Driftwood Outdoors Column
Times have sure changed. Twenty years ago, when I was first starting out as a youth bowhunter, I spent many mornings perched high in a tree standing on nothing more than a few old 2x4s that had been nailed together years before. My uncle would wrap an old iron-worker belt around my waist, and that was the extent of our safety system.
Thankfully, treestand safety has come a long way since then with the advances of technology. Commercial-built stands made from various types of metal have become much more affordable and are way, way safer than the old rotten wood of my youth. And allowing a youth to hunt from a treestand without a safety harness today is unheard of.