Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 1060: Foundations - How to Set Up Ladderstands the Right Way

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Ep. 1060: Foundations - How to Set Up Ladderstands the Right Way · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide
0:05
Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, presented by first Light,
0:09
Speaker 1: creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind.
0:14
Speaker 1: First Light, Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host,
0:19
Speaker 1: Tony Peterson.
0:20
Speaker 2: Hey, everyone, welcome to the Wire to Hunt Foundation's podcast,
0:22
Speaker 2: which is brought to you by first Light. This week,
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Speaker 2: I'm going to talk about ladder stands and how you
0:26
Speaker 2: can set them up in ways that will keep the
0:27
Speaker 2: deer coming by all season long, sit after sit. The
0:33
Speaker 2: cool thing about modern deer hunting is that we have
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Speaker 2: access to a lot of gear. The bad thing about
0:38
Speaker 2: that is that a lot of the gear that we
0:39
Speaker 2: do have access to can make hunting unintentionally more difficult
0:43
Speaker 2: by mostly promising to make things much easier. I'm going
0:46
Speaker 2: to place ladder stands in that weird category, but it's
0:48
Speaker 2: mostly because of how we use them. This type of
0:50
Speaker 2: stand is a great option for certain situations, but it's
0:53
Speaker 2: also easy to use them wrong. I'm going to talk
0:55
Speaker 2: about all of that more right now. On any random
1:03
Speaker 2: Tuesday night, I can go to Target and buy groceries,
1:05
Speaker 2: and when I do, I can walk through an aisle
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Speaker 2: that is stocked to the gills with spices like black pepper.
1:12
Speaker 2: You literally cannot go to someone's house or any restaurant
1:15
Speaker 2: ranging from fast food to steakhouses that wouldn't even let
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Speaker 2: someone like me in, and every one of them is
1:20
Speaker 2: going to have a pepper shaker or a fresh pepper
1:22
Speaker 2: grinder for every table. It's hard to imagine, but at
1:25
Speaker 2: one point in our history, black pepper was considered black gold,
1:30
Speaker 2: and it is often considered the most influential spice in
1:32
Speaker 2: our history. It originated in southwestern India and became so
1:37
Speaker 2: valuable in Europe that it was accepted as payment for rent,
1:40
Speaker 2: and it was displayed as a symbol of wealth and
1:42
Speaker 2: was a key component in creating fortunes during the Middle Ages.
1:46
Speaker 2: Of course, you wouldn't expect to have pepper without salt,
1:49
Speaker 2: which is a very common commodity today us and well,
1:53
Speaker 2: all the animals we love need sodium to survive. Plus
1:56
Speaker 2: we've only had modern refrigeration for a little while in
1:59
Speaker 2: the Grand Scoop of our evolution, so salt helped our
2:02
Speaker 2: ancestors preserve meat and fish, helped store food throughout the winter,
2:07
Speaker 2: help supply armies on long campaigns and times of war
2:11
Speaker 2: and help support long distance journeys across the open ocean.
2:15
Speaker 2: Salt was so important that the Romans built a series
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Speaker 2: of roads connecting salt producing regions and cities, with one
2:21
Speaker 2: even called via Celaria, which means salt road transport some
2:27
Speaker 2: salt inland. I guess to have salt, you gotta have
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Speaker 2: salt mines. And if you could hop in a time
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Speaker 2: machine and head back roughly seven thousand years ago, you'd
2:35
Speaker 2: see that in some areas of the world this was
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Speaker 2: big business. Areas like a specific region of Austria which
2:42
Speaker 2: is widely known to have the oldest salt mine that
2:45
Speaker 2: is still in operation. Salt which was called White Gold,
2:49
Speaker 2: which also kind of reminds me of a guy I
2:51
Speaker 2: know who did a year and a half in prison
2:53
Speaker 2: and earned the nickname White Chocolate for his basketball skills,
2:56
Speaker 2: has been mined from a mountain above the town of
2:58
Speaker 2: Hallstatt for so long that it gives us an amazing
3:01
Speaker 2: glimpse into how ancient people extracted this valuable resource. The
3:05
Speaker 2: conditions at this mine are perfect for preservation, unlike much
3:09
Speaker 2: of the conditions throughout the world, and this allows us
3:12
Speaker 2: to see organic materials from that time, you know, things
3:15
Speaker 2: like textiles, leather tools, mining equipment, and a whole host
3:20
Speaker 2: of stuff that gets archaeologists real excited, including wood artifacts. Now,
3:26
Speaker 2: in a lot of archaeological sites, use of wood has
3:29
Speaker 2: to be inferred, mostly from the stone that's left behind.
