Excellent. I used it on multiple new trees this hunting season. If we already have our climbing system built and merely add the soft shackle and a carabiner to our pack, we can access a whole different set of trees.
I have spent years trying to figure this out, thank you so much John. Your method much better than my attempts. I was trying to use spurs, they work great but are an extra burden I don't need.
When using spurs, we should still have a cinching tie in, and more than a lineman's belt. And spurs are used by responsible arborists only when removing the tree.
Thx brother. John is also getting older and after doing all this in privacy for over a decade, is enjoying the positive experience of sharing here on social media. All i ask is that the info is used carefully, methodically and safely.
Can you describe the tether a bit more? It appeared that it was a simply using tension on the line passing through the carabiner (rather than say a Running JRB Hitch). Is that correct?
There is no tether in this climb. I am using two items described in other videos. 1. A JRB Doubled Rope climbing system. Its a long rope with a JRB Ascender Hitch on each side, and the hitches are tied such that I climb towards the middle of the rope, as it is typically set over a tree crotch. 2. The Longhorn Soft Shackle as described in this video: ruclips.net/video/mVhyIBTAAng/видео.html By affixing the Longhorn Soft Shackle around the bight that goes around the tree and the two strands of rope, it's locked around the tree. The paracord attaches to the carabiner and is how i pulled it up.
I’ve recently found your videos started rope climbing. I’m loving this system a lot as it feels safer, easier, and less stressful that how I was previously one sticking up the tree. Got several practice climbs in this week and the ascent and descent was awesome. I am still unsure of hunting on it though. It felt like the long bridge, two jrbs, and a carabiner at head height was going to interfere with shoot-ability for deer approaching in different directions. Might just be that I’m used to shooting with a tether and ropman but I’d love some tips on that if you have them. Also is there anything you do to help reposition at hunting height? I’m my few climbs I’ve found that the best crotch to climb on isn’t always where I want to hunt on a tree.
1st, thanks. 2nd, understand that one of the most difficult things for me is figuring out what is missing and what pieces of information would help others the most. Questions like yours help me in that process and inspire future content. I feel like a future video on shot positioning would help. In the meantime, I want to suggest that you find a tree you can practice on that's low to the ground. You don't even need a bow in your hand to simulate on and get into a draw position. But if you can get bow in hand, that's even better. Now, having a doubled rope over a tree crotch might be just a little bit higher than your tether is typically attached. I find that to be an advantage because i am not being pulled towards the tree as hard and can rotate more freely. Straighten your legs and push off from the tree and platform. Stong side and backward shots are taken care of with foot positioning. Weak side shots, i rotate the other way and stand and lean out onto the rope strands which are pressed against my left chest and neck. Practice will help build confidence to lean out on the rope. I hope this helps.
@@jrbtc thanks for the reply I will do some practice on shooting pushed out from the tree more. Having shot off a lower and shorter tether for a couple years now, I think I’m just more used to making all the moves and pulling back in more of a standing position where I am closer to the tree.
@@Ozarkshunter50 when we are elevated, and shooting down, instead of bending at the waist, its completely acceptable to have out entire body leaning and held in place by our tie in. In fact, its a more steady shot, because our lower body is simply more stable.
I often reposition using a separate tether tied in the tree with the JRB cinch or saddle hunter hitch,, tie on a couple of ascender hitches and you have easy adjustments and you can hang whatever you want on the extra hitches
I can see this working with a single line and a Saddle Hunter's hitch or similar. I'm really looking forward to trying that, and its all come together nicely with the Longhorn hitch tied on the soft shackler. Good job!
Absolutely, and we won't be the first ones to do it either. The SRT gang might already be using a quick link which might serve as the carabiner and eliminate the need for the shackle. Practice your rigging on a low tree and get it done. If you're using a mechanical friction device and can more easily remove it from the line, you can just keep pulling the retrieval line and it will all come thru.
What about just using a carabiner instead of the soft shackle? Eliminate the soft shackle? Or run the middle of the rope through a rappel ring, take the loop around the tree and attach the ring to a carabiner making a false crotch, attach the paracord to the ring , attach a retrieval cord to the carabiner?
We never want to subject a carabiner to a bending force. If u have ideas, that is great but you should tie and try them, safely of course, to make sure they are viable and safe. If this was a private conversation, we could be more experimental, but i consider it a responsibility not to speculate with a comment that could lead to someone trying something that hasn't been tested.
@@kennethrogers1129 I haven't tried it, but certainly you could, however, I don't recommend it because it's only of use if 1) you have a pole long enough to reach your target height and 2) the tree has no branches. In contrast, if we hitch climb using the end of the rope, we can use a shorter pole and set as many hitches as we need to, alternating sides each time to climb any tree, using a pole of any length or no pole at all.
