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Mobile Hunting Gear

There are many ways to chase whitetails from sits in treestands and ground blinds, bow hunting or gun hunting, the ways to go about it are endless. That’s the beauty of whitetail hunting–you can figure out a system and a style of hunting that works for you and go at it. One style currently on the rise is “mobile hunting”, which allows you to continually move around without the hassle that typically comes with moving a stand.

What is Mobile Hunting?

Basically, mobile hunting is simply hunting with some type of lightweight system that allows you to continually move around. It’s for the hunter that likes to consistently setup on fresh sign, not wear areas out, and capitalize on any hunting opportunity that comes their way.

Mobile hunters are constantly setting up and tearing down, which is why having a lightweight system is essential. They may hang a stand first thing in the morning, hunt until a few hours, tear down, and find a new spot by afternoon.

There are a variety of set ups out there to get you started with mobile hunting. Among them include climbing stands, light hang-ons, and climbing sticks and saddles—each set up coming with their own pros and cons.

How To: Mobile Hunting Setups for Success 1

Setting Yourself Up for Success

Mobile hunting is a great tactic for a few different reasons. First of all, it allows you to hunt what’s hot right now. When it comes to having a bunch of set stands, you often fall into a pattern of waiting for areas to get good. But with mobile hunting, you can attack right now. You can toss a stand on your back, scout, and when you find the hot sign, set up on it. After your hunt, you can assess what you saw, and then make another move the next sit.

Hunting this way is also great because it allows you to keep areas fresh. Again, when it comes to hunting set stands, it’s easy to fall into a pattern of hunting a stand again and again. By doing this, you can easily burn areas out. But with a mobile hunting setup, you’re continually moving and keeping areas fresh.

Additionally, when you’re hunting with a mobile setup, by default you tend to hunt more aggressively. If you see a mature buck do something out of range, the next sit you can make a move and put yourself into position to be successful. You can get aggressive, because if you make a move and press in too far and ultimately bump that buck, you don’t have to go to the same tree the next day. You can make another move based on what you believe the buck might be doing after getting bumped. And if you think you spooked the deer out of the county, you can head into an all new area the next sit.

Mobile Hunting Challenges

Pulling off mobile hunting isn’t a walk in the park. You have to become proficient at it, because often times you are hanging a set in the dark or pulling sets in the dark. There needs to be a good balance between speed and quietness. When it comes to climbers, if that’s the route you end up going, look for the lightest climber you can find. It’s not necessarily about being big and roomy. You might be hiking a long way with that on your back. Once you get one, practice with it, and get comfortable.

Mobile Hang-on Treestands

When it comes to a hang-on stand, you want to get a lightweight stand and sticks—like the Hawk Helium XL Hang-on stand. It weighs only 12lbs and is built for portable, run-n-gun hunters. It’s important to have a lightweight hang on, because this will not only make carrying it in easier, but it also will be much easier to physically setup. When it comes to climbing sticks to combine with a hang on stand, the helium sticks are a great option. These only weigh 2.9lbs per stick and stack very nicely to make hauling them in a breeze. With this setup, you’ve got many options on how you can pack them in, given what kind of pack you have, etc. They are very versatile, and you can get into almost any kind of tree easily.

How To: Mobile Hunting Setups for Success 3 helium xl hang on

Saddles for Mobile Hunting and Platforms

And there are the saddles. These have come increasingly popular over the last few years and will be your lightest weight option. These are perfect for the mobile hunter that consistently has very long walks into the tree. When using a saddle, you have many different options for what kind of steps to use to get up to your desired height in the tree. The helium sticks can play the perfect role for this, given their ultra-light weight. If you are looking for a lightweight saddle hunting platform that doesn’t break the bank, the hangout tree seat might be something to look into.

How To: Mobile Hunting Setups for Success hang out tree seat 4

Lightweight Climbing Stands

When it comes to choosing your preferred method of pulling off a mobile hunting setup, look at your style of hunting, and the areas you hunt. What makes the most sense? If you hunt big wide-open timber with short walks, it might be a lightweight climber. Climbers are easy and quick systems to handle for mobile and even public land hunting. One stand can take you just about anywhere if you are hunting heavy timber.

How To: Mobile Hunting Setups for Success 4 ultra lite climber

When it comes to mobile hunting, it can take the right level of commitment for it to be successful. But once you go at it full force, not only can it produce very successful hunting, it can be a lot of fun. You’ll consistently be hunting new spots, with scenery always changing, and it can lead you to some of the best hunting you might experience.

Treestand Safety 101: Tips to Hunt Treestands Successfully

Hunting out of treestands is one of the most popular ways to deer hunt across the U.S. There’s all kind of treestands, ranging from climbing stands to hang-on stands, and ladder stands of all sorts. The most important part of hunting from a treestand though is safety, above all else. The last thing you want to happen is to have an accident because of improper treestand use. Today, we’re going to talk a little bit about treestand safety, and the different safety precautions you can take to ensure a successful trip up a tree and back down every time.

Hanging Stands

Some of the most common ways to fall from a treestand are not while you’re hunting, but when you’re hanging a stand. Hanging stands can no doubt be more dangerous than hunting from them. When hanging treestands, a lot of time hunters are trying to do it quickly, and for various reasons, it can create opportunities to fall out of the tree if you aren’t using safety precautions. Whether you want to get in and out fast or are in a rush because you’ve got to hang multiple stands in a day, a lot of time you are trying to do it quick. A major tool you should be using is a safety harness and lineman’s belt. A lineman’s belt connects to your safety harness at your waist, goes around the tree and then connects to the other side of your waist. This allows you to lean back and use both hands while hanging your sticks and stand. You simply slide the lineman’s belt up the tree as you get higher, hang a set of sticks, slide it up the tree and repeat until you get to your stand. You never have to worry about holding on to the tree with one hand and doing the rest with the other. We’ve probably all been there, trying to prop up a stand against a branch or your leg or something else. Spend the small amount of money and make sure you have a good hunting safety harness and linemen’s belt, it can and will save you from falling while hanging a stand.

Hunting

Every time you hunt from a treestand, wearing a safety harness shouldn’t even be a question to you. There are so many great hunting safety harnesses out there now a days, and you can get light, comfortable ones that you barely notice. If you’re not wearing a safety harness every single time you get into a stand, you should change that right now.

And to take things to the next level, once you have a stand all set, there are products out there that allow you to be clipped in from the ground up. Hawk Treestand’s makes one of the best out there, the safety line. A safety line goes around the tree above where your stand is and has a thick rope that goes all the way to the ground and you tie it off at the base of the tree. It then has prussic knots where you clip in to. As you climb your stand, you slide up the prussic knot which you’re clipped in to, therefore keeping you attached at all times. Should you slip and fall climbing up the tree or into your stand, the prussic knot will cinch and keep you from falling to the ground. Once again, every stand that you have set and ready for the season would highly benefit from you having a safety line with each setup.

Treestand Safety Conclusion

At the end of the day, deer hunting is something that most of us love to do, and it’s fun for us. We should do everything we can in our power to make sure that when you head out for a hunt from a treestand, that you’ll return safe. People have become seriously injured or even worse because of an accident from a treestand. Taking the necessary steps to prevent this is crucial. Whether it be a safety harness, lineman’s belt, safety line, taking more time when hanging a stand, etc. there are multiple things you can do to ensure your safety when either hanging or hunting from a treestand. Deer hunting is awesome, and we want to be able to experience it for as long as possible. Don’t let an accident take that away from you.

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How To: Mobile Hunting Setups for Success