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Speaker 2: But in that salt mine above Hallstatt, archaeologists found the
3:36
Speaker 2: oldest usage of wooden ladders, which miners used at the
3:40
Speaker 2: tail end of the Bronze Age to get around in
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Speaker 2: the mine shafts, which was a job I would guess
3:45
Speaker 2: had a fairly high rate of well death. Ladders are
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Speaker 2: amongst humanity's oldest tools. They appear in mythology, religion, military engineering, architecture,
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Speaker 2: and everyday labor across pretty much every civilization. And you
4:01
Speaker 2: have to imagine that ancient humans climb trees for various reasons,
4:05
Speaker 2: you know, maybe to get to a better vantage point,
4:07
Speaker 2: to see game traveling across the plains, or to reach
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Speaker 2: some honey or fruit, or maybe just to get away
4:12
Speaker 2: from someone or something that wanted to eat and kill them.
4:16
Speaker 2: And at some point, after climbing enough trees, they must
4:20
Speaker 2: have thought, man, it would be nice if there was
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Speaker 2: a climbable tree next to that cliff with all of
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Speaker 2: the bee hives on it, so we could reach that
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Speaker 2: honey too. Voila, an idea is born. Take a tree
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Speaker 2: with you, but make it the kind of tree that
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Speaker 2: is lightweight and purpose built to allow us to easily
4:36
Speaker 2: go up and down from ancient Egypt to Rome and
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Speaker 2: Greece and Japan and South Asia and medieval Europe and
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Speaker 2: various indigenous cultures throughout the world. Latter use is well documented.
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Speaker 2: I bet you own at least two like I do.
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Speaker 2: One aluminum ladder that you used to get up on
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Speaker 2: your garage roof so you can clean out the gutters
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Speaker 2: and engage in hand to stinger combat with a bunch
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Speaker 2: of wasps. And a smaller step ladder that has the
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Speaker 2: structural integrity of a bowl of jello that you use
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Speaker 2: to get from the garage roof to the house roof
5:07
Speaker 2: and which almost gave out on you one time, so
5:09
Speaker 2: you had to hang on for dear life, and you
5:10
Speaker 2: hurt your shoulder a little. And you're still a little
5:12
Speaker 2: pissed that your wife acts like that chores no big deal,
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Speaker 2: even though in twenty years of marriage you've never not
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Speaker 2: once seen her up on the roof even though she
5:20
Speaker 2: likes to say things like do you think we should
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Speaker 2: clean the gutters soon? I guess one of us is
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Speaker 2: there in spirit every time. You probably own a couple ladders,
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Speaker 2: and you very well might own a ladder stand or
5:31
Speaker 2: three for hunting the wily whitetail. Ladder stands have a
5:35
Speaker 2: lot of appeal and they are a very natural conclusion
5:38
Speaker 2: to come to when you think about shooting deer from
5:40
Speaker 2: sixteen to twenty feet up in a tree, but also
5:43
Speaker 2: don't want to fall and break both of your ankles.
5:45
Speaker 2: I have a couple of ladder stands, and I'll say this,
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Speaker 2: I have always loved them, and I have always hated them.
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Speaker 2: The reasons for loving them are obvious. They're easy to
5:54
Speaker 2: get into an auto. That's the primary advantage in my opinion.
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Speaker 2: But they can also allow you to sit with some
6:00
Speaker 2: someone else if you opt for a two person model,
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Speaker 2: Sitting with a kid or someone else can be a blast,
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Speaker 2: and there isn't much of a better way to do
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Speaker 2: it than a double ladder stand. They can allow you
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Speaker 2: to set up a season long spot in a way
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Speaker 2: where it's always an easy thing to go to for
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Speaker 2: an evening or a morning sit and Ladder stands are
6:18
Speaker 2: a great option for all day sits because you can
6:21
Speaker 2: really set yourself up for comfort. Ladder stands are great
6:24
Speaker 2: for older hunters and younger hunters. There's a lot of
6:27
Speaker 2: good to be had if you go this route. But
6:28
Speaker 2: let me explain why I hate them before I get
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Speaker 2: into how to set them up as well as you
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Speaker 2: possibly can. Reason number one is that they are not
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Speaker 2: portable at all. I know they can be moved, but
6:40
Speaker 2: ladder stands are generally crazy heavy, and if they are
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Speaker 2: made to not be heavy, they are often very spartan
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Speaker 2: and not that much fun to use. I don't know.
