I'm gonna check it out. Having lost one friend to falling out of a treestand, and another paralyzed from the waist down, this is of the oughtmost importance. I (before the loss of friend last year) never hunted with a harness/safety vest. I quickly changed my opinion on it and even though it cost me a shot at a nice 10 pt. I atleast can live to talk about it. I since have purchased a new, far better, vest from Hunter Safety Systems and will feel much safer and more confident in my shot.

It was a good course however I do disagree with some points.
1. I have two climbing stands manufactured by an individual now deceased. I have owned them for 20 years and use them every season. They are aluminum and extremely well made. The welds look as good as machine welds and I replace the adjusting bolts regularly. He produced these stands on a limited basis and to this day I have not heard of even one failing.
2. I usually sit facing the tree and due to the design of the seat frame there is no way I could fall out unless I was standing up and the seat section skittered down the tree and tripped me. The previous scenario did happen to a buddy of mine who was standing up and trying to prune some limbs so he could climb higher. He fell and seriously injured his back. It was years before he was pain free plus he had to had a couple of surgeries. An FAS/FBH would have prevented his accident plus he shouldn't have been using his tree stand as a work platform. My climbers also have a cam locking rope that locks the seat portion to the tree so it can't tip up and slide down. I have also connected the seat portion of the climber to the foot section with old bicycle inner tubes. If you happen to kick the foot section away from the tree, it will not slide very far and can be retrieved. When I use my stand and sit facing the tree I do not use a FAS/FBH. The key to safety is awareness and common sense. Always use a haul rope and I will say that if I ever had to use a lock on or ladder type stand, I would use a FAS/FBH. It would be interesting to see the statistics as to what percent of total tree stand falls occurred from what particular type of tree stand. If one has lots of private property to hunt, then ground hunting is OK. If one has to be on public land or a smaller piece of property adjacent to other smaller properties that are hunted, the i would feel much safer off of the ground.

I climbed down from the trees. Used to hunt in them all the time. Never had a fall or anything close. But now I do it the hard way. I'll still get in one now and then.

Very informative ... could be a life saver!
I liked how they included various tree stands in the safety course.

Over the years that I've climbed into homemade tree stands, there is something special about them, even to this day.
I don't know if it's just me, but I actually feel safer in them.There is definitely more room in them.

I have a buddy who's father weighed 350-plus pounds, and he had a homemade tree stand built especially for him. The steps were made out of 4X4 pieces of wood, with bolts to hold them in place, that went 15-feet up to a platform, that included a plush, swivel bass seat.

Thanks for the safety conscience education course, Scott.

It's funny how the older you get, the lower in the tree you sit ... must come with age!

i would like to know the percentage of hunters that fall while climbing up or going down the tree. do most falls happen while in the stand or while going up or down? i've been hunting with a climber for over 30 years and the only time i've even come close to falling is when i'm in the stand not while ascending or descending.