I'll be hunting an area soon for pigs that has some pretty steep hills, id say about 30 degrees. I've been told when shooting down hill, to aim low and make sure i bend at the waist. does this sound good? I really wonder how low to aim? what about shooting up hill? the distance would be from 10-30 yards. any ideas.:litebulb:
Try this site. Hope it helps and remember the angle that your arrow is traveling in order to hit the vitals. You probably will not get a double lung hit on a steep angle.
###Best advise i can give would be for you to know the vitals,at an angle the lungs are far easier to hit,i always aim for the lungs when i hunt no matter the angle,if you punch a hole through both lungs on an animal it wont have much oxigen to travel on.
###The last part of this advise is to practise from an elevated position,then you will know where to aim at that critical momment
When shooting uphill or downhill you will always hit higher than on flat ground,the reason for this is the projectile (arrow) travels a shorter horizontal distance.Gravity always pulls straight down into the earth,not into the angle of hills or mountains.Like passthru said it's best to practice from diferent angles and distances so you will know where to hold when the moment of truth arrives.Hope this helps I had a hard time explaining it.Good luck on the hunt!
Hey Bohunter, if you are going up to Hogs Wild, you are right about the steep hills, but don't worry too much about shooting at an angle. You will be on the same steep hills that they are on for the most part. I shot mine from 15 feet up in a stand at 28yds and put the 30yd pin right at the bottom of her rib cage and hit her 3 inches up right in the briscuit. If you have a flat shooting bow and are not 30ft in the air, don't end up shooting too low on them. At 30yds you are not talking more than an inch or 2 difference. As for the 30 degrees, if you are heading up there plan on 50 to 60 degrees on some of those hills. Start excersising now. Let me know where you are hunting. Also, if you are in the San Diego area, I have a tree stand in my back yard about 12 feet up you can practice shooting out to 30 yards on to see what it feels like for ya'. Drop me an email if you are interested.
when shooting up or down hill it is best to draw level then pivot at your waste. when you draw level then pivot this ensures that your anchor point is correct. if you try to draw at the animal up or downhill you may end up anchoring to far back which will effect your accuracy. also when shooting up or downhill at steep angles you will need to subtract some yardage off the actual distance to compensate for the angle. the higher the angle the more you will want to subtract. this takes practice so if you have an area where you can practice do so. good luck.
Hey bohunter, When shooting pigs, I recommend hitting them on the lower half of the vital area. And if you don't hit both lungs, you will have a hard time finding them up there where you are hunting. Try like hell for a nice quartering away shot and aim about 6-8 inches behind the front leg and shoulder. The only pig I saw dropped with one shot that weekend I went up there, was a quartering away shot where he shot it just forward of the hind leg and it tore completely through the briscuit and came out the neck. I think he hit every vital possible on that shot. It was a seriously quartering away shot. If you stay low on your shots, you have a better chance of possibly hitting the heart.
I use a 3/4's rule which ports on over to archery too since physics is physics. ###Basically, on a really, really steep hill roughly 30 degrees, I muliply the yardage by 3/4's and that's the distance I go by. ###On a 45 degree slope (most folks will never hike a 45 degee slope) it's a 2/3's rule. ###On a cliff it's aim as if it were 15 yds.
Then you can make a little card like this ( http://www.ballisticards.com ) if you know your arrow's launching speed. ###Then you can laminate it and take it with you in the field or tape it to your rangefinder.
For those of you who want me to send you an email that you can turn into a chart and laminate, I'll do it for you. ###I'll create a spreadsheet and it'll only take me a minute or so to send you an email with your data. ###
Bill
(Edited by wmidbrook at 10:59 pm on June 25, 2002)
It doesn't matter if it's uphill or downhill,the arrow will always hit high.It's kinda hard for me to explain so I will give it my best.
Gravity is what is pulling the arrow to the ground,and gravity only pulls straight down (not into the angle of the hill) ###
example...Say the distance is 40 yards uphill on a 60 degree slope.The actuall disance that the gravity will pull the arrow down will probabl be somewhere between 20-30 yards (maybe less)
Somewhere there is a websight with graphs that explains all this,maybe someone here could explain it better.
I'm still new to bowhunting, but this "phenomenon" is the same for firearms hunting as well. ###A good discussion of the same issue over in the Marksmanship forum, by the way.
I've seen lots of graphs to describe what Bucksnort is describing, but the easiest thing is to draw a triangle with the three points being your position, the animal's position, and the point on a level plane which is perpendicular to the animal. ###The level plane is the actual distance the arrow must travel. ###While your shot will travel the length of the hypotenuse (the longest line), gravity will only be active along the plane which is a shorter line. ###
In Bucksnort's example, let's make it a little easier by changing the angle to 45 degrees (I can't remember the formula figuring the lengths of sides for a 60 degree angle). ###If your rangefinder says it's 40 yards to the deer, then some basic geometry would show that the "level plane" is a touch over 28 yards. ###If you used your 40 yard pin on that shot, you'd shoot over the deer's back. ###If you turned that hill upside down, the flat distance would still be the same 28 yards, and the results of the shot would be the same... using your 40 yard pin would put your arrow (or bullet) high. ###
The only times you're likely to be shooting at that extreme of an angle is from a treestand. ###Even in the canyon country, a 25 or 30 degree slope is about as steep as you'd be shooting, so the deviation at normal bow range would probably be reasonably minor. ###
Hey Speckmiseer that was a very good explanation,i'ts hard for me to explain something like that without drawing it.You really don't realize what kind of effect it is untill you shoot a few archery shoots where there are angled shots.
bucksnort, ###your probably right. i thought shooting uphill and into the gravity would cause the arrow to lose momentum. and when shooting down hill the arrow gains momentum due to the fact that it is going with the gravity. guess i stand corrected
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