I prefer to miss high, every time. In fact I cannot remember a time when I've missed a deer low, from a tree stand anyway. The problem has seem to become amplified since I switched over to shooting a fixed crawl. I love the ease of shooting the crawl but I'm baffled with why it's increased the probability of high misses for me when I thought it was supposed to do the opposite. I missed a doe at about 20 yards on Saturday which is really close to my point on. I drew, anchored until my arrow's tip was just under her chest behind the elbow and let her fly, my arrow barely caught a few hairs off her shoulder. She was totally unaware of my presence. This is the third doe in a row that I've missed high and although I did kill a nice 8 point in Nov I hit him high also but got enough of the goodies to put him down.
Since my miss on Saturday I have been researching on the archives here and I watched a good video of Jimmy Blackmon explaining the elevated shot. My conclusion is that I am probably not bending at the waist as much as I believe I am or entirely forgetting to do so when game approaches. However, I am still confused as to how I should approach aiming from my stand with this point on technique of the fixed crawl. Do I need to bend at the waist more while also lowering my point of aim? Or in theory is bending at the waist supposed to entirely correct the shot? Meaning by bending at the waist more should I still be able to use my 20 yard point on for a 20 yard shot? Or do I still need to aim lower?
I shot a bunch of arrows yesterday from my parents barn roof at my rinehart and tried to bend towards the target until it felt like I was about to fall over. This helped a bit. I guess my pouting frustrated attitude has led me to look for more input from you guys as to what you do to remedy this evil high miss. I know I need to just relax and have fun, which I am, but I want more deer burger in the freezer too :D . As always thanks for reading fellas!
Use a ground blind and don't worry about bending at the waist. I have really had some smoking hot hunting this past year on the ground from both a pop up and more permanent blinds I put together. I know that may not exactly answer your question but just don't overlook keeping your feet on tera firma. I consider the advantages on the ground to well outweigh a tree stand in many situations. Just sayin'.
Hunting on the ground, I used to think I wouldn't ever have to worry about such things. At 3D ranges, it didn't seem to matter the angle. Then, this year, I was staring at my first legal buck all season coming my way about 25-30 yards away & straight up at about 60 degrees. I almost rolled down the hill as I raised my bow up. My first thought was, "D*^! How the H*** am I going to make that shot?" I almost pulled back with my best guess but ended up letting it walk. It may have only been 15-20 yards of horizontal distance but it was hard to tell at that angle with little time to think about it. All that to say, just because I'm on the ground, doesn't mean there isn't a steep-angle shot in the works. So much just depends on the terrain. I need to practice those shots more.
Not sure what to say. I pre-aim before drawing, with the bow vertical and perpendicular to the target, then pull the string to anchor, partially aiming the whole time. I think it takes worrying about bending the right amount out of the equation, but I know I'm people say that you can develop Target Panic this way. Anyway, it works for me.
I find that if I don't get my drawing elbow high enough so my forearm to be in alignment with my arrow that I will shoot high out of a tree stand.
It's easy to do for me especially if I have a heavy jacket on.
Bending at the waist is important but your drawing elbow must do it's job as well or you will shoot high every time.
Test it out from your barn roof and see what you think.
I feel your pain, having killed squirrels, rabbits, and turkeys from the ground i have a curse from treestands. I've missed by a mile on "chip shots" from my stand on the last several deer I've shot at. It drives me nuts!
Thanks for the replies guys. I do hunt from the ground also but i prefer to hunt from a stand mainly because of the hills and how difficult it can be to see longer distances here in southeast Ohio.
Another point to watch is your face not staying down on the string. Tuck your chin tight when shooting elevated shots. Having multiple anchor points also helps! Tip of nose to back of feather has helped me a good bit.
Where are you from Buckeye?
Bucknut I live in Zanesville,grew up around buckeye lake in Thornville, yourself?
If I have to bend at the waist I push my hips to the right(I'm right handed). This helps with the bending and also helps keep your center of gravity where it needs to be so you don't feel like you're gonna fall over. Works for me. Maybe it will help you.
