Shooting from a treestand

[Southpawky]

Hey guys, I’ll be chasing my first whitetail this fall with traditional gear. I plan on using a treestand. I’ll be practicing for the first time in a stand this weekend, any tips or tricks that I need to know beforehand? And what  is everyone’s ideal height in a tree, I know it depends on situation and all that good stuff but is there a height that most people like shooting traditional gear? I don’t feel confident in my shooting to get 20’ or higher just yet.

[Bowguy67]

Bend at the waist. Not doing so changes everything including draw length

[JamesD]

Agreed. You should have been bending at the waist already if you have been hunting from a tree stand with training wheels and hitting what you were shooting at. I switched over to trad from training wheels eleven years ago. I didn't change anything form wise concerning bending at the waist. I rarely practice from elevated stands and have plenty of whitetail success from them over the past eleven hunting seasons. My stand are as low as 8' to as high as 20'. 

[Dave Lay]

Agree on bending at the waist, and I rarely get much higher than 15 feet unless I just have to get to some cover then I can’t remember going over 20, Shot angles get steep. I assume you’ve hunted out of stands just not with grad gear ? If so then your used to watching your harness lanyard and making sure you don’t let it hamper you. Learn to watch bow limb clearance in all shooting positions and bow cant angles. A few years ago I was pretty twisted around shooting at a pretty nice deer and the bottom limb of my recurve hit the folded up seat of my stand, I wish I could say I missed him clean.

[Ken Sorg]

Practice from a seated position also

[Sam McMichael]

Initially, I would concentrate on bending from the waist and making sure the bottom of the bow clears the stand. Be sure to practice a lot from this unusual position. There are others factors to consider, but for me this is a good starting point.
 

[Possum Head]

Since you’ll be practicing(good for you) from a stand you’ll learn how to shoot. Just starting and even for most skilled stick benders close is where you want them. That said, close with increased elevation drastically reduces double lung lacerations. One lungers can cover a ton of real estate as you probably know. I feel less vulnerable at 20+ but less confident too! Shoot straight.

[Orion]

I've never felt the need to go higher than about 12 feet.  Keeps the shot angle good.  Pretty hard to shoot downward without automatically bending at the waist.  Whatever occurs naturally is usually enough.  Draw length might vary a half to an inch or so depending on how much you bend compared to standing straight, but that's not enough to affect arrow drop much at the distances critters are normally shot -- 15-20yards. 

Just practice shooting from elevation.  I also recommend practicing from the sitting position.  I shoot 90% of the deer I shoot from tree stands from a sitting position.  Sitting is a more solid position, IMO. 

[Carpdaddy]

Good advice already! Always wear a safety harness, shouldn’t have to say that, but it’s easy to get careless!
 Since you live in Corbin… If you’re in the City limits and see a tree stand set in a fenced in back yard, yep; I’m the idget! 

[Pat B]

When you set up your stand be sure you have clearance all around yourself, not only the stand but above you and to both sides. You know the deer rarely come from where you expect them to come from so be sure you can shoot every direction and you have clearance in every direction.

[Wheels2]

On a couple of occassions, I have had deer walk too close and the shot angle was way too steep.  I don't go any higher than 15' and prefer to stay at 12'.  Just enough to get me above the first layer of canopy.
Our archery club has a large permanent elevated platform about 20'.  Seldom do I see anyone practice from it.
It is something that so many think they can master before they try it.

[Russell Southerland]

Check out the Form Clock thread in the Shooters Forum.  Lots of info there.

http://www.tradgang.com/tgsmf/index.php?topic=109531.0

[Sam Spade]

Wow, I can't believe that thread was started back in 2007, and it has over 34,400 views!

Great info for sure, and lots of people improved their shooting.

[Southpawky]

Good advice already! Always wear a safety harness, shouldn’t have to say that, but it’s easy to get careless!
 Since you live in Corbin… If you’re in the City limits and see a tree stand set in a fenced in back yard, yep; I’m the idget! 

I live in tattersall, always looking for shooting buddies, I’m the only one that shoots traditional

[Southpawky]

Feeling pretty good, first time shooting traditional out of a stand, I shot sitting and standing. Shot about 16 yards out of my lonewolf. Probably about 15ft up.

[charles m]

Are you sure you posted the correct pic?  Those arrows are positioned as ground shot, not from a tree stand. They are way to parallel to the ground to be from an elevated stand, no where near the angle in the target if shot from 15 feet up and16 yards away.

[Russell Southerland]

Glad to know that I was not the only one thinking that Charles.

[Sam Spade]

What those 2 said. ^^^^^

[Southpawky]

Yep, only pictures I took,  probably the camera angle and where I adjusted so the bow would stand there.

[Southpawky]

Here’s another pic from the same group but a different target