Safety Harness and Tree Stand Safety

Lock-on

Harvesting a deer is the ultimate go when deer hunting obviously but safety while hunting is imperative. When my dad was nineteen years old he fell out of his tree stand while bow hunting and broke his neck. He is beyond blessed to not only still be walking but to be alive after an incident like this and he has made it very clear to me to be safe with tree stands. The stand he fell out of was a very basic set up, it was just a platform that you stand on (just big enough to fit your feet on) with no seat. Even though the stands of this day an age are much more safe it is still critical to take safety measures to try and keep disaster from happening. When I was about fourteen I started hunting out of tree climbers and lock-ons and my dad immediately informed me that I had to have a safety harness if I wanted to hunt out of these stands. I did then and I do now make it a priority to wear my harness so that I am strapped in at all times so that if I did happen to fall it would catch me. I also like to use a Hunter's Safety System "Life Line". It is essentially a rope that ties to the tree directly above your stand and also the base of the tree, it keeps you strapped in all the way from the ground up and then back down when  you're done hunting. This is a key feature that the first hunter safety systems missed out on because the most common time for a hunter to fall is when they are getting in and out of the stand and the original harness didn't do you any good until you were already in your stand and did you no good once you were done hunting and starting to climb down.