I hate carrying alot of extra things in the woods. I don't take binoculars, calls, rattling antlers, and rarely any food. But one thing I never leave behind is my rangefinder. The main reason is because I also believe in heavy arrows that only fly at about 235 fps.

I take mine on camping trips and step out in the woods in the morningto practice judging while the rest of the familyare still asleep.

As far as these "one pin out to thirty yards" people go, when I was heavy into 3-D and shooting 295 fps second there was always a difference from 10 to 20 and from 20 to 30. When I'm shooting at a dot, 11 ring , or a tuft of hair on the side of a deer that is exactly where I want to hit. Not an inch or two high or low. I guess this mentality has carried over from 3-D to hunting and that is another reason for the rangefinder.

Anybody who has shot 3-D alot knows there are certain conditions such as lighting (someone mentioned this earlier), elevation , color of target, and size of target that can cause bad estimations. Even the best of estimators mess up now and then. I don't want that time to be on the biggest buck of my life.

I would agree that if you don't plan on shooting past 20 yards you probably don't need one although I would still use mine to find 20 yards just for peace of mind.