@@jrbtc ok John, thanks for that, good points . So I will focus off season climbing on various ways of hitch climbing adapting a pole into my “tool box” and get familiar with running jrb hitch, saddle hunter hitch , jrb cinch, longhorn soft shackle, as well as throw ball practice, and double rope climbing.
Well i believe you have a system and so let me know how it goes. We can simply practice the rigging without even climbing. Just don't lose any of your ends on retrieval. Even if it gets hung up coming down, u can still go up down again, and try to avoid the impediment. Cheers
I suppose you could pull up a loop around the tree hitched with the jrb cinch, or saddle hunter hitch the same way, worked with a pole.. For that matter why not dude a doubled rope with the end bight through the rappel ring
Ya need a pole to set the cinch, and if you do, there is no sense having a line in the tree. As for other options, it needs just the right amount of internal friction not to tighten prematurely. And make sure you can retrieve it. This video shows how i can use the same system with no changes to it.
One man asked another man, "How many ways can you skin a cat?" The second man answered, "I don't know personally, but I know this guy I can call and find out." So, the second man called John RB to find out the answer. 🤣🤣 You da man, John. RB! I bet you lay awake at night developing and fine tuning the JRB system.
Thanks Steve. Now back to business, I don't have any Southern Pines in my forest and so I might need you boys to try this out for me in your Pine forests!
@@jrbtcand huge oaks and pecans , cottonwoods, sweet gum, !! 60-80 ft to the first crotch, the tree cutters around here ( I wouldn’t call them arborists,they seldom climb , ) use cherry picker crane buckets that reach up to 150 get
John...STOP...show me you hunt first. I get the knots....all good things....but you're not showing me how you hunt. At this point you are an arborist that hunts, vice your auiedince, that hunts but aren't arborists. We care about knots but there are limits. And I've been there before....sorry. You need to decide or understand who you want to be.
Steven, I have prioritized safety and climbing content over hunting. There's a thousand people who are filming their hunts. And most of them are at risk of falling out of a tree every time they hunt. I tag more archery season deer than most would believe. I have tagged a mature buck each year for a very long time. No bait, no drives, no friends. Just time and patience. I don't bring a camera, and don't film my hunts. This season, I passed on over a dozen legal bucks and tagged a very nice 8 point and although I took a few photos, I don't think I even got one of me holding the buck. I don't hunt to impress anyone. It's much deeper for me. Teaching folks how to hunt would be a big topic to tackle and I don't plan to even start on it this season. But we'll get to it when I get everyone tied in or at least knowing they are taking a chance without it.
Where did you see me say or even imply that I am an arborist? You didn't. What arborists and hunters have in common is that they climb trees. I am simply borrowing best practices from one specialty to help another. Statistically, hunters are terribly unsafe climbers. I care more about some brother breaking his back than I do about him getting a buck.
@@jrbtc I'm a hunter, god knows how many times have I been unsafe in the tree..to the point my wife says I shouldn't be alive. You know what...I don't disagree with her. But as it stands I'm going with the simple swabish, or prussic hitch, or the Blake's hitch because I don't care about the hitch. It's simple, I get it but I'm hunting not hitching. A hitch doesn't kill deer....so long as it just doesn't kill you.
@@stevenl4494 appreciate your honesty. I consider myself a better hunter than i am a climber. As for you, as long as you're tied in the whole time that's all that matters. We have too many climbers falling out of the tree on the way up or down because they only tied in once they got to height. My rule is that if you let go or slip or the thiing under your feet breaks, at any time, it's impossible to be hurt. I have some more work to get folks to understand its not that difficult to do so. The reason the hitch is important is because if you found yourself hanging from nothing but a prusik on a tether because your footing device had disappeared, you're going to wish you chose better friction hitch. Most hunters would be stuck there.
@@jrbtc To answer your original question the title is JRB Tree Climbing (!)........and Saddle hunting(?). I get nothing but knots (tree climbing)...awesome knots BTW, but I find NO practicality in using them for me.
Very adaptive climbing method. Useful for many tree climbing applications, nice work.
Thx James, happy to share.
Brilliant, John. This opens up many a large tree that I could not climb otherwise!!!
Excellent. I used it on multiple new trees this hunting season. If we already have our climbing system built and merely add the soft shackle and a carabiner to our pack, we can access a whole different set of trees.
I have spent years trying to figure this out, thank you so much John. Your method much better than my attempts. I was trying to use spurs, they work great but are an extra burden I don't need.
