Anyone in the mood to chat about how y'all used to do it back in the day before eveyone and there mom was doing the whole tree saddle thing ? I've tried asking on some now groups and stuff but don't seem anyone really knows anything past the latest and greatest. Listed to a few pod casts with older guys talking about there home made gear , modifying lineman's equipment so they could just save a tree and pop one of those little lock on stands real quick. Head another of a guy using something like L brackets and a length of rope to make steps. Would have a bag of em and would just lash them in has he went up and took them off as he want down... Lotta diy back then different world , lot more interesting tho.... So.... How y'all do it back in the day ?

There used to be those that used a 2x12 or similar, with a length suitable to stand on.
Cut v's in each end, and wedge between a forked tree.
Simple and I guess it worked.
Never really liked sitting on a stand myself.

Stumps, we would find a nice stump and sit down.

Worked my way through college at a lumber yard. Had access to a lot of scrap lumber and decided to make a couple hang-on treestands. Right proud of myself at the time, but looking back, its a dern fool thing to be making stands out of lumber. Eventually, its gonna rot and not be safe. Its one thing if I fall and wreck myself because of my stupidity, but I sure dont want my kids or future grandkids to be using stuff I made and wreck themselves.
Before that, Id just climb up into a walnut tree and wait for deer...no safety harnesses SMH

When I was coming up a mobile hunter was a driver that followed the hounds.

Younger days , used climbers , chain on stands . Had some rope on steps , those worked well . Now that I'm old , I just stand on the ground and shoot 'em ,or hunt out of a blind .

A telephone supervisor loaned me his climbing gear. The pole spikes were shorter than tree spikes but would work. I would climb up a hardwood tree and safety off. After a few hours, my knees were killing me. Not safe or comfortable.

My first portable stand was an old Baker. Big improvement when they introduced the hand piece. Still not a very safe design.

I once stood on top of a tall kitchen stool in a standing corn field. No luck.

Early tree stands were a single board. No seats. Not pressure treated. Sometimes an old pallet in a tree.

Drove cotton spindles in trees for steps. Used a 2lb hammer. A John Deere picker had 720 spindles I think. Spindles lowest to the ground wore out first.

We always hunted in the woods with buckshot, and never a rifle. Many first time rifle hunters used see through scope mounts with cheap Tasco scopes. 1960s. Only two calibers were common - 30/30 and 30-06. A 270 was rare. Bolt action rifles were not common either except for military surplus rifles.

…. 8 foot lean to I could drag in to different places when I was kid… got a climber in my teens

blue jeans , work boots , and your orange coat
shotguns , drop off standers and drivers and everyone had a compass most people had a watch

you had to know where the stand and drive locations were , give the young or bad of direction a road to follow just stay 50 yards off this road walk to the next one , stay in line with your other drivers when they stop you stop , wait for the big arm circle then repeat and go.

I was the first one with a tree stand , I would sit in it years that others couldn't get there till 8am because of work.

lots of us made tree stands and steps in welding in highschool

Mobile hunting to me is going out feet on the ground and still hunting or find a spot to sit for awhile....or in snow country, tracking....

WD, for me hunting deer has always been about how close you can get, not how far you can shoot.

Proximity to the game is everything. That is where the real challenge lies.

Hardwood Swamp – Black acorn tree – One treated 2 x 12 / Ring shank nails – Screw in steps – Elevation at least 18 feet

A really fast longbow with wood arrows. Ninety-five percent of shots were inside ten yards.

Around here people didn't start climbing trees and sitting still until everyone started reading F&S articles about how you are supposed to do that. So I don't have old tree stand stories b/c growing we walked everywhere deer hunting. Used to be you'd wake up and start deer hunting with a few guys and by the end of the day there would be a dozen of you bc you'd bump into one another throughout the day and join up. Oh hey Steve, oh hey Bob. Push a woods here or a fence row there. Hunting with farmers made it easy. They all each owned a lot of their own land and knew neighbor after neighbor when it was time to cross. The old timers used to talk about how they had walked through every section of Wester Ohio from Indiana to Columbus fox / coyote hunting. Think about that. Every square block, crossing every road, from the state line to Columbus Ohio had been walked through. Then people started sitting in trees and getting upset when people would walk up on them and start complaining and now everyone sits in trees and walking around doing drives all day is pretty much non existent. I bet during gun season this year I wont see three other trucks of people deer hunting, all week.

Oldest school "mobile" hunt... wake up in the morning, find a track, and follow it, all day... just start walking.

I thought this was going to be about road hunting

Nothing I remember growing up was "portable"

Closest thing to mobile we did was climbers

Bulky, noisy and dangerous to your health on most counts

Not many wore a "harness" so falling out of a tree was a strong possibility

This is what I primarily recall for stands for bowhunting. At one time it wasnt legal to even bowhunt let alone gun hunt while elevated here so you might say folks were creative.
Somewhere Ive still got 1-2 homemade platforms that would be from late 70's or early 80's but the concept had been "improved" by then and they were made out of steel frame with plywood platform bolted on top of frame. They were made to be adjustable in length, Basically square tubing that would allow one section end to slide into the other side. And the ends were steel Vs with steel teeth. They weighed next to nothing and theyd be taked down when leaving. Id say it was early 90's before gun hunting from elevated stand was legalized

I still either track on the snow or hunt from climbing or hanging tree stands.

In the beginning short 2x4 nailed length ways into the tree with ringshank nails. Couple of 2x4 and couple of boards for the platform. Later if you could score a tv tower for a ladder they were the cat's meow. Some would pound rerod into a tree for steps. I had access to pole steps. I didn't but some made platforms out of 3/4" square tubing and mesh. They worked well. I did make ladderstands out of 2x4 with a seat at the top.

I made a lot of the rope and 2X4 steps before I discovered screw in steps
I used the yellow nylon rope, drill a hole near a corner of a 2X4X6
Tie them on as tight as you can because they will stretch and almost lock into place when you put your weight on it
You need a tree with a rough bark to be semi safe.
These days I keep my feet on the ground

Lawn Chair....right off the porch!

When I started rabbit hunting I liked to find something so I could get higher so I could see.

I saw no need for a deer stand until a idiot zinged a slug past me, at that moment I visioned myself being up out of the way. And that on a hill and not in a valley.

Sitting next to a tree in below zero temps made me dream of a tree house with a propane heater.

Oh yeah, you got to get up high so they can't smell you. If he can't smell me how can he find me, lol ?

Just imagine all the $$$ brought in from building tree paraphernalia to kill a $2 deer, lol. What says hey, that is my spot, better than a pile of scrap metal in a tree. And its there from Oct until Feb and it means no trapping and no rabbit hunting or site seeing !

But with any free enterprise some find a market and make a product to fit the demand. And some create a demand and then create the product to fill the demand.

I thought this was about shooting out the pickup window..