Cold treestands....bad experiences!

[VTer]

Had 3" of frozen crusty snow on my treestand this morning and couldn't quite get it all off.     I kew if I got a chance at a deer this morning, things would probably go bad because of the conditions. Those of you with hang-on treestands must have some good stories to tell about things that went wrong because of this. Lets hear 'em!  

[Trad-Man]

actually...no.  If my stand is iced up I don't get in it.  Nothing but bad can happen.  

Icey stand = noisey, slippery & dangerous...

a piece of cardboard, carpet, tarp etc. will keep the snow & ice away.

[Walt Francis]

I use Screaming Eagles and Gorillas stands and raise/fold the platforms up when not in use.  This prevents most iceand snow buildup. Quality stands and a little prevention takes care of most  of my stand related problems.
Put succinctly:   The amount of noise a stand makes has an inverse relationship with the temperature, the noise increases exponentially as the temperature decreases: A good stand goes a long way to mitigating said relationship.

[Steve in Canton]

I carry my stand in every hunt and never have a problem with an icy stand.

[KSdan]

Carry it in every time.

[Ray]

Never to much of a problem with my stand,but my climbing blocks were trouble.
 When I first started hunting in trees we used homemade steps.They were just a 2x4 cut to 5",a hole was drilled though the 2x4 the 4" width.A 5' length of parachute chord was sliped through the block and a knot with a loop in it tied off on one end.You would go around the tree with the chord go through the loop then back around the tree and then pull tightly and wrap about three times the remaining chord around the block  between the tree and the block.
 (DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME).LOL it worked but leaving them on the tree after an ice storm and  climbing up the next morning was not one of my smarter moves.

[John Krause]

Probably 15 years ago in the late season in MO. I was jonesin to get out. Work and the weather had made it tough. When I could get out there was an ice storm that covered everything in about a 1/2 in of ice.

I took a blow torch to my stand. It had screw in steps leading to a hang on. Everything was covered in ice. I used that blowtorch to melt the ice on the steps going up and then the stand. I bet it took 20 min or better to get in the stand. It was really pretty and an ice covered winter wonderland. Later heard something coming from the field to the draw I was in. Big crunches coming and then a 10 ft shrub that was ice covered exploded into ice crystals and a little 6 pt burst thru the brush and ran by me. It was pretty cool.

Later a coyote came down the ice covered creek I was covering. Could hear him coming a long way off. Missed him. It was a neat morning to be out.

[VTer]

That's the spirit guys. I knew once we thought back to the days before we knew everything, we'd remember the mistakes we used to make!

[DannyBows]

Not a treestand, but I had a bad experience once due to plain old stupidity.

I'd just gotten back to the US from overseas and my brother wanted to go hunting. All I had for boots were the military steel toed ones. We had an unusual cold snap and the temps were down to about 10 degrees.

By the time I got to my spot I was hurtin'! I didn't stay 10 minutes and I was almost in tears.

I hauled a## back to the van. I could get in but didn't have a key to start it to warm my feet. We had a two burner coleman stove in there and thru tears I got those boots off and my feet were blue.

I fired-up that stove up and warmed those puppies over the flame and was taking a 'combat nap' when the guys got back. I took a lot of ribbing over it for sure.

I'll betcha I never wear steel-toed boots in the cold again!    

[ti-guy]

This year I've tried  a recycle rubber mat( the one we put on our outside stairs)and it worked great,liked it.

[blazelefty7]

Like Walt, I try to tilt all my stands up before leaving them so leaves, sticks, snow and ice don't build up on them.  It can get super noisy and dangerous getting into a stand filled with debris.

[Shawn Leonard]

I actually placed carpey on quite a few of mine, this way I can peel it up and dump the ice and snow off, I do have to cut a few zip ties to do it, but I have a bunch in pack and replace them before I leave. Shawn