When using spurs, we should still have a cinching tie in, and more than a lineman's belt. And spurs are used by responsible arborists only when removing the tree.
They also don't allow spurs on public land in places, so JRB is good when low impact is required
This really looks fun. Will definitely train on this part as well where I have a tree need climbing like this. Might be a power line pole. Good stuff
John is a wealth of knowledge,, when it comes to this game,, dude can climb, tie knots like no other!!!!
Thx brother. John is also getting older and after doing all this in privacy for over a decade, is enjoying the positive experience of sharing here on social media. All i ask is that the info is used carefully, methodically and safely.
Can you describe the tether a bit more? It appeared that it was a simply using tension on the line passing through the carabiner (rather than say a Running JRB Hitch). Is that correct?
There is no tether in this climb. I am using two items described in other videos. 1. A JRB Doubled Rope climbing system. Its a long rope with a JRB Ascender Hitch on each side, and the hitches are tied such that I climb towards the middle of the rope, as it is typically set over a tree crotch. 2. The Longhorn Soft Shackle as described in this video:
ruclips.net/video/mVhyIBTAAng/видео.html
By affixing the Longhorn Soft Shackle around the bight that goes around the tree and the two strands of rope, it's locked around the tree. The paracord attaches to the carabiner and is how i pulled it up.
I’ve recently found your videos started rope climbing. I’m loving this system a lot as it feels safer, easier, and less stressful that how I was previously one sticking up the tree. Got several practice climbs in this week and the ascent and descent was awesome. I am still unsure of hunting on it though. It felt like the long bridge, two jrbs, and a carabiner at head height was going to interfere with shoot-ability for deer approaching in different directions. Might just be that I’m used to shooting with a tether and ropman but I’d love some tips on that if you have them. Also is there anything you do to help reposition at hunting height? I’m my few climbs I’ve found that the best crotch to climb on isn’t always where I want to hunt on a tree.
1st, thanks. 2nd, understand that one of the most difficult things for me is figuring out what is missing and what pieces of information would help others the most. Questions like yours help me in that process and inspire future content. I feel like a future video on shot positioning would help. In the meantime, I want to suggest that you find a tree you can practice on that's low to the ground. You don't even need a bow in your hand to simulate on and get into a draw position. But if you can get bow in hand, that's even better. Now, having a doubled rope over a tree crotch might be just a little bit higher than your tether is typically attached. I find that to be an advantage because i am not being pulled towards the tree as hard and can rotate more freely. Straighten your legs and push off from the tree and platform. Stong side and backward shots are taken care of with foot positioning. Weak side shots, i rotate the other way and stand and lean out onto the rope strands which are pressed against my left chest and neck. Practice will help build confidence to lean out on the rope. I hope this helps.
@@jrbtc thanks for the reply I will do some practice on shooting pushed out from the tree more. Having shot off a lower and shorter tether for a couple years now, I think I’m just more used to making all the moves and pulling back in more of a standing position where I am closer to the tree.
@@Ozarkshunter50 when we are elevated, and shooting down, instead of bending at the waist, its completely acceptable to have out entire body leaning and held in place by our tie in. In fact, its a more steady shot, because our lower body is simply more stable.
I often reposition using a separate tether tied in the tree with the JRB cinch or saddle hunter hitch,, tie on a couple of ascender hitches and you have easy adjustments and you can hang whatever you want on the extra hitches
I can see this working with a single line and a Saddle Hunter's hitch or similar. I'm really looking forward to trying that, and its all come together nicely with the Longhorn hitch tied on the soft shackler. Good job!
Any reason you think this wouldn't work on a single rope with a loop on one end?
Absolutely, and we won't be the first ones to do it either. The SRT gang might already be using a quick link which might serve as the carabiner and eliminate the need for the shackle. Practice your rigging on a low tree and get it done. If you're using a mechanical friction device and can more easily remove it from the line, you can just keep pulling the retrieval line and it will all come thru.
What about just using a carabiner instead of the soft shackle? Eliminate the soft shackle? Or run the middle of the rope through a rappel ring, take the loop around the tree and attach the ring to a carabiner making a false crotch, attach the paracord to the ring , attach a retrieval cord to the carabiner?
We never want to subject a carabiner to a bending force. If u have ideas, that is great but you should tie and try them, safely of course, to make sure they are viable and safe. If this was a private conversation, we could be more experimental, but i consider it a responsibility not to speculate with a comment that could lead to someone trying something that hasn't been tested.
@@jrbtc oh, hadntt thought of that, ok carbariners safely only take a direct straight line load, thank you
Well could you use a pole to set the double rope with soft shackle?
