains said:
That grandson passed recently as well but, it was not Lanny's son Landon that was in the videos.
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Oh man. Did not know that. Just looked it up. That's rough.
 
NH Mountains said:
So evolution can't be a learned behavior passed down from generation to generation?
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In the broad sense of the word, evolution can simply mean progressive change of any kind. In the context of Darwinian Evolution, it refers to random genetic changes that are selected for and/or against by the environment. I didn't think that is what you meant. Certainly learned behavior moves from generation to generation with deer. The example I was offering shows that learning about a danger like hunters from treestand can occur over a very short period and doesn't require generations to establish.

I've watched a doe with fawn stop and eyeball a permanent stand for 15 minutes or more before deciding there was no hunter in it and it was safe. There is not doubt those fawn were learning from that experience.

No disagreement here, just trying to distinguish between genetic and epigenetic behavioral changes and learned behavior changes.

Thanks,

Jack
 
I built three stands in oak trees on my land. One has lasted for over 35 years. The other two oak trees succumbed to oak wilt and both of the trees eventually fell to the ground. I was able to salvage the cabs of both stands in those trees and put them on 12 foot elevated blinds I built with treated wood and used stairs instead of a ladder. With my old knees I can not even climb up ladders anymore.
 
I look at those old stands, or what is left of them, very closely. Some old scutter not trained in genitic and epigenic behavioral changes, had just noticed deer moving through that spot, like his father, grand father, and now me! If they ain't coming through there anymore, I chalk it up to we were all idiots for sitting there, and find a different spot.
 
You just needed some schoolin', MO. I knew all along you'd catch on !!! ^^^^

Bet you'll kill some deer NOW.
 
We had a big wind storm back in the summer and I hadn't been to this part of my property since then until last Saturday. Look in the center of the first pic at what's left of my ladder stand in the background. If I had been in that baby, you would have seen a rerun of Tarzan making his move.



This would have been fun too.

 
Good thread Bill, I sure built my share back in the day...it was that or hunt from the ground.
It is pretty cool to look around and notice an old one decaying away in a new spot that I have chosen to hang a stand in, place was good 30-40 years ago too.
 
Native Hunter said:
We had a big wind storm back in the summer and I hadn't been to this part of my property since then until last Saturday. Look in the center of the first pic at what's left of my ladder stand in the background. If I had been in that baby, you would have seen a rerun of Tarzan making his move.



This would have been fun too.
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Theres a lot pucker factor right there :D
 
I agree, when I was a kid, I was a treestand making machine, I had more stands out all over the woods behind my place than you could count, and made them out of tree's, I fell out of about 30+ of them, once landing on my cousin and breaking his arm
but it was just what everyone in the area did
if a commercial treestand was out there NO one in my area ever heard of them
I can recall in 1986 at the Harrisburg PA sportsman show, a guy there was selling blue prints to make loc on stands, and I bought them, had to have a bunch of metal triangles machine shop cut and drilled and the stand when done, was scarier than any I ever built out of tree branches LOL
I personally know of several that guys installed and fell out of never to be taken down or used again
Up near my hunting camp, there is two, old Baker climber stands that JUST the hand climber is left up a tree about 20-25 feet, from where the used had the platform slip on them and fall , and gave up on using them, to ever go back and get the climber down, tree's have grown around them now

but, I think its cool in an odd way to see all the things we did so many yrs ago and thought NOTHING about doing, that SO many today would be so scared of or ???

MAN if people today ever seen what and how they built so many things in life, it would scare the crap out of lawyers trying to protect a business today from law suits!!
watch some of the old logging video's on Youtube and what them guys did daily and didn't blink on!
crazy! and cool at the same time if you ask me! its history folks
 
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