I bought several ladder stands for my sons and 3 of the 20' ladder tree climbers for me. Lot of pencil straight trees where I hunt and more and more land owners don't like screw in steps.
Forgot to add,
Property I hunted on last year was lousy with black walnut and shag bark hickory's both real S*B's to use screw in tree step on. I put up 3-5 hang on's at least and ended up having to use my 18v Dewalt to pre-drill for the screw in steps. I also have two 20' aluminum Centipede strap on ladders that are a whole lot faster and easier to put up then screw in steps so that is what prompted me to buy the other strap on ladders.
Also I'm encountering for what ever the reasons, more and more trees that I can easily get a ladder stand on but not a hang on, as a matter of fact over the last 4 seasons, I have more often than not encountered situations where I can set up a ladder stand on a great many more trees that are a no go for hang on's and often the only option I have to be able to bow hunt a given spot is out of a ladder stand as any tree suitable for hang on's either puts me out of effective range or otherwise wont work for that spot. An added plus is my one son is rather intimidated hunting out of my hang on's but is fine in a ladder stand, so I'm using more ladder stands for that reason as well.
What I found is so great about a ladder stand that I can not do with a hang on is when I encounter a tree sprouting a very large number of small branches I can simply lay the ladder into the few of them the stand contacts and they bend under it or poke trough it little or no cutting of branches required, and the branches also lend a good deal of help in camouflaging me while in the stand, even though I do add quite a bit of brush to all my ladders stands to help hide me.
Unfortunately the Centipede ladders are no longer available at least I can no longer get access to "Innovative Tree stands.com" website where they were being sold.
