what are some ways to help me learn to judge yardage better?

Practice,practice,practice!!!!!!!!! That's the only way I have found. If you don't have a rangefinder,get one. Taking short walks and estimating the distance to something,then shooting them with the rangefinder works great. I do it a couple days a week all year.

I use a small inexpensive range finder that measures up to 50 yards. I only paid about $30 for it and it works fine. I use it when I set up in a new spot and identify some land marks such as trees, rocks ect. I found it very helpful this past year when I hunted a gully area. I shot a deer that was standing at 28 yards from me, however, it sure looked like it was 35 yards because it was across the gully. When my friend helped me track it, he thought that the shot was around 40 yards. It was very deceptive. I'm glad that I trusted the range finder and not my own judgement, which I consider pretty good.

This may not be the way for you to go but I have always had trouble judging yardage no matter how much I tried I just couldn't do it. I hunt from a tree stand always never from the ground and so I thought I would try a pendulum sight and now I will use nothing else just point and shot all I have to know is were 35 yrds is that is my max. distance on my pendulum. This may not be what you are looking for but if all else fails try one you might like it. When you think about it is a really helpfull tool, how many people do you here say I shoot over or under it and another thing to consider when people say this how many times they hit the deer really high of low and possibly lost it.

Like OHarcher said Practice!!!!!!!!!! Also I found that going to as many 3-D shoots as I have over the years really helped on judgeing yardage for me. Althuogh nothing beats a laser rangefinder or so I'm told by my buddies! I'll have one myself in a few days!

My hunting budies and I have a game we play at the range. We all get one arrow and take turns making up shots on 3-D targets. The first hunter will step up without say what distance he believes it is and take the shot. The next hunter will take the same shot and so on. After everyone has shot everyone says what distance they believe the shot was. It is then checked with a range finder. Out of all three of us we now guess withing about three yards of each other and withing five of the range finder. The trick is to try and come up with deceptive shots.

All you can do is practice. Practice,practice,practice!!!! It cant be stressed enough<img src=icon_smile_big.gif border=0 align=middle>

Practice! It has really helped me this year a bunch on judging distance.

mark trees in shooting lanes with ribbon when setting up stands so you have an idea of yardage and wont have to mess with a rangefinder in the stand when the deer in near

Practice and get rid of all but one pin on your sight. You don't have multiple pins on your shot gun do you? Only have one on your bow and set it at around 20yds. Adjust you elevation from there.