I finally stumped my lumberjack neighbor and taught him a new trick

[7acres]

My neighbor was clearing some standing dead hickory off his woodlot and called me up to see if I wanted to haul it off to use as firewood. I love getting those kinds of calls. So I loaded up my firewood hauling rig and headed over. He pointed it out to me and wanted to let me fall it so he could critique my technique. I dropped it right where I needed to and proceeded to buck it all up. Then out comes my magic wand.

I was happily hookerooning away loading up my trailer when he slow walks over to me with this look of astonishment on his face. He said, "In my 40 years doing tree work I've never seen anything like this. Did you make it?" I handed it to him and he turned it over and over admiring it like I had handed him a light sabre or something. The he lowered the business end and hooked a round. He hefted the hooked round and walked over to the trailer in amazement. He handed it back to me clearly stunned.

After a few seconds I said, "So I finally taught you something, huh?" He was still not sure what to make of it. Just stunned like he saw a UFO or something.

 

[STIHLY DAN]

you know the saying, If you have nothing good to say, say nothing. Just sayin.

 

[FTG-05]

My neighbor was clearing some standing dead hickory off his woodlot and called me up to see if I wanted to haul it off to use as firewood. I love getting those kinds of calls. So I loaded up my firewood hauling rig and headed over. He pointed it out to me and wanted to let me fall it so he could critique my technique. I dropped it right where I needed to and proceeded to buck it all up. Then out comes my magic wand.

I was happily hookerooning away loading up my trailer when he slow walks over to me with this look of astonishment on his face. He said, "In my 40 years doing tree work I've never seen anything like this. Did you make it?" I handed it to him and he turned it over and over admiring it like I had handed him a light sabre or something. The he lowered the business end and hooked a round. He hefted the hooked round and walked over to the trailer in amazement. He handed it back to me clearly stunned.

After a few seconds I said, "So I finally taught you something, huh?" He was still not sure what to make of it. Just stunned like he saw a UFO or something.

Pics or it didn't happen!

 

[bfitz3]

Some of us with more urban experience may not understand what hookering is. Assuming it isn't what I would have thought first off of the hearth.com site.

Explain, please?

 

[Woody Stover]

I don't know how you pick up a round with just one...haven't tried one yet.

Pics or it didn't happen!

Yeah, we need pics of your technique.

 

[Montanalocal]

technique.

 

[7acres]

Here's what I have. It's interesting it's got all 5 star reviews at this time. I love the thing. Makes it real easy to move wood around. It basically extends my arm 30". Don't need to bend down to pick a split off the ground. I can swing a split up off the ground over the stack and precisely place it on the back row in one fluid motion. It's insane how fast I can take a pile of splits fresh and get it all stacked 25' away from where it was lying on the ground.

It's also really nice for dragging giant rounds. Essentially this tool puts a convenient handle on every split or round you need to deal with. That being said, there are plenty of times when it would be overkill too use this. Like filling up your trailer from the stacks to bring up to the house for burning. For that, just pick up the splits and chuck 'em.

 

[DoubleB]

When I've thought about getting a hookeroon before, I get a picture in my mind of a metal spike entering one side and exiting the other side of my ankle. As with a chainsaw injury, it only takes one time...

So for those of you who use hookeroons, is it easy to be safety conscious? How do you do it? Am I over-reacting? I imagine that I would have a built-in awareness of which way I'm swinging it, but I don't know how reliable that is. Kinda like the guy in the above video says how to swing it to avoid puncturing yourself, then a few moments later he's swinging it right toward his feet.

 

[Creekside]

I'd say you're overreacting unless you're realllly accident prone......most of the time I don't swing mine very hard at all for it to stick.

 

[jebatty]

I bought one of these two years ago, just like the one in the video except blue in color, and it a very useful accessory to wood handling. I don't use it though to pickup rounds for splitting like the video shows. The balance and one arm handling is a bit awkward. It is most useful for me to move logs or large rounds -- swing it into one end and it's easy to pickup the end and swing the log to the desired position for further moving, or swing it into the log itself near the end and if not too big it's easy to pull the log to where you want it. It does save the back from a lot of bending and stress. As said, very useful.