Try canting your bow more. Instructions as per John Schulz. Not sure if that will be compatible with your fixed crawl.
I agree with bucknut. Make sure that chin is tucked in well and dont peek up over the shot.
That is one of the limitations with the string walking. At times a catch 22. The method works better with a longer recurve, but then shooting down out of a tree stand the system gets awkward with the vertical bow. a kid here went from a compound straight to an ILF with the fixed crawl, someone showed it to him at a 3d shoot. When the pressure was on from a tree stand, he shot high and left for two years. He ended up going to a Robertson longbow, shooting split and canting the bow, that worked for him this year.
Practice from and elevated platform. I missed 5 shots at under 20 one weekend, all high. this happened after I returned from an elk hunt where all my practice was from the ground.
I shot 8 inches high with the same hold from the stand.
Mike
Don't lower your bow arm...basically ever.
Bend at the waist only so your upper body form is the same no matter what angle you're shooting.
...then practice from an elevated position.
When I used to hunt from trees I'd practice by standing on the roof of my house.
JUST BE CAREFUL AND DON'T FALL!
Buckeye, I'm down on the river near Marietta.
Dang buckeye. We're almost neighbors. I'm just down the road in Cambridge.
The same problem plagued me this year. Unfortunately mine weren't misses. Hit and lost two deer this year. The first one was mental breakdown and I know I jerked on the release. The second one I'm pretty sure I forgot to bend at the waist.
Brad I feel your pain. Several years ago I hit and lost the largest whitetail I've seen on the hoof while hunting due to a high hit with no exit hole. It sucks for sure.
I have been shooting a fixed crawl for a few years now with great success. When I started out I also shot high. Slight cant in the bow has corrected the problem. When on the ground I do not cant. John Shultz knew what he was talking about.
Lots of reasons for shooting high, as already pointed out, but another is a different sight picture. When looking down on a critter, it's profile is smaller than when looking at it broadside from the ground.
For example, lets say a deer is about 18 inches top to bottom and about 12 inches wide. When viewed from the ground, you see the full 18 inches of height. When viewed from above you see nearer 12 inches of body width because, in addition to the deer just being narrower from side to side, you may not see part of the off side of the top of the back or the near underside of the critter.
So, if from a tree stand you hold just under the front leg, you're in effect holding about 6 inches higher on the deer than if you were standing on the ground. Now, my numbers may be exaggerated a bit, but the principle holds true. Just need to lower your point of aim.
Too, the deer appears farther away when viewed from above because the hypotenuse of the right triangle formed by the angle of the shooter to the deer is longer than the horizontal distance to the deer formed by the base of the right triangle. So, in reality, the arrow travels a little farther to reach the deer when shot from above than if shot on level ground. All other things being equal, this would tend to cause a lower hit. However, the perceived greater distance to the target likely causes the shooter to hold higher, probably overcompensating a bit, resulting in a high shot.
In sum, two factors contribute to overestimating the distance to the critter, which can lead to overshooting. One, the deer appears farther away when viewed at a downward angle, because the distance is actually farther than the level ground distance. And two, because one sees less of the deer's profile from above, it appears smaller and thus farther away than it actually is.
Bending at the waist doesn't do much for me. I mostly shoot from a sitting position and don't worry about it. In practice, not bending tends to increase one's draw length a little, which in turn increases the draw weight and arrow speed. However, that difference is so small for most folks as to have a negligible effect at close range. Not enough to worry about IMO.
However, not bending can also change your vertical alignment/sight picture, which I think can be more of a problem.
In any case, where you hold or your alignment or range estimation, the key to solving the problem is practice. Just need to find the gap and shooting position that works for you. No one position works for all shooting situations.
I'll add something else:
If you fail to pick a spot, ignore the entire animal, and shoot at the "general heart/lung area" you will usually shoot an inch or two over the back of the animal.
The reason for this is psycho/optical. If you are not on a specific spot and ignoring or blotting out the rest of the deer, your subconscious takes over and you shoot at the "edge" of the deer due to the visual contrast between the edge and the background. That edge is the top of the deer's back. You won't understand how you could miss the chest by that much, but in actuality you are only missing the spot that your subconscious chose by an inch or two.
