FLHunter

SaroorHai,

Your right it is right at 13yds, I screwed up the conversion! So much for good math skills. Yikes!

I can tell you this that almost straight down angled shots are some of the most difficult to attempt. Going pretty high does change your shot perspective quite a bit, things are not what they sometimes seem. Practice from shooting heights is important like others have said above.

Chad,

The distance the deer is from the tree is 10yds, but the distance the arrow will travel is different and will vary depending upon your height. At 25ft is about 13yds as I stand corrected to.

SaroorHai

ok, I belabored the point for a reason. As LBR said in his posts, as the target gets further away from the base of the tree, the increased distance has more effect on the arrow flight, though not enough to change how hunters, at limited distances, shoot. Here is my point about stand hieght, prolly belaboring it but still maybe important:
in the tower illustration, gravity is in aiding arrow flight more than hindering it. at 10 feet in a stand, a target 20 yards away aroow flight will be more affected by the increased distance of being in a tree than if the shooter was 25 feet up a tree, despite the distance being greater 25 feet up a tree. I believe this to be true, I mapped out an equation(might be wrong though, I'm no physicist, I'm a history major) on my graphing claculator and it works at hunting distances. Eventually it changes but only for an incredibly long shot or short hieght hieght. The reason is that when 25 feet up a tree the aroow is aimed more doward, with the directional force of gravity than it would be at 10 feet, and therefore arrow flight in relation to distance is less affected by gravity.
I then come to the conclusion the for bow hunters, once the decieving vision perception issue is resolved, the higher the stand the better, as it decreases the gravitational effect on horizontal arrow flight. does that make any sense? I think it works, basically, I think you should climb high as you can.

LBR

Shew--you think too much! lol

Another thing to consider when shooting at a hard downward angle is the spot on the animal changes considerably. On a straight-down shot, a double lung is pretty much impossible, and the spine is a small target--a shot I'd try to avoid.

From what I can gather, deer usually don't look higher than the first branches in a tree. If you can get about that, or have some type of cover below you, it sure helps. I've had several deer come in looking up in the trees--they get educated pretty quick it seems. Getting higher seems to help, but can limit your shot options.

With all that said, I was only 12 feet or so off the ground last year (in a friend's ladder stand) and the buck I got never looked up. I've heard of other sucessful hunters that don't like to get over 15' off the ground--I don't think it would work real well around here though.

Chad

longbowman

I have a 14' pull rope that I tie to my belt when climbing to place a tree stand. That puts my stand at 12'. I've shot more than 40 deer from that height and have had literraly hundreds of deer right undeneath me and unless I do something stupid they never know I'm there. Use the wind, give yourself background cover and move when the deer can't see you.

FLHunter

Longbow,

I think it has alot to do with where you hunt. We normally hunt in some pretty hot weather, so getting high in your stand helps with scent problems. During our archery season its often mid 80's in the mornings and evenings with the midday in the 90's.

hornbow

This is correct. In more mathmatical terms, the flight of the arrow can be considered a VECTOR.

Draw a diagonal arrow on a peice of paper. There are both horizontal and vertical vector components of this diagonal vector. The vertical component is equal to the magnitude of the diagonal vector multiplied by the sin of the angle it makes with a vertical line (the horizontal component is magnitude * cosin of the angle it makes with a horizontal line). This vertical vector component in the case of arrow flight is equal to the force of gravity. So, the steeper the angle, the less gravity will effect the arrow's flight and effective range.

Think about the extreme case of being infinitely high up and firing an arrow straight down. Gravity would not effect the arrow's flight path or range at all! You could theoretically shoot at and hit a target 100 miles straight down.

In practical terms, this means the higher you climb, the more your effective range is extended. With my compound bow, I have found I gain about 1 yard of range for every 5 feet I climb. At 15 feet up, my 25 yrd pin hits dead on at 28 yards. This may well differ for different bows however so I wouldn't use that as a general rule of thumb.

LBR

Yep--like most any type of hunting, it's going to vary with the location/situation. When stands first became popular here, you could get 12-15 feet off the ground and do just fine (at least that is what I have been told by several hunters that have been stand hunting since I was a toddler). Nowadays, your chances would be slim at that height unless you are able to use a stand that is naturally brushed in very well. As I said, I've had a lot of deer come in looking up in the trees, and they know that big glob of whatever wasn't there before. The buck I referred to really shocked me--I was very visable, but he never looked up. He came in and looked all around, but only at his eye level--never seen that happen here in MS (that was in TN). I've been busted (sitting still) 20' and more off the ground, and (I thought) hidden. We have a lot of hunting in these parts, and the deer get a lot of pressure. I'd love to have a place to hunt where the deer haven't been educated---I'd much rather hunt 15' off the ground if the deer would cooperate!

Chad

SaroorHai

It's weird about deer. I heard one guy say that looking up had been "bred into the deer' which is impossible, but still you wonder if certain genetic qualities that cause a deer to look up have allowed those features to proliferate due to hunting pressure. We know acquired characteristics cannot be inhereted, but other characteristics could be, or maybe they are taught like LBR says. Their natural predators certainly never brought death from above.

Vector yes, I never thought about that. I was using simple rates of change and an equation I got from a physic textbook about gravity to make my graphical model, but that makes it alot easier. That's why I'm not a math major I guess.

LBR

It's a learned behavior, and possibly something that is also taught by parent to offspring. I know it's learned, at least to an extent, from experience. At least twice when I've hunted with friends I've been told about a deer missed from a particular stand, and have a deer come in looking straight at that stand. I imagine deer that share the woods with mountain lions have learned to look up also.

All that math went over my head--I had it in high school and as part of my training in the military, but that was a long time ago. I can understand someone wanting to know the why's and how's, but the simple solution to the problem is to practice the same situations you plan to use hunting.

Chad

Scoobiedoo

Hey, how's the hunting in Florida? Any decent State land?

PS I normally hunt from about 12-15 ft high and never had any problems. I don't like getting TOO high or else the angle starts to become to steep for a double-lung pass-thru...