I was fighting my way through a thick spot yesterday to get to an area I wanted to hunt and got all tangled up in honey suckle vines, greenbriar thorns and the dreaded locus tree thorns.
These are some serious thorns for those not familiar. They are on the trunk and on low hanging branches and will go through a hunting boot sole in a second. I know.
Anyway, I had my pruners out snipping my way through and mistook my bow string for a vine. Second I shut down on it I realized my mistake, but was too late. All buy about 4 strands got cut. Got it unstrung quick and put the spare on.
One less freak accident I got to go through anyway.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v71/Iflytrout/thorn.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v71/Iflytrout/481162180_a961244ea3.jpg)
I abolutley hate those honey locust thorns!
Nasty stuff
Wow, and I thought buzztails and cactus were bad. Those are some nasty thorns.
Hoyt:
Sorry about the bow string. Good thing you had a spare.
Those locust trees are a pain. If ya cut em down and burn em the thornes turn into steel spikes. It takes years for them to rot. I mean millennia..... I have a bunch of em scattered around my place. Finally found something that will kill em but ya can't get it up here. Same stuff the Texans use to kill mesquite. The trees are in the same family.
Hate the locust thorns but the deer love to eat the big pods after a good freeze :bigsmyl:
Tracy
Wow,this thread title is the exact thing I advised my doc when our family was large enough.
I have NEVER seen such a horrible looking tree. God must have really been having a rough day when he came up with that thing!LOL
GLENN
HOLY CRAP THATS NASTY!!!!!! :scared:
In the locust grove I'm hunting almost all the tree trunks have the thorns. I snip them off as I go up or take a stick and knock them off the trunk. They come off easy, just have to cover your eyes when you snip or hit them with a stick.
I do it on an afternoon hunt when I can see them good. I try to make sure they don't fall at the base of the tree cause they will go through your boot. The hanging branches are what you really have to be careful of when walking so as not to get an eye punctured.
Honey Locust is just nasty wood period.
I grew up in Southern Illinois and when we were clearing timber I swear I saw sparks coming off the chain saw cutting an old Locust!
Those thorns are nasty as well!
Glad you didn't cut all the strands on your string that could have been a surprise!
Holy smokes, I have never seen thorns like that and I don't want to. We have some black locust up here, but without thorns. And it sure is hard to cut!
they look really bad.
Nasty...yes, but it sure makes a pretty bow! Here is my honeylocust sunbear longbow:
(http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q176/akinslow/Bows/DSC01733.jpg)
I've seen nice selfbows from black locust, haven't seen that nasty crap around though. My feelings exactly bowwild!
oh man u are so lucky you didnt cut all the threads on your string / :) sign of relief LOL good luck to you this season
:scared: :eek: WOWSERS!
Very familiar with those big nasty thorns. Had a coon hunting accident with one of those trees.
Wow! Those are some thorns!!!
Bet if you hung a stand in one those trees no one would take it.
:help:
Hate those things, speared myself on them more than I care to remember.
There was a lot of it where I used to live in Arkansas. The deer do like those pods, lots of protein in them as well. Not only nasty thorns but they seem to kind of have a poison to them, get poked with one it always seems to get infected.
I would hate to bump into that in the dark. :scared: :eek:
The thorns are nasty, but the deer sure love the beans.
The honey locust and the black locust are two distinctly different trees. The black locust is known for its light yellow wood and rot resistance. It's commonly used for fence posts. The wood is heavy and dense; hard on chainsaws, but has a lot of btu in the woodstove. Black locust also makes decent selfbow wood, but more prone to string-follow in time.
Honey locust (by appearance) is known for its nasty thorns which can be 4" long and needle pointed. The bark is light gray and usually scaley. The wood is typically light tan to almost blonde in color, and it makes pretty good lumber. It is usually lighter in weight than black locust, and somewhat softer when fully dried.
Where I live in Ohio, black locust trees far outnumber the native honey locust...maybe 100:1.
In Louisiana, those things are everywhere in the swamp. You never see one out in the open, but if it gets thick, all of a sudden every tree that is in your way is like that.
I carried the tip of one of those thorns in my knee for several years. It healed over but left a red spot, and it came out after I pricked it with a needle and applied peroxide.
Survival tip: Honey locust has a natural oil in the branches that will burn even when soaking wet. You can start a fire with it when nothing else will burn.
QuoteOriginally posted by adeeden:
I abolutley hate those honey locust thorns!
X2
I actually stepped on one of those that was on a fallen branch while I was out hunting a couple of years ago. Clear through the sole of my boot and about 2 inches into my foot before I even realized what happened. That hurt.
Glad you caught your mistake before anything bad happened.
A few years ago, I was hunting when I stepped on a hidden branch and the thorn penetrated about two inches in the sole of my foot. The thorn broke off the branch flush with the bottom of my rubber boot. So there I was, not able to pull the boot off because of the thorn stuck in the boot and my foot. I sat down and got my knife out and proceeded to cut my boot open starting at my shin and opened it all the way to my toes. Then I could slide the boot away from the bottom of my foot. I then removed the thorn from the boot and took my knife and made shoe lace holes in the boot and used some small rope I was carrying in my pack and laced it up tight and hunted a couple more hours till darkness. It hurt like the dickens for several weeks and I still miss those boots.
OK gotta be honest. I was thinking of something totally different when I read the title of this thread.
I think honey locust trees are about the coolest things in the forest. It's like creation or evolution gone wild, depending on your persuasion :)
QuoteOriginally posted by Bowwild:
Wow,this thread title is the exact thing I advised my doc when our family was large enough.
That was EXACTLY my thought when I saw the title! ...nasty lookin thorns though...glad they're not around where I hunt!
Disappointing initial experience, however you planned well.