Estimating distance?

[Ucsdryder]

I have shot at 4 animals with a bow...much less than most guys here, but on 3 of those I estimated, no rangefinder, and all 3 I over estimated how far away the animal was. One led to a bad hit high, never recovered (estimated 25 yards, animal 16). The second was a miss high (estimated 40, animal at 30) the third was high but led to a 70 yard recovery (animal 20, estimated 25). The ironic thing is i range stumps and trees all day in the woods and I\'m always right on! But when I get excited everything gets all screwed up in my head!!!!

Sounds like Brad does the opposite. Does anybody else find a similar trend?

 

[CNelk2]

I find that the best thing to do for this is; go to 3D target shoots. guess the animals distance first then range it. This may help you, but practice makes perfect. don\'t drive yourself crazy... be creative and you\'ll get this figured out.


Good luck to you!

 

[Pop-r]

Only your 30/40 scenario really should be the only one even starting to have a negative effect from the different impact points. The other two imo one is as good as the other. Shooting elk for sure. Maybe on smaller game (small deer) it becomes more of an issue. I truly believe people aim high. And back. Concentrate on shooting his heart or just above it & you\'ll never have another issue.

 

[F M]

I do the same things you do all the time. The 3d thing is a great option.

Question for you. Where you on the ground or in a tree stand when you hit high? Before I bought a range finder that had Arc I would not range a animal on the ground. I would try and range a tree close to what I wanted to hit at the same level as my stand and that was the yardage I shot. I\'m talking about treestand hunting though. It does work in mountain country all so.

 

[cnelk]

I was told once that the best way to estimate distance was to know was 30 yds was exactly.
Then if you half that, its 15 yds and if add 15 is 45yds

Ive been working on this method.
This way my 20/30/40 pins are all pretty close

With my bow, I can be off 5 yds, but not 10yds

 

[elkmtngear]

Unmarked 3D shoots are a good way to get the terrain, and the body size of different animals incorporated in your head. And everyone screws up, so it\'s a helluva lotta fun.

Stump shooting is always good, but it sounds like you\'re already doing that.

I shoot instinctive, so I\'ve never used a rangefinder. I\'ve also missed a lot of big game animals over the years :lol:

When I first started hunting elk, being used to seeing deer, I\'d consistently underestimate their yardage. After nearly 20 years, and shooting a lot of 3D all year, I\'m damn near spot on when it comes to \"reasonable\" yardages on elk.

In a nutshell...keep doing what you\'re doing, and it will \"click\" :upthumb:

 

[otcWill]

Pin gapping! Aim at an elk/deer sized targets at 30yds. Put your 30 pin dead center of the kill zone. Reference where your other pins are and remember. You\'ll never misjudge anything from 0-50yds again. Might sound difficult now but after a couple thousand shots it\'ll be second nature. In top 3d tournies you\'ll see the best doing this. The draw, aim, pin gap, figure distance, let down and restart their shot sequence with a known yardage. It is definitely \"cheating\" but its not illegal.

 

[N&N Waterfowl]

I was told once that the best way to estimate distance was to know was 30 yds was exactly.
Then if you half that, its 15 yds and if add 15 is 45 yds

When I was shooting a fair amount of unknown distance 3d I did pretty much the same thing. I learned what 20 yards was on the ground in different terrain, lighting conditions, etc. To the point where I was within 1 yard either way consistently. Then to extend out to further distances you break the distance down into 20 yard increments. 20 yards plus half of twenty yards use 30 yard pin. With my bow and aiming techniques being off by a yard+/- didn\'t have an impact on my 3D score, and the same would be true on an animal. Once you get comfortable doing this, it really does not take long at all. I got pretty good at judging distances this way.

Another method is learning to judge the distance off of the size of a particular animal or target for a given distance. I was never able to get all that accurate doing this since the size off an elk or target can differ dramatically depending on age or region.

 

[WW]

I do it a little bit different. I count 10 yard increments . I\'m usually dead on out to 40 yards. I try to restrict my shots on elk to 30 yards or less. So usually I have no problem guestimating ranges.

However, there is just something about guessing ranges over water like in antelope hunting that blows my mind. That\'s the only case where I use a range finder.

 

[Bowfreak]

Pin gapping! Aim at an elk/deer sized targets at 30yds. Put your 30 pin dead center of the kill zone. Reference where your other pins are and remember. You\'ll never misjudge anything from 0-50yds again. Might sound difficult now but after a couple thousand shots it\'ll be second nature. In top 3d tournies you\'ll see the best doing this. The draw, aim, pin gap, figure distance, let down and restart their shot sequence with a known yardage. It is definitely \"cheating\" but its not illegal.

They definitely do this and if you have a lifesize target you can get pretty good at guessing yardages if you have to shoot quick. I only \"guess\" out to about 30 yards. After that I normally range.

What is even more amazing to me is that top 3D guys memorize what all of the targets look like at different yardages. They will look at the target and say...OK it is a med. sized deer. Based on how big it looks it is 39 yards. Pretty amazing how well our mind will do things like this if we train it.

 

[bnsafe]

i do a couple things also. first off i use a laser range finder and pick out spots and range them as soon as i set up. then if a animal walks by i have a good idea of how far he is with where he is to my pre ranged spots. i also have my bow set up with a 25 35 45 55 65 yd pins. then anything 30 an in i use the first pin, 31-40 is second pin, 41-50 is third, etc. with my pins set up for the middle five yd marker i just very slightly raise or lower the appropriate pin and go with it