Send Us Your Stories About FireTacks

GREAT story Richard, thanks for sharing it!

On a fall deer hunt in northern Minnesota I picked my way through some very thick brush along a game trail in a stand of mature pines that was so thick that it was dark even at noon on a sunny day. As I went along I tied orange ribbon every 20 yards or so, but also stuck reflectorized thumb tacks to the branches of the thick brush and the big pines so that when I would travel along this trail the following morning at 5:30 a.m., the beam of my flashlight would reflect off those tacks and I’d be able to see my trail.

Well, about 3/4 of the way to the spot where I would ultimately set up my stand, I ran out of reflectorized tacks; but, thankfully, I had a bag of these new FireTacks in my backpack, so I pulled them out an decided to give them a try, so the last 100 yards or so I used those as my trail markers, then set up my portable tree stand in a saddle area between two valleys on a wide portion of a ridge where the big pines were thinned out. Then I retraced my steps back out of the woods and headed back to deer camp with my father and brothers.

The next morning the air was still, a cold 32 degrees, and damp and very foggy. “Oh, great,” I thought, we’re not going to be able to see a thing until this fog lifts. But, we got in our trucks and rolled along the highway very, very slowly, hugging the side of the road the entire way. When we got to our turn-off spot, we pulled in and nearly went into the ditch. We got out, loaded our guns, and each of us headed into the woods in our particular direction. It was very, very slow walking because we could barely see 10 feet in front of us. It was pitch dark still, and I felt like a fish swimming in pea soup. It was getting lighter by the time I found my turn-in point. But I almost missed it because my reflectorized tacks weren’t showing up in the beam of my flashlight. Good thing I’d also used orange trail ribbon; but, I had to almost step on them to see the orange in the beam of my flashlight — they tended to look like the color of fall leaves in the dim light.

I was picking my way along my marked trail, going very slowly in the thick fog, and as I entered the dark mature pine forest area, I was back to seeing only 3 to 5 feet in front of me in the dark, thick fog. Along my trail, I couldn’t see those reflectorized thumbtacks until I was right on top of them. I got to a spot along my trail where I felt I must have gotten off the trail and headed the wrong way, so I stood there for a bit shining my light around in the thick fog, trying to pick up any sign of my trail. I thought I was lost for sure. Then, as I swung the beam of my flashlight in what I thought was the absolute wrong direction, I caught a glimpse of reflection through that thick fog, so I headed that way, and there it was, one of my FireTacks, stuck to a tree. Then as I shone my flashlight beam further in that same direction, there, a bit ahead of me, shining brightly, was another FireTack. Praise the Lord, I’d found my trail again, and was able to make it to my stand easily, following the trail of FireTacks I’d installed.

I know that if I had not used those FireTacks, I’m sure I would’ve had to stand in that game trail for the next hour, waiting for the fog to lift before I could’ve moved on because those other brand of reflectorized thumb tacks just weren’t working in that thick fog.

Fifty minutes after climbing into my tree stand, the fog had started to thin a bit, and it was now dawn; that’s when I had a nice buck materialize out of the thinning fog, not 30 feet away, so I dropped him with a single shot.

Thank you, FireTacks, for getting me to my stand in time to ambush that beautiful buck!