Greetings all,
im an apprentice climber trying to soak up everything I possibly can the other day I was trying to set a line in a euc and eyes were rolling the whole time ended up working out just fine but curious if anyone here has tried a beefed up slingshot with a 8oz throwball? Can’t use a big shot or anything like that specially with the crews I work with just wouldn’t be feasible or encouraged.
You can make a bigshot more compact for stowing by using half-length poles, if stowage size is the issue. If they just can't handle your big shot, well, that's a bag of dicks for you, lol.
In all honesty, big shots and line placements don't always work very efficiently. I got greedy in a typical spreading southern live oak yesterday where every foot of height matters for line placement. Went for the highest narrow (~1.5 feet) fork in a breeze and hit 6 inches outside the branch on one side, hit the branch dead on on the other side, then hit the union dead on on my third shot. It ricocheted to a branch 10 feet lower on that last shot and I called it good enough. If you've got to doublebag to get the line placement you are 15-20 minutes in. If you tangle your line, forget about it and get another out. All this adds up to a 30-45 minute line placement process. I left a job site a couple months ago to consult and requested that my crew install a line for me ~45-50 feet high in a southern live oak. They had a pneumatic launcher. Came back 1.5 hours later and the throwline had just barely been installed in the fluff and needed to be seated, and my climbing line needed to chase it. My prune was delayed and it threw off the whole 4-tree project from a 2-day to a 4-day project (afternoon shower, having to climb the next tree twice, other consulting, etc.). If things had been ready, we could have beat the storm and climbed the second tree once instead of twice. Worse, I had to climb the second tree twice after the climber climbed it once because he had to bail out for the storm after climbing the middle. He left both sides, which in a southern live oak means you set two lines or do the old infinite traverse. That all emanated from not getting the initial line set. Your work buddies will not be impressed if you delay the job site at the start, so consider it a big responsibility to stay within your abilities and show them the efficiency-side of throwlines instead of the unpracticed greedy/lucky/unlucky side of throwlines.
Part of it is forward momentum and throwlines - used at the very start of a job - define whether you keep that or go into reactive mode. I watched a great competitor flop in the masters climb at a comp because their throwline game went south. They barely got in the tree. It was considered an upset that he did not win (the winner deserved it and had a very solid climb). My first comp ever, I watched Flint Anderson in the preliminaries nail two high tie-ins within time by throwing extremely high and double-bagging into the taped crotches handily within time. It was the first competition throwline set I had ever seen and I just really wanted to go home and cry after seeing him do that. I assumed everyone else would be like that and I was going to embarrass myself in the extreme when it was my turn. The next guys were a bit imperfect and by the time Flint won the comp I felt much better. I stayed within my limits and secured two lines at much lower crotches. The next comp, I stayed within my limits for my two throws and put up a score that was better than 3/4 of contestants, but then got greedy trying to land a shot in a bucket at 30 feet. I forgot to verbalize a "stand clear" and lost a point. I felt like I would continue to forget to verbalize (I am still working on talking while competing) while chasing a small-odds target, so I stopped trying with 2 minutes left. Keeping forward momentum involves staying within my limits.
The point is that there is variability around throwlines, and it is important to use them in a way that secures and perpetuates forward momentum at the start of a job. That might be by throwing to a lower crotch or by having several lines stored tidily and ready to go, by having a trigger on your big shot, or by just being aware of your capabilities as they relate to the ideal shot and making a good decision.
hth
