Bossman,
The first deer I killed on the lease I've been on now for over 20 years, was from my Amaker copy. I was up a tall pine tree in the edge of an old clay pit, facing kinda northwest. I spotted the buck coming out of the scrub that was around the north side of the pit. The buck was just piddling along, browsing on what ever was along his path. In order to get the best view for my shot, I stood up. When I stood up, my camo coveralls were stuck to the metal seat with the pine tar. What an unusual sound late in the afternoon in the northwest Florida woods! The sound did stop the buck and my old Remington 700 30/06 did its' job.
I had not thought of that particular hazard, fresh pine tar on the seat and frame of the old Amaker style climbers in a long time. I'm sure that old stand still has dried pine tar still all over it.
I tried a couple of different climbers and never had the confidence in them as I did with the Amaker style. Once you set those spikes, you could dance a jig on the foot stand. I did learn that you should always tie the seat and the foot stand together with a short piece of dog rope. When moving the foot stand up with your feet it might just slip. Climbing with one of those stands always reminded me of my old Handyman Jack for some reason.
Handyman was the big name in jacks before Hi-Lift. When it came to successful woods travel back in the day a feller had to have a capable jack, and there's a whole bunch of tales in the story book too.
Treefarmer
I sat in a River's Edge or a Millennium a few years ago - it had the nylon or mesh fabric seat - kinda like a bench seat with back rest. It was real comfortable and had plenty of leg room. I have a big game 2 man ($80 special from Rural king) - it does the job, but the angle which it puts your legs and seat can get uncomfortable. No backrest either.
Dont like the metal seat and bigger is better. Lock the whole stand together. Yes i to have gone to my stand and found the double seat still hanging in the tree and the ladder and brace were gone. The ladder was locked to the tree only
I ended up getting 2 Rivers Edge Jumbo Jack 17' Ladder Tree Stands and think that I will get a lot of good use out of them. I also found after I bought the stands another stand that was a Hawk Big Denali 1.5 Man Ladder Tree Stand that is close to the same and if I had seen it before hand I would have bought one each to have done a field comparison.
