Hey Guys, First post here so go easy on me. I have a question about Stand Height v.s. Arrow Drop. First, I have read online in various articles that it is good to hunt from your stand no more than 20ft. I've read that some go higher than that. My question is when your that high in the air how much droppage do you get at 20/30/40 yards compared to ground level shooting. See I have a 2 story building that has an outside stairway that I've used to practice shooting at an angle, the problem is the platform at the top of the stairs is only 12 ft. The droppage on the arrow is normally 3'' - 4'' max. So what would 8 more ft. do to the arrow impact? Are there any equations and/or rule-of-thumbs to shooting at that kind of an angle? Thanks again guys for the help. Hoping to harvest my first deer this year.
Your arrow does not drop any more because you are in an elevated position. Granted, if you are elevated and range the target on the ground from that elevation you will be high not low. If the target is 20 yards from your tree on the ground, you should shoot it for 20 yards in the tree. Even though your rangefinder will tell you it is farther. If you want to shoot from a stairway then range the target in from the bottom of it and it should be very close. If in a tree, I always range a tree, level with my platform and shoot at the target on the ground, next to the tree, for the same yardage as the tree. 20 yards is 20 yards on a level playing field.
Arch and drop doesnt change on height, its just not the same a shooting level. At 20 ft up it may only be 27 yards to your tagest as a true level shot, which is what your bow is tuned too. The biggest issue with hunting HIGH is you reduce the area in which you can slip an arrow through vitals. The higher you go the smaller the vitals. Higher is not always better, some of my spots im only 6 ft off the ground otherwise ill get picked off out of cover. Other wise i hunt right around 18-20 ft.
Not to change the subject but when you said the vital area gets smaller I have read about that not being true. Chuck Adams said he split a deer with a chainsaw and measured the vital area and it was about 8inch across and 8inch down. Maybe he is wrong but they way he said it is its the same from whatever position.
As has already been stated, a ten yar shot from the ground is a ten yard shot at 25 feet in a tree. After 33 years of Bowhunting and more than 3 dozen deer harvests, it seems to me that the reason people have problems with elevated shots (me included until I thought through it) is 3 fold. 1. Yardage estimation on steep shots is incorrect. The view from the hunters eye to the deer is longer than the distance from the base of the tree to the deer so hunters thing the deer is farther away than it really it. This is why things like angle compensating range finders were developed. 2. The bowhunters idea of what is really the middle of the deer is skewed by the angle. I think we tend to think of deer from a ground level view (since that's what we normally see) but neglect to think about the real center of the deer from an elevated position. From the ground, the horizon line of the deer are the true top of the back and the bottom of the chest. From a steep angle, the horizon lines a hunter sees is really the far side of the rib cage and the near side of the rib cage. If a hunter aims for the center of the deer's top and bottom horizon lines, they are aiming at the high back of the deer. On very steep angles, the center of the deer might be the spine but a bowhunter thinks he is aiming at the center of the horizon line as if he were viewing the deer from the ground. The angled view from a elevated position provides a smaller total cross section view so a error in judgment usually results in a shot over what we think is the deer's back. Most hunters rarely shoot under a deer from a tree stand, it is normally a high miss. (see my simple sketch) 3. Deer duck or drop when they hear your bow. They drop to load the legs to start running. If your angled view makes the deer look like its 20 yards away (distance from your eye to the deer) but the deer is really 16 yards from the tree and you aim for what you think is the center of the deer (which is really a spot high in the back) and the drops just a few inches, its understandable that many hunters miss high from a tree stand. You don't have to aim differently from a treestand, you just have to factor in all the reasons why you shot high and think it through. elevated practice shots on a flat deer target or photo of a deer wont help because the image is flat and the horizon line you see from your elevated position is that of the photo or drawing which is still the top of the back and the bottom of the chest because the image on the target came from a ground level view of the deer. Practice on a 3D target is a good way to help you understand the oval shape of the deer and to understand shot placement and where your arrow enters and will exit.
Thanks Guys! I think I now have a good understanding of what I'm trying to do. I was just a little confused when I was trying to read it all and understand it all. I'll take this to the field and see how things turn up for me. Thanks again!
Something that helped me tremendously is making sure you bend at the waist when shooting down from an elevated position. Simply dropping your bow arm when aiming at a deer will also cause you to shoot high. Remember to draw and anchor like you are shooting from the ground, and then bend at the waist yo acquire your target. I hope this makes since, maybe someone will chime in and explain this a little better.