@@kennethrogers1129 I haven't tried it, but certainly you could, however, I don't recommend it because it's only of use if 1) you have a pole long enough to reach your target height and 2) the tree has no branches. In contrast, if we hitch climb using the end of the rope, we can use a shorter pole and set as many hitches as we need to, alternating sides each time to climb any tree, using a pole of any length or no pole at all.
@@jrbtc ok John, thanks for that, good points . So I will focus off season climbing on various ways of hitch climbing adapting a pole into my “tool box” and get familiar with running jrb hitch, saddle hunter hitch , jrb cinch, longhorn soft shackle, as well as throw ball practice, and double rope climbing.
Thanks, lots of trees like that, really high first crotch , in my woods
Well i believe you have a system and so let me know how it goes. We can simply practice the rigging without even climbing. Just don't lose any of your ends on retrieval. Even if it gets hung up coming down, u can still go up down again, and try to avoid the impediment. Cheers
Will try a low climb first, don’t know if I can trust that running eye cinch ,
I suppose you could pull up a loop around the tree hitched with the jrb cinch, or saddle hunter hitch the same way, worked with a pole.. For that matter why not dude a doubled rope with the end bight through the rappel ring
Ya need a pole to set the cinch, and if you do, there is no sense having a line in the tree. As for other options, it needs just the right amount of internal friction not to tighten prematurely. And make sure you can retrieve it. This video shows how i can use the same system with no changes to it.
@@jrbtc yes of course the pole holds the cinch while it’s pulled tight…
One man asked another man, "How many ways can you skin a cat?" The second man answered, "I don't know personally, but I know this guy I can call and find out." So, the second man called John RB to find out the answer. 🤣🤣
You da man, John. RB! I bet you lay awake at night developing and fine tuning the JRB system.
Thanks Steve. Now back to business, I don't have any Southern Pines in my forest and so I might need you boys to try this out for me in your Pine forests!
@@jrbtcand huge oaks and pecans , cottonwoods, sweet gum, !! 60-80 ft to the first crotch, the tree cutters around here ( I wouldn’t call them arborists,they seldom climb , ) use cherry picker crane buckets that reach up to 150 get
Nice John :) THX
Thanks for your interest and support. Happy to help.
John...STOP...show me you hunt first. I get the knots....all good things....but you're not showing me how you hunt. At this point you are an arborist that hunts, vice your auiedince, that hunts but aren't arborists. We care about knots but there are limits. And I've been there before....sorry. You need to decide or understand who you want to be.
Steven, I have prioritized safety and climbing content over hunting. There's a thousand people who are filming their hunts. And most of them are at risk of falling out of a tree every time they hunt. I tag more archery season deer than most would believe. I have tagged a mature buck each year for a very long time. No bait, no drives, no friends. Just time and patience. I don't bring a camera, and don't film my hunts. This season, I passed on over a dozen legal bucks and tagged a very nice 8 point and although I took a few photos, I don't think I even got one of me holding the buck. I don't hunt to impress anyone. It's much deeper for me. Teaching folks how to hunt would be a big topic to tackle and I don't plan to even start on it this season. But we'll get to it when I get everyone tied in or at least knowing they are taking a chance without it.
Where did you see me say or even imply that I am an arborist? You didn't. What arborists and hunters have in common is that they climb trees. I am simply borrowing best practices from one specialty to help another. Statistically, hunters are terribly unsafe climbers. I care more about some brother breaking his back than I do about him getting a buck.
@@jrbtc I'm a hunter, god knows how many times have I been unsafe in the tree..to the point my wife says I shouldn't be alive. You know what...I don't disagree with her. But as it stands I'm going with the simple swabish, or prussic hitch, or the Blake's hitch because I don't care about the hitch. It's simple, I get it but I'm hunting not hitching. A hitch doesn't kill deer....so long as it just doesn't kill you.
@@stevenl4494 appreciate your honesty. I consider myself a better hunter than i am a climber. As for you, as long as you're tied in the whole time that's all that matters. We have too many climbers falling out of the tree on the way up or down because they only tied in once they got to height. My rule is that if you let go or slip or the thiing under your feet breaks, at any time, it's impossible to be hurt. I have some more work to get folks to understand its not that difficult to do so. The reason the hitch is important is because if you found yourself hanging from nothing but a prusik on a tether because your footing device had disappeared, you're going to wish you chose better friction hitch. Most hunters would be stuck there.
@@jrbtc To answer your original question the title is JRB Tree Climbing (!)........and Saddle hunting(?). I get nothing but knots (tree climbing)...awesome knots BTW, but I find NO practicality in using them for me.
Awesome