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Speaker 2: It'd be kind of like if you bought a luxury
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Speaker 2: car and you took out the seats and instead sat
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Speaker 2: on milk rates. For some stupid reason. The weight of
6:56
Speaker 2: ladder stands makes them a dicey proposition for getting them
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Speaker 2: set up as well. If you've never done the balancing
7:02
Speaker 2: act of trying to get a ladder stand to stand
7:05
Speaker 2: up and hit the right spot on your chosen tree,
7:08
Speaker 2: and then had to climb a not secured stand to
7:11
Speaker 2: be the guy who secures it, you might not know this.
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Speaker 2: It's just generally a stressful endeavor for all involved, and
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Speaker 2: you usually need two people involved. Ladder stands are also
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Speaker 2: often just kind of loud. They require a lot of
7:25
Speaker 2: pins and bolts and metal on metal points of contact.
7:28
Speaker 2: And the thing about a ladder with a heavy metal
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Speaker 2: part on top of it is that there's a little
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Speaker 2: extra torque in the whole thing, which becomes really evident
7:36
Speaker 2: when you climb up one in the dark and are
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Speaker 2: hoping to stay whisper quiet. Sometimes it's just a little
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Speaker 2: rattle of metal, but sometimes it's a full on pop
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Speaker 2: that rings through the woods in much the same way
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Speaker 2: an airhorn would if you were stupid enough to use
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Speaker 2: it for any reason in the woods. I guess. Ladder
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Speaker 2: stands also almost always come with a shooting rail for
7:54
Speaker 2: gun hunters and I guess crossbow hunters now. And if
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Speaker 2: you're just a bowhunter, or often a bow hunter, you
8:01
Speaker 2: know what this is like. You know, some shooting rails
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Speaker 2: can pivot out of the way, which is rarely silent,
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Speaker 2: and then you still have a big metal cage in
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Speaker 2: the vicinity of your bow limbs when you draw. The
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Speaker 2: ones that don't move are worse, and they will factor
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Speaker 2: into how you shoot a bow from them pretty much
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Speaker 2: every time While this isn't personally an issue because I
8:19
Speaker 2: don't mess around when it comes to tree stand safety,
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Speaker 2: one thing about ladder stands that doesn't get enough attention
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Speaker 2: is the illusion of safety. I don't know if these
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Speaker 2: numbers are still accurate, but for a long time one
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Speaker 2: of the major safety harness companies would gather tree stand
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Speaker 2: accident data and the results were interesting. Of the roughly
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Speaker 2: two dozen deaths a year from tree stand falls, about
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Speaker 2: half of them were from ladder stands. People don't think
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Speaker 2: they need lifelines or safety harnesses when hunting from a
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Speaker 2: ladder stand, but they don't factor in that unintentional mid
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Speaker 2: morning snooze where they might pay headfirst out to the ground,
9:02
Speaker 2: or the fact that ladders can get icy, or that
9:04
Speaker 2: it's just gravity at play and we sometimes make clumsy,
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Speaker 2: dumb mistakes. I am old enough to remember when it
9:10
Speaker 2: was very common to not use safety harnesses at all,
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Speaker 2: and I don't know how many times I heard people
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Speaker 2: say they wouldn't be able to draw their both if
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Speaker 2: they were wearing one. I'm sure that sounds nuts now,
9:21
Speaker 2: but it wasn't that long ago where it was pretty common.
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Speaker 2: Tree stand safety is no joke, and that goes for
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Speaker 2: ladder stands. Okay, now all of that is aside. They
9:29
Speaker 2: are a great choice for certain situations, but you can
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Speaker 2: put in some extra effort to make them a really
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Speaker 2: good option just for starters. And to reiterate the point
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Speaker 2: I just made, a good way to just begin this
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Speaker 2: is to have a single or a double lifeline ready
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Speaker 2: to go. Just harness up so you're secured on the
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Speaker 2: way up and down and you won't have to worry
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Speaker 2: about using a walker to get to the fridge anytime soon.
