Climbing Techniques

[Tree Machine]

After getting the proper cutting-edge gear (shotline winder, bag, pole and bigshot) the rest is learned. I find grippy gloves an essential part of all of this.

When I don't wear grippy gloves, I have a remarkably different experience than when I do. They are an asset.

Treestuff.com has a special on just that package,
Shotline winder w/200' of line, bigshot head, 6 foot pole with boot and a pack of a dozen grippy gloves, $200 even.

The rest is rope and saddle.

 

[TreeAce]

Right on! I like E. Big Shot is a very sweet tool . I have one. I am not ready for the shot line reel . I am still excited about the fold up cube. lol. I always have a groundie to put it away will I start climbing . It is cool though . I must say that I somtimes have problems after the throw line is up . That seems to be the easy part . It seems to lend itself better to SRT which I am working on getting better at.

 

[kevin bingham]

Man, i wish my throwline experiences always turn out like that one TM. My system is nowhere near that dialed in. Lol. Ive got cubes, a linewinder, different sized lines, different sized weights. Sometimes i've used water bottles. Throwline is always challenging, thats what Ilove about it. I feel like somedays i'm on somedays i'm off. I love it always though, its better than golf.

 

[Tree Machine]

It's not always, Kevin. It's consistently.




I prefer throwing, but the whole key to success here is knowing WHEN to break out the bigshot.

I probably do 4 out of every 5 trees throwing.


You are ready for a shotline winder, and that's not up for debate.
Send your Mom this link, do whatever you've gotta do, quit suffering.


Your shotline can never tangle. This is a rule. If your shotline tangles, you are screwed. You have done it wrong, or your system failed you. This is a timesuck that is NEVER EVER acceptable or wanted or needed. It's a morale-deflator.

A tangle-free, instant, dependable deployment, and fast put-away time setup is currently available. You are worthy.


If it usually takes you 4 minutes to set a rope, and you move into a system that will not ever tangle and your setup, set and breakdown time is now two minutes, what is the difference?

2 minutes of time, right? On the surface, yes. But this is adopting a 100% gain in time savings and efficiency. If time is money, 100% more money. You double your income, literally.

Who is not ready for that?

 

[Tree Machine]

Not talkin specifically to you, Kevin, just the readership in general.



After the proper gear, line setting / rope setting is a learned skill. Sometimes the very easiest of throws will elude me 4 or 5 tries. The better you are at it, the more valuable you are to your own self. I mean it.


Like I referred to earlier, I feel it's better to learn and start out with the most advanced gear, practically speaking. It makes the learning curve more gentle on ya.

 

[Tree Machine]

Hey Treeco,

1/8" slickline.....

You throw with this stuff?
This picture below is almost ten years old, when the bigshot first came on to market. Decent shotline had not been invented yet.

You still use that stuff? I thought it went extinct.

 

[Tree Machine]

That stuff used to give me fits.

Of course, I wasn't using a cube. I was trying pouches, purses, buckets, backpacks and baskets. I tried boxes and bins, bucket bosses, tarps.


Maybe I wasn't experiencing it properly. Maybe the line was OK, but how I was managing and stowing it was the problem. I used to have such shotline headaches. Mebbe I'll give 1/8" another chance.

 

[kevin bingham]

I havent gone back to slick line, but I have been migrating toward thicker lines and heavier bags for most of the work I do under 60 feet. there are tools for every job and if most of my everyday stuff is under 60 feet, why carry around the real long super skinny line that is meant to be rocketed, but tangles easily. The thicker dynoglide is kind of cool.

Tangles are a real gamechanger on the job site. they can cost hundreds of dollars.

 

[Tree Machine]

Tangles are a real gamechanger on the job site. they can cost hundreds of dollars.

I remember long, long ago having a tangle that I knew would be cheaper to wad up the whole 180 feet and throw it in the trash and start anew. I hate that thinking because I save everything and I'll milk the last use out of anything, but taNGLeS! # <"#&@*

This can drop your climbing operation to its knees. This is how shotline mishaps can cost hundreds. You screw things up badly, and the only option you've got is to unsnarl the line, get it flaked back out and try again. You can't hand this off to the ground guy because you know he'll make it worse, so you pay him to hang out, hopefully not watch you while you endure the pain of screwing with tangled line....


NO THANK YOU!


It doesn't have to be this way, really, ever. I know, because I know.

 

[Tree Machine]

Because there's proper shotline management gear out there now,
a $75 shotline winder and your choice of bag, you are in. A bigshot can be added on down the road. You can be a professional (hand-thrown) line setter for under a hundred dollars, state of the art, professional. It'll serve you for years. That's a good deal.

 

[7Distel]

...Treestuff.com has a special on just that package,
Shotline winder w/200' of line, bigshot head, 6 foot pole with boot and a pack of a dozen grippy gloves, $200 even.
...

TM, that looks like a good buy, but couldn't find it on the Treestuff site. Is the "special" over ... or, just didn't look in the right place? You got a link?

 

[Tree Machine]

It's there, I'll get them to dial it in and I'll bring you the link upcoming.

For now, contact Treestuff directly, just call Luke, at 1-877-408-7337 say I want that reel & Bigshot deal for 200. He'll know what you're getting. He'll ask if you use the yellow Jameson poles or the orange Marvin poles. He will put the rubber boot on, add a Bigshot head, the winder w/200' . $200.

There is no shotbag included because a shotbag, and your desired weight, is kind of a personal thing. If you have Luke add a 10 oz bag (he'll know the one) for like $208 you are ready and complete and dialled-in. You are now a professional line setter using today's current edge technology. Hardly at all painful. You will have different shotline experiences now. You've turned a corner where the hassles have been eliminated and you get to focus on the fun part. Trust me, it's all fun now.

