I have climbed into a tree, sat on a limb, and hunted for deer. I realized that it was very risky. One time I climbed up in this tree, in the morning dark, I hung my rifle (unloaded) from a stump of a branch by the rifle sling. The cruddy old branch stump -- which I could not see well in the dark -- broke off and my rifle fell off into the dark. My partner who was helping me up the tree caught the rifle -- preventing damage to his noggin and to my rifle. Sitting in the tree, I felt that if I made a mistake -- and at 49 years of age I have a healthy respect for my capacity to make errors and having things not go 100% according to plan -- I was liable to pitch out of the tree head-first and likely break my freakin' neck. That was my last hunt sitting on the branch of a tree.

I support anyone's wish to hunt as they want to. I think some people go overboard buying gadgets. I have gone overboard myself sometimes buying gadgets. I sure have more hunting knives than I can use. I've got a Buck 110, a Gerber Gator, a Schrade something or other, a Jim Zumbo Elk Knife, an old Marbles hunting knife, and maybe one or two others I'm not remembering. I've got face camo that I used once only and stopped using after I got the face camo smeared on the stock of my rifle and on my cell phone and after I spent a lot more time than I wanted to cleaning off my face and STILL didn't get all the face camo off. I have a buck grunt tube that has not worked for me. You get the idea. I wear camo pants and shirt. Might as well -- my pair of camo pants was $24, which is cheaper than a pair of Levi's. But who cares? So what. People go overboard about all sorts of things. Who is perfect?

I also find it questionable that one has hunted for years and never missed and that the deer always drops right in its tracks. I have heard that deer that are heart shot often times run off at a high rate of speed for as much as 50 yards before dropping dead -- blown up heart. "Never miss, deer drops dead in its tracks every time" sounds a little over simplified.