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Speaker 2: But also think about how you set up your ladder stands.
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Speaker 2: Last week I dropped an episode on stand set up.
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Speaker 2: It's mostly about portable options, and I talked about you know,
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Speaker 2: facing away from the action with your hang on with
10:07
Speaker 2: ladder stands. It's almost impossible to get people to consider this,
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Speaker 2: and the reason is simple. You want to see deer coming,
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Speaker 2: you stand up and you know, shoot them off the stand,
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Speaker 2: kill your buck, easy, peasy, simple linear. That's great, but
10:21
Speaker 2: you have to consider that if you do the work
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Speaker 2: to hang a ladder stand, you are very likely to
10:25
Speaker 2: hunt it a lot. I mean, that's kind of the
10:29
Speaker 2: understated selling point of this style of a stand. It's
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Speaker 2: rock solid and always there waiting for you to just
10:34
Speaker 2: slip in and hunt. But volume hunting any location is
10:38
Speaker 2: a great way to burn it out, and when the
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Speaker 2: deer start to realize that the stand is a major
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Speaker 2: source of danger, they'll treat it differently. This only gets
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Speaker 2: multiplied when you consider that most of us are going
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Speaker 2: to put up ladder stands in spots where lots of
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Speaker 2: deer should go, like food plots and field edge corners,
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Speaker 2: just high traffic areas. That's great, but that's also a
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Speaker 2: great way to educate a lot of deer in your press.
11:00
Speaker 2: It's in that specific spot. What's worse is that long
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Speaker 2: after you leave, those deer will give that ladder a
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Speaker 2: good sniff and start to put a pattern onto your
11:08
Speaker 2: hunting strategy. Add in the deer that wins you and
11:11
Speaker 2: see you, which is just inevitable at some point, and
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Speaker 2: you have a recipe for real stan burnout. Setting up
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Speaker 2: a ladder stand to be a little more hidden, maybe
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Speaker 2: on the backside of a tree, can help you get
11:23
Speaker 2: bonus points if the ladder ends up in a spot
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Speaker 2: deer just aren't likely to walk up to, Like if
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Speaker 2: you leave some brush around and only leave a small
11:31
Speaker 2: trail to get to the actual ladder. This is extra
11:34
Speaker 2: work and a hard thing to measure, but it doesn't
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Speaker 2: hurt to try to minimize the amount of deer that
11:39
Speaker 2: will put a nose to the places you put a
11:41
Speaker 2: hand or a boot. It's also a good idea to
11:44
Speaker 2: get yourself a roll hockey tape to wrap any of
11:47
Speaker 2: the parts of the stand that might cause noise. A
11:49
Speaker 2: lot of stands use a d loop kind of locking
11:52
Speaker 2: pin like you might find on a trailer hitch for
11:54
Speaker 2: a boat, and while those things are handy, they aren't
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Speaker 2: tight fitting and are very easy to bump, you know,
12:00
Speaker 2: with your boot, toe or whatever on your way up.
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Speaker 2: Wrapping some hockey tape around them is an easy fix,
12:06
Speaker 2: and that stuff can be used to silence pretty much
12:08
Speaker 2: anything you want. Any metal point on the stand you
12:11
Speaker 2: might bump with your bow can be wrapped up pretty easily. Again,
12:15
Speaker 2: this might never be the difference maker, but it's cheap
12:18
Speaker 2: insurance and if you do end up needing it when
12:21
Speaker 2: your target buck is closing in, you'll be happy you
12:24
Speaker 2: did it. You should also really really pay attention to
12:28
Speaker 2: how much play is in your ladder when you set
12:29
Speaker 2: up the stand. A little play in August is a
12:33
Speaker 2: lot of play in November, when it's sixty degrees colder
12:35
Speaker 2: and the woods are pin drop quiet. At the top
12:38
Speaker 2: of the stand, you'll encounter a few things you should
12:41
Speaker 2: really pay attention to as well. A good seat cushion
12:44
Speaker 2: is really important, not only for comfort but for staying quiet.
