Bend at the waist. I did the same thing last year, more times than I want to say. I know to bend at the waist, and practicing from an elevated stand I do, but in the heat of the moment I just put the pin where I wanted to hit and let it fly. When that deer just kept on feeding as if nothing happened, I knew 2 things. 1-my bow is quiet enough and 2-I need to remember to BEND AT THE WAIST!

It depends on your form and stance. My advice, practice from that far up and see what happens. I aim where I want to hit. It's worked dozens of times. If the deer is super nervous or on edge I will aim low expecting a drop from the deer.

I have been useing pedulum sights for years because I mainly hunt out of tree stands. Which means I practice both on the ground and from elevated sights. There are lots of theories to proper form, bending at the waist, gravity, etc ... all of which Im sureadd to the overall factors in arrow flight, but, I have never missed an animal yet using a pendulum sight. Its made for shooting from elevatedheights and Ijust took that for what it was worth whenI bought my first pendulum sight, a Keller, worked great. Now I shoot a Trophy Ridge Mantis because it has a lock out for ground shooting as well.

I use a tru-glo pendulum it also locks. The pendulum does compensate for shots from elevation.

I agree doc, they work great for me from 10 feet all the way up to 25 feet with out adjusting anything. I know you dont need them and most guys are content with keeping regular sights on their bow and using different techniques to compensate for the elevations but to me its just easier to use a pendulum, no guess work until you are shooting past 30 yards in which case you would be compensating with a regular sight anyway even on flat ground by using another pin, or holding up on a single pin set up etc ...

Mosrly all good advice especially bending at the waist. If you shoot by just droping your bow arm you have just changed everything including draw length and anchering point. When you are ready to shoot draw your bow just like you are on level ground get to your ancher point then bend at the waist to get on target sound like a lot but it only takes less then a second and you poi will remain the same as at the range. There are a lot of folks who live in the city and can't get out to shoot out of a treestand and this works for them. But if you are where you can practice from an elevated position by all means do it. Mike

Gravity...............The aim low hit high from either a elevated or low position can be true. The gravity equation becomes more noticeable on longer bow shots or with rifle hunters particullary in mountain hunting.

when you are up in the stand 20+ feet and the animal by arrow flight is 30 yards it may only be from the base of your tree 20 yards. That 20 yards is your true distance according to gravity. If you use your 30 yard pin you will hit high.

This works the same way shooting uphill.

You are starting to see a lot of range finders anymore that will calculate your true ballistic distance based on grade. It does make a difference.

pythagorean theory (sp?) - 15 feet high and 20 yard (60 ft) shot from base of tree results in the "C" leg of the right triangle being 20.6 yds...Right?? use your 20 yd pin and use proper form

I agree however I have a single pin pendulum sight works great!

Wow I remember it well and use it virtually daily and you sir, are waaay off.
True A^2 + B^2= C^2
But in this case A=5 yards (15 ft high in stand ..Remember we must have like units)
B= 20 yards the horizontal distance to the deer (if both on grouund)
C= the hypotenuse the distance your arrow travels from your elevated stand to the deer

so we see that A^2 =25 yards b^2=400 yards and c^2 then equals 425 yards.
The square root of 425 equals the arrow travel distance of about 20.62 yards.

While all this is fine and dandy the only real issue we need to know is the Horizontal distance. If you use a range finder you need to shoot yardages on the same plane that you are shooting from. In the case used as an example, the range finder would tell you to shoot 20.62 yards instead of 20 yards. Maybe with todays bows that 18 inches doesn't make a huge difference. But a good shot will definitely be high of your mark by some degree.
I'm not saying aim low or anything like that I'm just saying know what that yardage on the rangefinder really means.