when I hear the word public I think a temporary stand! That being said, when I hear people talking about taking big bucks I think HANG ON stands. First things first:

I'm partial towards hang-ons b/c that's how I hunt, but I do own 2 climbing stands. In addition your specific types of trees have alot to do with it.

I picked a hand on stand in combo with a summit climbing step setup b/c I hunt on PUBLIC LAND ONLY. This means a number of things. First, I cannot leave my stand set up, and if I do it's stolen. 2nd, by law I must have a temporary stand.

Now for the benefits of a step-and-stand combo VS a climbing setup that I've discovered so far.... In my neck of the woods, all of the straight trees end up exposing you to deer, you have no coverage at all. So, climbers aren't really a great option althought alota people use them. Next, prior to me getting my tree steps, I started to calculate my success ratios between climbing stand and hang-on stand. In the hang on last season (and my first season in a hang-on) I batted about .333 and outa my climber I batted a big fat 0.0000. Now, that's not to say that causation reflects correlation, but it made me lean towards hang-ons none-the-less. That's why I purchased my SUMMIT steps.. I would've purchased the Lone Wolf tree steps, however; the Summit steps allow you to step on EVERY step with both feet, which allows me to sneak a couple extra feet COMFORTABLY ever time I set up my stand (at least during this past summer this holds true)

But yeah, LW treestand are great...perhaps the mellenium is more comfy, but the LW leveling system is great. And the summit steps I picked are yet to let me down as far as climbing goes. (TAKE INTO ACCOUNT, i had to silence my summit steps by taking 'rubberized undercoating' to them, otherwise they sound like steel barrels banging together... I'll youtube the process when I get a chance. But yeah.... LW stands are the way to go and I like the summit steps b/c you can put both feet at any one level