bowman15

This may sound weird to some of you, but it makes sense to me and it hasn't let me down.

When I sight-in, I pace off distance. I set my top pin at 20 paces, my second at 30. Between a month and no later than 2 weeks before opening day, I go out and trim shooting lanes and clean trees for my stands, and then I pace off distances to trees or trails. Nothing farther than 25 yards. I'm always really close, my paces in the woods compared to my paces in my back yard when I'm sighting in. I've watched my arrow disappear behind my pin a few times on deer, so I know it works.

NYak

3D archery shoots on the weekends have helped me a ton! I learned how to judge yardage down to only 1 or 2 yrds off. If it's 24 yrds and i judge it at 23 yrds, i still hit my mark!

Schultzy

When I shot a compound I didn't have a range finder. For me It's taking way to much of the hunt out of It. I learned my yardages very well and I put up little markers when I 1st started bow hunting at 12 years old so I knew were 10, 15, and 20 yards was.

mauser06

i dont own a range finder....and i will admit if you put me in a tree i suck at estimating range. i THOUGHT i knew what 20yds looked like....but what i thought was 20 in the heat of the moment was actually about 10-12...what i thought was 30-35 in the heat of the moment was actually 21 or 22....

ive learned that i typically cannot see a shootable portion of a deer past 21-22yds in the woods in bow season from a tree in most my setups(borrowed a buddies range finder one time)

last year when i shot my buck, i had no idea how far he was...i actually thought he was farther and settled the pin high...then looked and said IDIOT! thats dang near 20yds!!! actually ranged the tree near him earlier that morning(buddies range finder) and knew it was under 25 and a top pin shot...so i settled it lower and sent it....dead deer

if i take my time i can "do it" but first glance, i suck...

last year opening day i had a buck at 21 or 22...i thought FOR SURE he was 30-35...didnt even think about shooting....i get tunnel vision and it kills me....i gotta start taking my time...

on the ground i got to be accurate within a yard or 2 pretttty consistantly to 40 or so..by using my buddies range finder at 3d shoots after we all "called it" we would check...then shoot...(saved us arrows) and we got good enough at ranging and quit using it...

lots of ways to go about it while hunting...landmarks, ribbons, ranging the actual target etc...

like GMMAT, id rarely ever have time to range a deer from the bow stand...if i did id probably loose my opprotunity to shoot...what i do now is find 20-25 and if its outside that zone i aint even drawing....i can shoot well at yardages much past 20-25...but deer hunting, in my woods, and knowing i cant range within a few yards from the stand, i wont shoot anything that isnt top pin...unless for some odd reason im 100% confident its 30 or whatever...

rybohunter

No ranging here for the most part. My shots are close enough to where I don’t need to. It’s either a shoot or don’t shoot situation.
Since I do have a range finder, I will range some trees & other “landmarks” just in case. If the situation arose where a deer was hanging out for a long time & tempting me out near my max range, I’d zap & then decide on shooting it. I’ve not run into that case yet.

NavyDeerHunter

I take and use my range finder on every trip to the woods. The last thing that I do before settling in is to range every possible "shot zone" that I can find...out to, but not beyond 40 yards. I'll use my first 15 minutes to carefully look over my current hunting area and try to visualize where a deer could come from and where I may be able to stop them. I'll memorize the 5-6 shot zones that I pick and then put the RF away for the rest of the hunt.