shooting down at an angle
 

I have thought about it alot, and based what I have read and theorized.....When shooting at a down angle your arrow will hit high. This is due to a few things:
The distance from the base of the tree to the target will always be shorter than the distance from the shooter to the target. This is with the assumption that the shooter is in a tree stand approx. 15 feet high.

Another reason is that the force of gravity pulling down on the arrow is reduced due to the angle. (An arrow shot level has full effect of gravity acting on it, where an arrow shot down at a 45 degree angle has half the effect of gravity pulling it down). I think i said that right.....

If I am thinking about this wrong please correct me, its giving me a headache :eek2:

My question is, how much "high" will my arrow hit? Do i need to aim one inch low or three inches? I am shooting 31" terminator 6075 arrows with 100 grain broadheads, and my bow is set at 60-65lbs. I will be probably 15 feet high and my deer will be between 15 and 30 yards away.:patriot:

You're right and wrong. Right in the fact that your horizontal distance is shorter than the distance from your eye to the target. Wrong in the fact that gravity is reduced.
Using my Leupold range finder I went outside and took a level reading on a pole @ 30 yards. When I hit an estimated 15 ft above level I got a reading of 31 yards. So unless you're shooting at a severe angle or an extreme distance your +/- is pretty much insignificant. Hold right on with the correct pin and concentrate on your shot. You'll be dragging a deer out shortly after.

So if my target is 30 yards away from the base of the tree, i can use my 30 yard pin from the tree stand and hit dead on? So the distance to range with is the distance from the base of the tree to the target, not the distance from the tree stand to the target

i personally don't have a 3rd axis adjustment on my sight but this is the kind of adjustment that will correct your grouping at elevation. perhaps something to look into.

Bronko is right in what he's saying. From 15' up and shooting at a target 30 yards out your range finder will read just about 1 yard farther (actually it's 1.8'), so even if you'd set your sight for 31 yards you shouldn't be more than maybe 1 1/2" high. Anything closer would have less variance and the farther out you shoot the downward angle becomes more horizontal.

Let's use 20 yards (60') as a more normal figure and about 18' up as this is about where the bow will actually be from a 15' treestand. The visual distance (hypotenuse of the triangle) will be 20.88 yards. Either way, not enough to make but the very slightest difference in point of impact.

There are two things that will make a person shoot high from a treestand. One is by lowering the bow arm instead of bending at the waist. Doing so misaligns the "T" shape of the upper body, shortens the draw length and changes how you see through your peep. The second is the angle at which you are observing the animal. The closer it is the steeper the angle and the narrower the vital area becomes.

There is a third reason many shoot high on an animal or even miss. That is due to noise made by the bow and/or accessories. The deer hears whatever noise is made, crouches, loading it's muscles to flee. No bow is fast enough to compensate for this so the best thing is to have a bow that is absolutely quiet so as not to alarm the animal.

Another thing to remember when shooting from heights is the angle of pass through. It's just like making an adjustment of where you want your arrow to enter from a ground shot when the animal is quartering away. Your "bullseye" so to speak changes with angle. This becomes less of an issue at longer distances but at ranges like 10 to 15 yards and 15-20 feet up in a tree creates a fairly significant angle of entry making for what from the ground would be a double lung winds up being a single lung shot.

Great point! Never thought about that. Next encounter I have 10 to 15 yards away, I'm going to aim a little higher & see what impact that does. Hopefully it won't run as far as usual! Haha

Single lung shots, 90% of the time make for a very long tracking job and small chance of recovery unless you nicked something else on the way through. It's actually a survivable wound. Deer are an amazing animal with a resilience that is near unmatched.

Aim for the exit hole while in a stand and you should be good in most cases.

Whenever possible I try not to shoot at an animal unless it is at least 15 yards out. I normally hunt anywhere from 12'-20' up depending on the terrain and canopy. Anything closer than 15 yards, like Super said, your target becomes much thinner vertically for double lung hit.