Green Pea

I learned a valuable lesson this weekend. Mark off your distances and know them well. I had a coyote walk right under my stand. He caught me off guard eating a sandwich. He looked straight up at me and I didn’t move. He slowly started walking away which gave me enough time to lay the sandwich in my lap, grab my bow and aim.

He stopped and turned broadside giving me a perfect target. I judged him at thirty yards or less, steadied my aim and missed!!

Of course he ran off. I shot just over his shoulder. I could not believe I missed him. When I climbed down and walked over to get my arrow. I turned back to look at the tree I shot out of and judged the distance to be around twenty yards at most.

I couldn’t believe being up in the air between fifteen to twenty feet made the shot look that much farther.

The lesson I learned is before I head up a random tree, mark off a few places for distance before I climb. I was completely honked off that I missed such an easy shot. As mad as I was at myself I realized that I learned a lesson the easy way. That could have been a nice buck.

coyote170

A good rangefinder is a valuable aid when hunting,a lot better then taking
a guess,makes for a cleaner kill!

Green Pea

Your right about the rangefinder. I normally don’t hunt that area. My other spots have been measured and marked. I picked this tree on a whim. That’s when a rangefinder comes in handy.

smokepolehall

I went thru the miss thing last week. Only thing was i using a practice arrow to shoot at a leaf at 32 yds.I had stepped it off earlier cause its the deer trail i am watching. I put my 30 yd. on a leaf and shot, missed it bad. Hit about 10" high and about 7 yds. beyond leaf. I tried it again with practice arrow using my 20 xhairand it hit about an inch high. I am 26 ft. higher than that trail and now we knowed the rest of the story![:-]

awshucks

I got a few cents worth to add here. My ladder stands are 12' to the platform, maybe another 3' to rail that I can and have used for a rest. My baits for bear are 17 yds from base of the tree, shot w/ range finder on the ground from bait to base of tree. I have hauled my target out there, got up on stand w/ Emax and my 20 yd xhair is dead nuts under those circumstances.I personally believe unless you are way high in the tree or target [deer, yote, ect] is a goodly difference away, [beyond 20 yds] it's alot of hoopla about very little. I'm intending to prove this theory if I can ever get a bear to cooperate, lol. My point is, check your stuff out at the proper height at various ranges in advance!!

Hotburn76

I do not have a range finder but would like one someday. I have all my areas marked off and know the distances I shoot at. I know that 33 of my hunting boots back to back is exactly ten yards. If I go to a new area I just step them off and mark a few spots real quick before I set down on the ground to hunt. I think it would be useful if ya lay down a tape and see how many of your boots back to back equal 10 yards.

I think me and Dan are on the same page on this but I too have never had a problem hunting up in a tree and having my POI changing. I have to go out to the in-laws barn and it is within one foot of my ladder stand hight and I practice off of that and I hit the same as I do off the ground.

Planter

I have aNikon rangefinder which is slick whenthere is lots of light. Stinks when the woods are just getting light though. Like looking thru a peep hole on a door. It's just plain tough to range smaller things when the light is not yet good. Would like sumpin that works better in low light as I really prefer my AM hunts over the afternoon.

awshucks

Jason,I used to do that heel to toe thing for distance too, lol. I found by taking real big strides for me [6' -2"] they come out to almost exactly one yard. I was helping a bud sight in a slug bbl shotgun for deer in Illinois one time, target was in a plowed field, he had one of those deals w/ a big wheel that you roll around on the ground for distance. I paced off 100 yds while he fought the plowed field and I had the stakes in when he finally got there. I was 6 inches off, lol. I used to go to alot of M/L competitions and spent lots of time walking to 25, 50, and 100 yd targets.

lemoyne

Well personally I am not a good judge of distance so I got a Bushnell lasor range finder when they first came out; Iuse different colored florescent ribbon to mark 15 and 25 yds. Also I learned by accidenttaht if you place your shot so the broadhead cuts off all the arteries just above the heart they rarly make 40 yds,the last time I missed or had to trail one very far was 25 years ago and I just took my 109th deer with a bow of one kind or another last Friday morningso far this year thats 4 with a long bow and 1 with a cross bow. Lee