Good on you.

 

[pdqdl]

I am a bit confused by the line winder. It looks like it would pile up lots of twists on the line.

If you feed line off of the side, each loop that falls off adds one twist. If you then roll it up with a winder, the twists remain. Do that very often and you will have a LOT of twists in your line.

What part of this do I have wrong? You wouldn't like the line-winder so much if it made the throw line all twisty-kinky, so I must be missing something.


BTW: I use a cube, and flake it back into the cube as I pull the rope up. I keep getting snarled up into twigs on the ground if I don't, so it is always ready to stow or shoot again when I pull it in a little more carefully.

 

[jefflovstrom]

BTW: I use a cube, and flake it back into the cube as I pull the rope up. I keep getting snarled up into twigs on the ground if I don't, so it is always ready to stow or shoot again when I pull it in a little more carefully.

Yup, that is why many don't use it. (flake it back into the cube!)
Jeff

 

[pdqdl]

The cube is the only way I know of to keep the string off the ground and out of the twigs. Even the rope winder makes you leave the string on the ground while you are pulling the rope up into the tree.

I'm not sure what you are saying there, Jeff. I guess I am slow; could you explain it to me again?

 

[Tree Machine]

Have you guys ever gone fishing with a spinning reel? It's an open-face reel that deploys more or less identically. You can cast all day, reel in, there's no special magic. You never, ever have to physically un-twist the line, and it never piles up twists, so what's up with that?


The shotline winder works the same, with the same results, except the shotline does unwind itself if there's any amouint of rotation. The shotbag will rotate opposite on it's way down, spontaneously.


I don't know how to explain it, except in complete honesty, I will say the rotation of the line is never an issue. It's not even something I think about.
If it were a problem, I wouldn't be here telling you it's not a problem,
but it seems like,
some of you are projecting onto it a problem that does not exist.

Yup, that is why many don't use it.

People sometimes base their decisions on unfounded assumptions. There's always a bit of apprehension moving from an old standard piece of gear, because amidst any inefficiency or disadvantage, you get used to it and live with it and it becomes 'normal'. It's not until you experience something better do you realize how much a former method truly sucked.



Until you experience the shotline winder firsthand, I wouldn't make any presumptions. Let the winder do it's own show and tell, or talk to someone who's using one, rather than believe a statement from someone who DOESN'T have one telling you about why other guys who don't have one don't use them. Really. think about this.



BTW, I too own a cube. I'm very clear on the performance differences. They're a magnitude apart. I'm very honest in saying this.

 

[Blakesmaster]

Have you had any issues with the line loosening up and possibly unspooling off of the winder when left on the ground? Almost seems that it would need to be kept under constant tension to keep the loops from tangling on the reel.

 

[Tree Machine]

I'm sorry if this thread seems derailed, but line-setting is critical, as there is no rope technique until there is a rope set in the tree.


I have read for years the problems that folks have with managing the shotline.
I don't have those problems, simply because I'm using a different piece of gear.

On this one, it would be ashame if I kept it secret, as I did for about 8 years.
This past season I bought out the last run of some reels stacked in a warehouse, 20,000 feet of line, and they are being offered through Treestuff, in an exclusive arrangement. Exposure of the shotline reel is being done solely in the arborist forums, as there is only a limited number of these available, they are NOT being offered in anyone's catalogs and you won't see ads for them in magazines or e-publications of any sort. You could view this as a lack of popularity (if it were the real deal, I'd be seeing it all over....) but it is a marketing strategy not intended to sell as many as possible as quickly as possible.

I'm not going to make any money, in fact, all the time I have sunk into this, if I were to translate that to lost work hours, I would never recoup that opportunity cost, no less make a profit.

This one's a labor of love. I love my arborist community and will go out of my way to share something that can be of benefit to them.

 

[Tree Machine]

Have you had any issues with the line loosening up and possibly unspooling off of the winder when left on the ground? Almost seems that it would need to be kept under constant tension to keep the loops from tangling on the reel.

Very good point. Unspooling off the winder, you must mean of the reel were dumped upside down, would a number of coils come off?


I had that happen with brand new line, if the line is wound loosely, yes, loose coils could peel off. I wind them with some degree of tension.

If you were really sloppy about winding it up, like creating a big cone, you could intentionally create a problem, like with just about anything.

Tension is important. You place the line between your thighs. This acts as a fairlead, keeping the shotline in a straight line and you can control the tension going onto the reel.

Yes, Blakes, a very light amount of tension is necessary for reeling in. And reeling the line on in a consistent manner will allow consistent throws and shots right off the reel. The learning curve on this is pretty short. You'll learn everything you need to know within the first few uses.

 

[7Distel]

It's there, I'll get them to dial it in and I'll bring you the link upcoming. ...

opcorn:

Have you guys ever gone fishing with a spinning reel? It's an open-face reel that deploys more or less identically. You can cast all day, reel in, there's no special magic. You never, ever have to physically un-twist the line, and it never piles up twists, so what's up with that?

The shotline winder works the same, with the same results, except the shotline does unwind itself if there's any amouint of rotation. The shotbag will rotate opposite on it's way down, spontaneously. ...

:agree2: BUT:

TM, I believe you're right about the shotbag rotation will take out enough twist to NOT be a problem. However, just saying, the open-face reel is a poor analogy to the Shotline Winder. They, in fact, operate the same only when the line goes out. They operate quite differently when the line comes in. The open-face reel does not rotate when the line goes out and the open-face reel does not rotate when the line comes in - the bale winds the line around the stationary reel.

Conversely, the Shotline Winder does not rotate when the line goes out and the Shotline Winder does rotate when the line comes in. That's where the confusion is and the open-face reel analogy isn't helping.


No offense - just trying to clear up some confusion