redsquirrel said:
LASOutdoorsmen said:
Does anyone know why it took 30+years for the saddle to become "popular"? I vaguely remember seeing a Trophyline in Bass Pro a few years back, but I've never heard about a saddle /tree sling until last year. I'm a hunting fanatic, and I've never read about it in any online articles or magazines. I know a lot of people,several veteran hunters at that, and they have never heard about it.
I wouldn't exactly say that the saddle style became "popular". I bet there as many people who have given it a try and given up and sold there saddle than people who actually stuck with it. Thats not even counting the people who look at us like we're crazy.
I also think that back in the 80's the anderson tree sling had a decent market from what I know about it, maybe even comparable to the tree saddle. I'm only basing this off of the amount of hunters I know in their 50s/60s that know about it or had one at one point.
Red I tried the Anderson tree sling back in the 80's and didn't have much luck with it, not because it didn't work but because it didn't know how to use it properly, and had a hard time shooting my recurve out of it. It was really cool though hanging there 20' feet above the ground like a Ninja, even if everyone else thought it was silly, but had I stuck with it I think I may have been pretty successful hunting with it. Many of the areas I hunted in the pines had trees that were crooked, leaning, small, or just to many branches to easily get a stand in. Perfect spots for a saddle type system.
If we had forums like this back then I would have been able to figure out that I was attaching the rope too high and that put the bridge in the way of my drawing the bow and put more than two tree steps to stand on, I basically straddled he tree with a step on each side and planned or set the saddle up for deer coming from my left to shoot. I got it for hunting this one area because you couldn't get a traditional style tree stand in this patch of woods and the deer must have known it because they were going thru this spot like a highway.
Unfortunately I listened to my peers and stopped wasting my time with the strap and moved onto fixed position setups and when I went back at the end of the season to get my Sling, don't ask me why I left it hanging in the tree you do dumb things like that sometimes when your young, it was gone along with my steps. The joys of hunting public land!
My guess why the Anderson sling wasn't more popular is the same reason why the saddle isn't as popular today people are unwilling to try something new and different and don't like their peers making fun of them. I showed two of my buddies the Aero Hunter this Sunday one told me it looked like a big diaper and laughed, then he busted on me the whole time saying I could set my Summit up quicker than that, etc.etc.etc.... My older and albeit a little wiser friend was more reserved I think because in his lifetime he'd seen many new hunting devices that people at first laughed at but now use everyday, and wasn't going to bust on me.
It's probably been over 25 years since I tried that Anderson tree sling, although the design is different the concept is still the same for the Aero Hunter, yet some people still aren't able to see outside of the box or willing to try something new just because it is different than what they're used to. However some of us can look at something and see the potential and aren't afraid to give it a try. Like the first caveman that climbed a tree and waited for his prey to come by when his buddies were waiting on the ground, sometimes you have to leave the pack behind to in order to adapt and survive, and in this case I think that's what makes saddle hunters different we are only concerned with results not following the crowd.
Roger