Unread postby woody-san » Wed Dec 05, 2012 3:09 am
I think your equipment (harness, stands, clothing, release, etc.) is a big factor in the Red Zone.
-I used to hunt out of a Summit Viper, but I noticed that the rail surrounding me on the upper part of the stand lended itself to making noise when something on your belt, pocket, or harness makes contact with it. I use a LW Assualt now, problem solved.
-Back to the tree stand issue, I feel I've had deer see my climbing sticks...I've switched to the tan LW straps to hang my sticks as they blend into the bark better and I hang my sticks so that they aren't visible from the direction I suspect deer to be coming from.
-This year I had a nice 10 come right in on me. As he approached, I only had shots that presented 1 lung. He went behind my tree and as I turned to get a quartering away shot, I became entangled in my safety harness. I eventually came free, drew on him, but my elbow got entangled in my harness and the velcro on my gloves caught my knit hat and pulled it off my head. During my attempt to get my elbow around my harness, my back tension release went off and the arrow sailed well over the deer. Now I have my harness set up differently to avoid such a thing. I also need to work out my glove situation, get some that don't have velcro
-I've heard of some guys using mechanicals having problems with them opening while on the rest (heard this issue a lot with Rage's), I use a fixed blade head, no possibility of worrying about the head opening up during my draw
-Let's face it, most of us get out in the woods with 4 or less hours of sleep under our belts. In years past I've nodded off in the stand. Who knows what came by? You can't kill them if you're sleeping. I've started taking a 5 Hour Energy into the stand with me. It's small enough to be unnoticable in your bag/pack/pocket, and it perks you right up.
There's enough variables outside of our little worlds 15' up, it's important to control everything we can up there.
Just $0.02 from a beast in training.