Like most hunters, prior to the opening of deer season we all have projects to be done in preparation for a good, safe year of hunts.
In 2017, I spent most of my pre-season time working on maintaining my trusty old stands and getting them spruced up for the season.
I changed out rusty nuts and bolts, tightened loose ones, applied new coats of paint and checked all the webbing, pressure points, pins and chains.
We do these things knowing we will spend countless hours seated in these vital pieces of equipment, waiting on that next big buck to cross our paths.
That certainly was the case when I went to the Ohio deer woods one morning last season.
It was a cold, blustery day in November. As the winds began to pick up, I started to hear loud cracking noises directly above my head.
I looked up and was shocked to see large dead branches swinging precariously above me!
I’d hunted this stand many times before, so it never occurred to me to look up to see if anything might be overhanging.
Immediately, I climbed down and relocated to another stand, even though I knew it would cost me valuable hunting time.
Allowing Mother Nature to bring down the widow-maker branches while I wasn’t sitting beneath them was a solid decision. It certainly could’ve saved me one big headache.
So, lesson learned. From that day forth, when considering treestand locations — even old faithful stands — I always look up to make sure sitting there won’t require a hard hat.
It wasn’t until that windy day that I realized I needed to pay as much attention to the tree I’d selected as I did to the apparatus I was using to sit in it.
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