View topic - To hang or not to hang??

I stick with the no-hang gang and have for many years. Most of my traveling in bear country has been in late summer and fall when they are well fed and not much interested in people. That might make bear encounters less likely.
A bear did steal a just-picked pot of blueberries from me once. I was willing to let her have the berries, but in hooking the pot of berries out from my pack, she twisted the tent around her paw and carried that off into the woods with her. I recovered the empty pot only 100 feet away with two or three claw holes right through it. She managed to dump the tent without damaging it at all after another couple hundred feet.
We had left two packs at the end of a long portage and gone back for the canoe and the rest of the baggage.
To expand this discussion slightly. old timers I knew a long time ago warned me to avoid letting a fish or duck or goose bleed in the canoe. Later, a bear can smell the blood and might dig to find the source. My canoes, being wooden, would not survive that.

for hangers...the arborists throw line..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFyu8rgRHAQ

How’s your indoor throwball practice going? Might be time to strap on the snowshoes and head outside.

That Arborist’s throwing technique was an eye opener. I had a climber take down a tall, dead Virginia pine and it busted off a couple limbs that hung up high in the air in a maple over the driveway. He got out his throwball to hook the branches and tug them free, and I smart-assed “How many throws do you think it will take you?”.

He just looked at me funny. He was deadly freaking accurate and he knew it. I’m glad there was no bet involved.

Mentioned elsewhere, the important parts of that technique and throwing motion:
Start by flaking out the line cleanly on the ground (or, better, atop some un-snaggy surface)
Stand damn near under the target limb and throw (underhanded) vertically
The weird elbow bending motion is critical in either throwing style, and not especially intuitive; I had to run back in and re-watch the video a couple times.

Note that the throw line is doubled \ / or even tripled up \\/ through the throw ball ring (carabiner on slit tennis balls I use), so that you are throwing 6 - 9 feet of line upwards along with the weighted ball. That seems critical to accuracy, so throw ball isn’t immediately veering off course as it hoists line off the ground.

The DIY throwball; slit tennis ball so I can add pebble weightif necessary

PC071394 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr


Tripled up throwing line through a ring (beener)

PC071403 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Very interesting discussion - good to see so many practical comments. I'm not used to that from other forums. I also never hang food - even in Grizzly country unless I'm in a parks campground where hanging and/or food lockers are a no-brainer. I often random camp at treeline or above - not many hanging options up there, despite having plenty of Grizzlies!

I've never had an issue either in Black Bear or Grizzly country with food,other than rodents. I use the blue barrels on canoe trips to discourage mice, squirrels and the like.

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Vern Dewit
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