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Arborist throw bag?

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I can still see my floor in a couple places, so I recently ordered an arborist throw bag.
The idea being that I would use this for hanging the food bag. There might be other uses too.
Normally, I'd fill a ditty bag with rocks or tie a line directly to a rock.
That advantage of an arborist throw bag is you can throw it farther, more accurately and it's less likely to get caught up in the branches.
The obvious disadvantage is the extra weight to carry.
It's filled with coated lead shot, so it's actually quite small.
They are made with heavy nylon, so very sturdy. Intended for professional use,
They also have slippery line that might be helpful too.
What do you think?
 
i have used one, or more accurately seen one used, by a more experienced user than I, to throw a rope for clearing dangerous trees during a Lean2Rescue volunteer work job in the Adirondacks. You have to go to Youtube to see the most efficient throw methods. So since I need to take down a number of odd trees dangerously near my camp, I recently bought one from Amazon as well. It takes some practice, but the under hand between the legs method works quite well to get an accurate high lob throw. Just be sure that the line is loosely stuffed (not coiled) in a receptacle that it may play out from.

I am reminded of a method attempted by a dear (sadly now passed) friend as a fellow BSA high adventure guide training instructor. He used a slingshot with a metal washer tied to a monofilament line, aiming the washer to go up over a tree limb and he let it loose. The line reached its end and the nylon’s stretchiness, acting as a spring, zipped the washer directly back to my chum's forehead, leaving a long lasting bruise with quite a chuckle from our students. He never tried that method again. I have seen students throw (and get stuck in tree crotches) all kinds of stones, sticks, Nalgene bottles (which seem to work the best) , and even boots in their attempts to hang a bear bag.
 
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Looking forward to a report. Having stuck (at least temporarily) multiple items in trees over the years, I can't beleive there's not a better way.
 
Can you just carry an empty bag and put some rocks/sand/gravel in it when you need to use it?
Maybe, but I think the advantage of using coated lead shot beads is that they almost act as a squishy liquid in the bag and are less likely to get it stuck like larger gravel particles miight do, if you can even find gravel in some places.
 
I can't see it working where I live and trip because almost all of the trees are densely branched black spruce, lodgepole pine or jack pine. We don't try to put our food up a tree but rather put it away from our tents on the ground. I have a method of getting a tarp line up quite high but it might not work in your area so, I'm curious about how high you want to get the rope?
 
I've used an arborist throw weight, but have never taken it canoeing. I made a slingshot for mine which can get the weight up to about 70' with good accuracy. I've probably put that weight into trees a hundred times and it's never gotten stuck. About the only thing I use it for anymore is to annually place a holiday decoration as high into a tree as possible.
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Before I had a throw weight I used a fishing rod with monofilament and a 1oz weight. That worked okay. Problems were accuracy of cast, difficulty seeing the line in the trees, and the weight/line would sometimes wrap around a branch. With the mono over a branch, I'd lower the weight to the ground and attach a heavier line. Many canoeists carry fishing gear, so this approach might work for them.

I've always used a stick or rock or water bottle tied to the end of the rope as the throw weight for hanging my camping food. The water bottle, bane of environmentalists everywhere, deserves special mention. Advantages are the plastic bottles are inherently slippery and of a size and weight that doesn't easily hang up in branches. The weight can be adjusted by changing the volume of water in the bottle. On the carry, the weight can be lowered to near zero by emptying the water.

Regarding food hangs, here's a story I imagine I've posted before:

On a trip to Shoeshone Lake, I was told to string my vittles up from cross-poles I would find at the site. The cross pole was attached to two vertical trees with chain, and the darn thing was 20 - 25 feet up. I wasn't sure I had enough rope to get over that bar and back down.

I tied together the several lengths of rope I had, tied a hefty stick on one end of the line, and about threw my shoulder out pitching the stick over the cross bar. As the stick was sailing over the bar, it occurred to me I better grab the loose end of the rope before the stick carried the whole rope over the bar. That was a good idea, but in the excitement I kind of lost track of the physics of the situation. I caught the loose end of the rope, which arrested the flight of the stick, which became the weight on the end of a pendulum. After I caught the rope, I turned back toward the bar and the stick swinging towards me on the rope smacked me across the jaw. I don't know whether the shock or the pain was greater.

I was quite afraid of meeting a bear. There wasn't a lot of human traffic and the rangers had really hyped the danger of bear encounters. Nobody was at the three other sites I visited while wandering. If there was a bear encounter, it would just be me and the bear. I swore so loud after that stick hit my face that any bear in the neighborhood would have been more scared than me!
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Can you just carry an empty bag and put some rocks/sand/gravel in it when you need to use it?
As I said, that is what I've done previously. Just thinking this would save looking for just the right rock(s), and ditty bags tend to get caught in the branches, don't travel as far, etc.
 
I can't see it working where I live and trip because almost all of the trees are densely branched black spruce, lodgepole pine or jack pine. We don't try to put our food up a tree but rather put it away from our tents on the ground. I have a method of getting a tarp line up quite high but it might not work in your area so, I'm curious about how high you want to get the rope?
Cliff Jacobson recommends double or triple wrapping your food and hiding it in the woods. Says it works better than hanging. I'm skeptical. Makes me pretty nervous. I keep my food in a Bear Vault, but I'd still hang it. Even if the bear doesn't get to the food, he might drag it off. Hanging food in a pine forest is tough, but I've been doing it for a very long time. There are always bare branches to throw over.
 
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