Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Bowhunting what style treestands

Do you prefer

My son and I hike into the national forest and get away from the road anywhere from a half mile to over a mile into the timber. We use climbers, a Summit for me and he has a Lone Wolf.

Climbers - we hunt private land so FWIW - go up with a handy little Gerber ax or hand saw and be set.

Always loved the API Grand Slams and Summit makes a good one too but the API's seemed to be more comfortable.

I've always used ladders, but invested in a couple of good hang on this year and ladder sticks, I intend of getting a climber soon

What I love about climbers is you can go as high or as low as you like and if deer are coming around where you might need to clock yourself around the tree a little to give yourself a shot - you can while hunting.

When I was a kid - it was all hang on's - we switched to climbers when I was in high school. Very happy with them.

That said we do have a tri-pod style stand but use it primarily for rifle and we have 2 pop-up style ground blinds that are handy too.

We have two big tower stands we use for rifle season, but we try to have enough stands to hunt this property with any wind during bow season

My favorite hang on stand is the Big Game Boss XL. I get it with the shooting rail.

Right now I have 4 of them and will add 1-2 per year until I find something better.

One person can put them up no problem, they aren't expensive but are roomy, solid and quiet.

A burlap skirt around the shooting rail makes a great blind to conceal movement and it works equally well as a bow, black powder or rifle stand.

I don't move them during the season though. Have a summit climber for mobile hunting, which I find myself doing less and less of now that I have 15 or so stands set up on my land

I like climbers but I'm from Mississippi where we have a lot of pine trees, straight with no lower limbs. The ones I have now are Summit Titans which are really easy to climb with, they're huge and are like sitting in an easy chair. I really hate hanging the hang on type stands because I scared myself with them too many times when I was younger. The climbers enclose you when you're climbing and I wear a harness while climbing and sitting in them too. I feel they're about as safe as you can get while going 30 feet up a tree.

Climbers aren't practical though in a lot of places where the trees have a lot of limbs and aren't straight.

I use both climbers and lock on. I use a treewalker. 100% American made by my best friends dad Jerry Mcnulty here in East Tennessee for like 20 years. I also have a API. It works fine but is noisy and hard to pack in comparison. Still use it some to though. I have also used a summit. They all work. Some just work better

As a kid I also had a old baker. Once a year you got a vertical ride of your life with that thing. Glad it was stole. Hope they like the ride.

The Baker elevator ride was well known!

I've had them all and kinda spread my time evenly between a bunch of stands. I have several Summit climbers, a Millennium hang on, a Game Tamer (nice to sit it...a job to put up), several cheapo (Ameristep ?) hang-ons, a Millennium 10' tripod (29 pounds) and a bunch of pop-up blinds. The all serve different purposes. The pop-ups are very effective, but I hate sitting in them. It's like solitary confinement with a picture of woods on the wall.

Have A Summit Titan And a API Grand Slam. Spend 95% Of My Time In The Summit. They Climb And Seem To Fit Me Better. The Old Bakers Should Of Came With a Jar Of Salve For The Skinned Azz You Where Sure To Get.. I Left a New One In The Woods After A Near Death Experience ...

I love sitting in my Summit climber, but not a huge fan of the climbing part. Love the convenience of hang on with sticks, but haven't found one that's as comfortable as the Summit. For the kiddos, it's 2 man ladders. I prefer the ones with the sling style seat and the deep plat forms. I can get by with the 13" platforms, but taking my 5 and 8yos up in them, I much prefer those with a platform all the way to the tree. As finances allow, we'll be adding more and more 2 man ladders to our place.

Biggest problem with the millennium hang on stands is staying awake in them. I've never lounged like this or relaxed so comfortably in the tree before getting these. I now have 4 of them and nothing else. Sold everything I had for pennies to folks needing a stand. Replaced them all with these.

I can't argue that. Their 10' tripod is probably my favorite thing to sit in, and at 29 lbs, is almost as portable as a climber. It's a little pricey at $400, but perfect for moving around the south Texas brush country where the trees aren't big enough to get in.

Hang ons for me with a few ladder stands.

Loc On Limit, old Gorillas, Lone Wolf, Chippewa Wedge Loc and a Millenium. I like placing hang ons in tight spots between adjacent tree trunks to stay hidden even after the leaves fall. Ladders are tough to place like that.

The Leverage Speed ladder is the nicest ladder I've used. Not as speedy as they claim but I like how it feels like a hang on with a fold up seat and no railings and junk to get in the way. Also pricey.

That Millenium tripod looks perfect for some old clear cut areas that are now small oaks and almost impossible to hunt except on the ground and I hate ground blinds.

My problem with the Millenium hang on is the fact I like to shoot standing up and it takes a lot of movement to stand up and fold up that luxurious seat. Now that I'm playing around with a compound I might be ok shooting while seated.

Is that 10' to the seat?

I shoot 100% sitting from my millenniums. It's no problem. I actually think it's a more steady way to shoot.

Compound yes
Longbow no