12:48
Speaker 2: This is because your harness has some metal buckles on it,
12:51
Speaker 2: which could scrape on metal seats. That's no bueno. You'll
12:55
Speaker 2: also realize that, even though you know this, you're often
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Speaker 2: really exposed in a litelatderstand. They just can't as easily
13:02
Speaker 2: be tucked into a multi limbed part of a tree
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Speaker 2: quite like a saddle or a hang on, and that
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Speaker 2: means they are by nature way more visible. I really
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Speaker 2: think deer learned to associate danger with trail cameras and
13:15
Speaker 2: tree stands in high pressure areas, and nothing is easier
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Speaker 2: to spot than a big old ladder stand. Any cover
13:22
Speaker 2: you can give yourself at the top, it's just cheap insurance.
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Speaker 2: Don't trim so much that you are totally exposed, because
13:29
Speaker 2: you're very likely to start getting picked off. Some folks
13:32
Speaker 2: will use camo netting to hide themselves, and while I've
13:35
Speaker 2: never done it because I don't hunt fro ladder stands
13:37
Speaker 2: enough to worry about it. I guess it does make sense.
13:40
Speaker 2: But if you can also just hinge cut some limbs
13:43
Speaker 2: and keep them around the base and sides of your platform,
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Speaker 2: you're gonna have a little extra cover. The key to
13:48
Speaker 2: hiding from deer if you can't put a tree trunk
13:50
Speaker 2: between you and them, is to really break up your outline.
13:54
Speaker 2: We all know this, and we've been told this by
13:56
Speaker 2: camo companies for a long long time. Doesn't make it unsure,
14:00
Speaker 2: you got to think about it. A deer that sees
14:02
Speaker 2: a whole human sized blob of camo and a tree
14:04
Speaker 2: on top of an unnatural metal thing strapped to that
14:07
Speaker 2: tree is a deer that might not end up wearing
14:10
Speaker 2: your tag. A little bit of brush and leaves in
14:13
Speaker 2: whatever to break up your outline is never going to
14:14
Speaker 2: hurt your cause. When I set up a ladder stand,
14:17
Speaker 2: I really like to make sure that the base of
14:19
Speaker 2: the stand where the platform is also has some brush
14:23
Speaker 2: and limbs around it to help when deer get close.
14:26
Speaker 2: I also really like to have some brush behind me
14:29
Speaker 2: so that when they look up they can't quite distinguish
14:31
Speaker 2: what is going on. You know, you get that and
14:34
Speaker 2: it'll maybe a little bit of wind, and it can
14:36
Speaker 2: do wonders for getting away with more movement as well. Now,
14:40
Speaker 2: while this might seem like a no brainer, it's a
14:42
Speaker 2: really good idea to get your ladder stand set and
14:44
Speaker 2: then take a three hundred and sixty degree walk around
14:47
Speaker 2: like you would with any stand, to see how visible
14:49
Speaker 2: you'll actually be. Then take a walk along the trails
14:53
Speaker 2: in other spots where the deer most likely to show up.
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Speaker 2: How does the stand look and how do you think
14:58
Speaker 2: you'll look when you're in it. Now, here's the thing.
15:01
Speaker 2: None of this stuff is necessary for you to kill
15:03
Speaker 2: a deer from a ladder stand, and it might just
15:05
Speaker 2: seem like kind of extra nitpicky work. But it's these
15:09
Speaker 2: details we can account for ahead of time that might
15:11
Speaker 2: come into play when a really good buck does show up,
15:14
Speaker 2: and at that point you won't be sad that you
15:17
Speaker 2: took some extra time to really nail down the little
15:19
Speaker 2: things with your setup. This is also true if you
15:22
Speaker 2: put your dad in the stand and he's old enough
15:24
Speaker 2: to think about giving it all up, or you put
15:26
Speaker 2: one of your kids in that stand, you know, and
15:29
Speaker 2: they'll move all over every minute, especially when a foroky
15:32
Speaker 2: walks in and they need all the help they can get.
15:36
Speaker 2: The details matter, and if you're going to go this
15:38
Speaker 2: tree stand route, the details will eventually come into play
15:41
Speaker 2: at some point. Think about them and do your future
15:44
Speaker 2: self a favor and think about coming back next week
15:47
Speaker 2: because I'm going to talk about bachelor groups, how to
15:49
Speaker 2: find them, how to keep tabs on them, and how
15:51
Speaker 2: to put a plan into place to actually kill a
15:53
Speaker 2: buck out of one of them. That's it for this week.
15:57
Speaker 2: I am Tony Peterson. This is the Wire to Hunt
15:59
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