The only thing I can come up with is I was pulling up my Encore to my stand with my hoist rope and noticed that when I got it up to me that the rope had got around the hammer spur and pulled the hammer back to the cocked position.

It was unprimed, of course, and I had tied it so the barrel was pointing down.

Had I forgot to take the 209 primer out and tied it up the wrong way. I would have been pulling up a loaded, primed, cocked gun that was pointing at me in the dark.

In thinking about it all that day. I decided that I must have laid the gun on top of the pull-up rope. Since then, I make sure the rope is clear of the gun before climbing my treestand.