QuoteOriginally posted by Jock Whisky:
If I have to bend at the waist I push my hips to the right(I'm right handed). This helps with the bending and also helps keep your center of gravity where it needs to be so you don't feel like you're gonna fall over. Works for me. Maybe it will help you.
This. I borrowed this from some old field archery instructions. Sliding the hips rearward helps the natural bending at the waist. I also bend my forward leg some so it feels like I'm leaning pretty heavily towards the target. I then shoot like normal.
Smokin Joe, I totally understand what you're saying however when using the crawl I'm actually lookin at the tip of my arrow in relation to the deers vitals so that my windage is perfect and that my gap dictates the up and down placement on the target. I guess I'm not truly picking a spot but instead picking a gap and using my secondary vision for windage. I guess there are guys that do the opposite of me when aiming but when i try this i feel like I'm going back to aiming instinctively and as a result feel the target panic creeping back in that i felt when i did try shooting purely instinctive.
More years ago than I care to remember I read an article from someone in the medical community who was studying how the eyes and brain worked to process images.
One of the key points is with age and experience we each create something of a library of images that are common to us. That way when we look at something that contains elements of our frequently used images we can quickly home in on the item or area of interest.
Here's a couple of examples how this plays out. I've ridden motorcycles for many years and attended/taught motorcycle safety courses. I suspect the number one cause of motorcycle/car accidents is car drivers pulling into an intersection and hitting the motorcycle. When interviewed the car driver says they never saw the motorcycle. In truth, they probably did not since the image at an intersection they were most familiar with was the outline of a car or truck. So when they stopped and looked both ways they were actually looking for the common outlines that caused danger. The shape of a motorcycle rider did not register. Going to constant on headlights helped, but not much.
When I started deer hunting 40 years ago I marveled at how easy it was for some people to see deer in the woods. When the deer were stationary I could not see them. Finally asked one of the good deer spotters how they did it. Easy, he told me. You have to learn to look for horizonal shapes/lines. One of the points the eye recognition article made is the patterns our eyes are sensitive to not only come from our own library of shapes, but also the environment we're experiencing. In a big woods we are surrounded by trees—strong vertical lines. So our eyes are drawn to vertical shapes. It takes some discipline, but telling your eyes to look for horizontal lines works, but is not 'natural'.
So what does this have to do with shooting high? Well, one of the elements of an image our eyes are drawn to is lines of high contrast. This can be dark/light intersections or things like lines created by two different objects. For example the line created by the deer's back and what's behind the deer.
I think it's possible, when using sights or any of the 'instinctive' methods a bit of deer fever can get in the way of consciously processing a scene and allow our eyes to go on 'autopilot'. I think in deer hunting that means we are drawn to the line created by the top of the animal. Even when we are convinced we have picked a spot, at the moment of release we can see the 'whole' animal and our eyes will automatically go to the top of the back unless we are firmly in control.
Yes, I understand deer dropping if they hear the arrow/release. And there are things like how an elevated position can change the appearance. But the number one thing for me is teaching my eyes it's okay to look at lines as long as it's the line made by the bottom of the chest. I've not shot over the top of a deer since.
I suspect all the advice to 'pick a spot' that has been around forever, is based on the practical experience if we allow ourselves to see the 'whole' animal, even for an instant, our eyes will go to the easiest to see line (top of back) and we will shoot high. It's not the only thing impacting high shots, but for me is the biggest.
...I prefer Dos Equis (or six to drown my sorrows in)
Dos Equis with Fresh Backstrap :thumbsup:
QuoteOriginally posted by bucknut:
Having multiple anchor points also helps! Tip of nose to back of feather has helped me a good bit.
This is key, IMO. It's so easy from various up or down angles to not have your head in the same alignment (up and down)to the string as with flat shooting.
Yep out of a treestand if I mess up it will be high - and I know better. In the heat of the moment things can happen.