falling from stand
 

with the season coming up was curious how many of us wear a harness in the tree stand. Because I have a friend without fail falls out of his stand at least 1 a year last year 3x [:-] he falls asleep. he does wear a harness thank god. be safe this season and wear a harness. happy hunting

RE: falling from stand
 

I know I'm very fortunate to have been hunting since "before" portable stands were even on the market and have yet to fall from a tree. I can say that the older I get the more careful I am including using a harness now in every treestand I go into. I just can't imagine not being able to hunt the rest of my life because I didn't take the extra couple of minutes to tie in to my stand. Like you said, be carefule out there and use the safety equipment correctly, there was a hunter last fall that fell and hung upside down from his stand and died there. That tells me that the safety belt was too low on the body. Good luck.

RE: falling from stand
 

I'm always strapped in.

RE: falling from stand
 

I always wear a harness, either a full body, or a single one up on my chest. I am a very physically fit individual and I workout 5-6x a week and I usually put my stands in some pretty awkward places that require some flexbiility and strength to get in them. I never trust that a stand will hold up either, I reinforce it and I wear my safety belt always and have never had any mishaps (knock on wood)

RE: falling from stand
 

I never leave the ground without my SOP harness;)

RE: falling from stand
 

LAST YEAR, i didnt wear one at all, and i was like 20ft up and i still fell asleep sometimes........pretty stupid if ya ask me, this year i am purchasing the harness that you put on with the vest. No chances anymore:D

RE: falling from stand
 

I hear ya turkeyfan it is called the hunters safety vest i got me one this year too .

RE: falling from stand
 

Ditto :D

RE: falling from stand
 

I wear my climbing harness

I have lines run up all of my trees and I use an accender on the way up and a prusic on the way down. You could use a Prusic loop both ways. If anyone wants to know about how to use this stop by a climbing center and tell them :

#1 tie the line at the top and the bottom of the tree, leave a little slack so that it is away from the tree about 6 - 12 in at most when pulled straight out from the tree.
#2 go to REI or Gallyans or other climbing store and tell them that you need a prusic loop about 4' in diameter.
#3 ask them how to tie it onto your tree lines. It's easy to see it and do it but hard to explain. but you have this prusic loop of rope and you wrap it around the other rope 2 times and then back though so that there are 4 winds around the up and down rope.
#4 use a CLIMBING carabiner to hook the prusic onto your harness.
#5 as you go up you slide the winds up as you go. IF you fell it would tighten up on the rope and you would hang by the loop.
#6 on the way down it should slide with you as you go. Again if you fell it would tighten up on the up/down rope and you would not hit the ground at 7.62 feet per second squared.

This also solves the problem of tieing onto the tree every time and untieing. You can just leave the prusic hooked onto the tree rope. Slide it up above you and give it a tug. It will tighten up and stay there.

Even with my climber or just ladder steps. I have a loop that goes around the tree when I get to the top and then tie on when I get up there. It sounds complecated but it's not when you are used to it. Also it protects me on the way up and down.

RE: falling from stand
 

I can't possibly be alone here, but I have fallen twice. Once while building a permanent stand, about 10ft flat on my back.

The second time off icey screw in steps.

I wasn't hurt badly, but learned a lesson after the 2nd time. (I'm slow)

I had a student in class last year that was in a loc-on style stand. It collapsed underneath him, and he fell about 2'. (The slack in his belt) He swung hard back into the tree, and impaled his left nipple onto his highest tree step that happened to be a little above his platform. After the step entered his chest, his weight pulled the step downward and the step tore a big hole in his chest.

His lung was bruised pretty badly, but he recovered. I believe they ended up using over 100 stitches inside and out. He lost his nipple (big deal) and was in a chest cast for a while.