Back in 2004 I went with Whitetail Adventures to film a hunt in Ohio. Now I won’t say the Outfitter’s name we were hunting with, but I will tell you that he was very Anal about scent control. It was bow season when we were up there and this guy would make us spray down, take our shoes off and wears special scent control boodies on our feet on the way to the stand. 

As usual I had all my gear (approximatley 60 lbs worth) waiting at the door the first morning ready to go to the stand. We sprayed down and put our special scent control boodies on to walk to our stand. The stand we were hunting was looking over a CRP field so the guide drove us right to the stand. Once we got out of the truck the guide put a special cloth down at the base of the tree and we put our boots on and I climbed the tree first.

I usually wear my backpack that maily has those heavy batteries for my camera while climbing the tree to the stand. Then I drop a 35 foot pull rope for the hunter to hook up my Camera Arm and eventually my video camera so I can pull it up and get things ready for the hunt.

I got to climbing the screw in steps and it felt like it was taking forever to get to the hunter’s stand. Then I feel a tug at my rope. I thought it had gotten tangled around one of the steps so I give it a few tugs and something doesn’t feel quite right. I turn on my flashlight and shine it down the trunk of the tree. To my astonishment I had used all my rope and had not made it to the hunter’s stand.

Talk about a crazy hunt. I had to make three trips low enough so the hunter could hook up my equipment and then I staged it in the hunter’s stand so he could pass the equipment to me once I got into the camera stand.

Well, I got all the equipment into the hunter’s stand and then the next task began. I realized I was going to have problems getting into the camera stand. I basically grabbed the platform of the stand and then swung a boot up on the platform and pulled myself up into the stand. What a terrible way to start the hunt and I was already mad at the world and the sun hadn’t even come up yet!

Once the sun came up I realized I was WAY up the tree and that I was really going to have a problem getting out of my stand! I asked the hunter if I could borrow his laser range finder and I shot a range to the bottom of the tree. 

18 Yards!

Now I’m not that great at math, but 18 yards = 54 feet!  I was 54 feet up a tree so large, that I couldn’t even wrap my safety harness around the tree.  When time finally came to get out of the stand I had to basically jump from my stand into the hunters stand because I had no screw in steps to assist me with my decent to the hunter’s stand. Talk about pucker factor!!! Well thank the good Lord I safely made it to the ground.

That trip taught me to always carry extra screw in steps with me in my pack!