While hunting from an elevated position the age-old question is how to hang your gear. If you hunt private land you may be able to just screw in a couple of hooks and a bow hanger. However, if you hunt public land then you need a method of hanging gear that does not penetrate the tree bark to comply with the laws in most states. I’ve tried a multitude of different types of gear straps that all work with the same basic principle: they feature a ring of hooks on a strap that tightens down on the tree to hold it in place.
Last season I picked up a new gear hanging system that I am blown away with. It is the Tethrd HYS (Hang Your S***…stuff?) Strap. Available from Tethrd’s website for $25 it is one of the best new products I have deployed while hunting from a tree.
HYS Strap
Instead of a strap with hooks hung on it, the HYS strap is two very strong straps sewn together in a staggered daisy chain formation. Every two inches you have another loop through the whole length of the strap. Attaching to the tree you are hunting is simple. You wrap the strap around the tree, pass it through one of the loops, attach a hook and sinch the strap down. It’s as simple as it gets. I have found it to be more than capable of holding 40 pounds of my gear securely while hunting.
The main advantage of the HYS strap is the fact that the entire strap is made up of loops. Now you do need to purchase your carabiners, S clips, or hooks to put in the loops of the HYS strap. The cool thing about it is that you have an endless amount of options of where to put your hooks. I picked up a couple packs of Nite Ize S Biner clips. They’re only a couple bucks apiece. I remove one of the gates and hang the clips with the open hook facing down. This allows me to use the clip on top to attach securely to the HYS strap loops and then I can hang whatever I need on the open hook on the bottom. I run one of these with my binoculars, water bottle, and backpack.
To hang my bow, I picked up an ingenious invention called the Hero Clip. It was $20, but honestly is well worth it. The top is a standard carabiner, while the bottom features an S style loop that can swivel or move up and down. You can find one here. I just attach the clip to a loop on the HYS strap and hang my bow on the open hook side.
Why You Need A HYS Strap
While there’s nothing particularly exciting about how to hang gear in a tree, it is one of those items that you don’t appreciate until you have used some less than optimal hanging methods. I have used straps that lose their tension and come loose. I have also used straps that clang together and make noise whenever I grab something off them. One of my main annoyances with gear straps is the limitation in where I can hang my stuff. Many of them only come with a few hooks and you are committed to using them where the manufacturer puts them. The beauty of the HYS strap is the ultimate versatility it offers: You have the 360-degree versatility of putting your gear wherever you want.
When I’m hunting all day from my saddle or a treestand, the area around me becomes my office. I need to stay organized so that if I need a piece of gear or my bow I can access it quietly, quickly, and with as little motion as possible. The HYS strap by Tethrd is by far the best public land legal method I have found thus far to do that.
