Don't go cheap. Buy NOTHING that is between safety and death from WalMart, Home Depot, etc... Don't attempt to reinvent the wheel. Thousands and thousands of hours have been already put into the sport and it's pretty close to perfection. But here is what you need to do... go to YouTube and look up, Staggs in the Wild. Greg will show you how tos and what not tos. One sticking, if you have the body strength is the way to go. I use a GriGri+ descender and love it. Greg uses a different one, but I love my GriGri Plus. It has to be a GriGri+.
Some hunters down in the South bash Saddle hunting. Keep bashing it... your bashing Saddle Hunting leaves more mature bucks for Saddle Hunters!!!!
Small tree or limbless tree where you're stuck out in the open if you use a Lock-on or climber? So you don't worry about that limbless tree where you'll be stuck out in the open with a lock-on or climber... Saddle hunt from the tree and you can move your body slowly to hide your silhouette from the deer and be able to draw back with most of your body covered by the tree. A tree with too big of limbs to saw with your handsaw? Go around the limbs!!! Then, you don't have to climb so high and utilize the limbs as cover.
Anyway, Saddle Hunting has made me way more successful. If you're closed-minded and bad-mouth Saddle Hunting, please, just stay that way!
By saying "YOU", I don't mean you, the author of this thread... I mean to those Southern Hunters that think Saddle Hunting is a fad that will play out. It's only going to get bigger.
