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Optimal hunting height?

SaddlePredator

New Member
Joined
Jul 16, 2021
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Hey all, ive been deering hunting my entire life, but new in the saddle. Ive shot deer at 12ft and 20ft. What do you think the optimal hunting height is to stay out of the deer's line of sight but also not have too steep of a shot angle? I know the canopy can be a major variable and this is a subjective question. Let know your favorite hunting height and why? Thanks!
 
Hey all, ive been deering hunting my entire life, but new in the saddle. Ive shot deer at 12ft and 20ft. What do you think the optimal hunting height is to stay out of the deer's line of sight but also not have too steep of a shot angle? I know the canopy can be a major variable and this is a subjective question. Let know your favorite hunting height and why? Thanks!

"I never go higher than 5 feet and I've never been busted and I kill 87 deer a year" etc... *sarcastic hillbilly accent

Seriously though, everyone has their preferences and you can be successful from ground level on up. But I play the odds and use a deer's biology to my advantage. A deer has about a 300ish degree field of view horizontally. Vertical field of view, not so much, but up here in the super pressured zones, they learn quickly to look up for danger. That means there is only a small 60ish degrees straight behind them they cant see. They need to be pretty much looking directly away from you for you to be in their blind spot. Or get up high. People kill deer at low levels all the time and people also get busted a lot. Most just won't admit it.

20+ feet for me if at all possible and I still get busted when I get to confident with my movements. I also enjoy the view up high.
 
It's too situational dependent. 20 ft doesn't always garuantee your out of the deers view, especially in hill country. If you're set up below a ridge, you might be at eye level of the deer coming over said ridge.
 
I used to hunt at around 16 Ft. or so and some times I still do depending on the cover or size of the tree but I learned a long time ago that the difference between 16 and 22 feet was 6 ft. HaHa! No seriously I like to be around 22 feet high now if the tree and cover allow it. I get picked off way less nowadays.
 
90% of the stands on our property are 15-17 ft ladder stands, depending on where they are placed in relation to the terrain the seat might be eye level with or all the way up to 30 ft above the deer (I've set up right on the edge of a ridge several times). I really haven't noticed a difference as far as getting busted, the biggest variable on that is movement.

As for optimal shot angle, as long as they aren't directly under your feet to where you have to obliterate the loins for the kill any open shot is optimal depending on which way the deer is facing. If you have a good grasp of the anatomy of a deer it isn't very hard to figure out where to aim.
 
As most everyone has said this is extremely situational dependent. Not considering standing/sitting on the ground as the posed question is how high to climb, I've killed several deer from the 3-5 foot level if that's what the cover, shot access allows and I've killed them from as high as 35 feet. Totally situation dependent and I rarely select a tree to sit in based on how high I want to hunt, I almost always climb to a height that best suits the particular setup that the tree offers. There's one area I hunt in a pretty open select cut that I typically set up with my feet at about 12 feet up. It just turns out that is the perfect level for me to blend in about waist deep with the surrounding beech scrub and still be able to shoot over it. Any higher and I look like a transformer on a power pole. :tearsofjoy:

That said, all other things being equal, and if I'm hunting telephone pole trees in the open hardwoods I kind of like the 20-25 foot height.
 
Yep, line of sight is determined by how a deer sees and cover. Consider those factors, and make a decision.

As mentioned, deer eye anatomy suggests horizontal peripheral vision is maximized, something like 310deg, which makes sense for detecting the majority of their predators. I don't know of any testing on the vertical range of deer vision, it'd be an interesting study, but it's not an assumption to say sight in the vertical axis is not the primary anatomical design of a deer's eye.

I know assigning deer senses human context is bad practice, but in this case even if deer had an advantage, the physics of the eyes is the same. So, lets consider human eyesight in the vertical axis.

The further an object is, the more of it we can see and the less detail, until it's beyond our visual range. It's like our eyes collect data from two cones of perception extending from our eyes that our brain combines and interprets.

What does that mean for the hunter?

The flatter the ground and thicker the timber, the lower you can be and still avoid a deer's vision.

That said, I'd focus more on what a deer can smell than see. They have like 20/100 vision but smell like 1000 times better than a human.

Line of sight changes when a deer tilts it's head to see what it's smelled.
 
As mentioned, deer eye anatomy suggests horizontal peripheral vision is maximized, something like 310deg, which makes sense for detecting the majority of their predators. I don't know of any testing on the vertical range of deer vision, it'd be an interesting study, but it's not an assumption to say sight in the vertical axis is not the primary anatomical design of a deer's eye.
Yep. They even have horizontal pupils vs round (humans and dogs) or vertical (cats and birds of prey). Their eyes also rotate in their head so that the pupils remain horizontal regardless if the deer is head up, head neutral, or head down. Their field of vision is very specifically designed so that they can see predators approaching on the same plane as them at all times.

The flatter the ground and thicker the timber, the lower you can be and still avoid a deer's vision.
Yep again. I'll add this. Tree climbing is a major PITA. A lot of guys do it just because that's what you're supposed to do, right? But you gain 2 things by climbing.

1 - you escape the deer's vision somewhat, allowing you to move. This is ESPECIALLY important if you are drawing a bow. Really, tree climbers didn't become a thing until bow hunting became mainstream. I'd argue that if you're strictly gun hunting you could go your whole career without climbing and really not have an issue with number 1

2 - you increase your own vision. This benefits gun hunters and archers.

When you climb you should ask yourself how well you can see and utilize your weapon, and how well the deer can see. This will dictate whether you should climb at all and how how you need to go.
 
When I rifle hunt and use a climber, I climb as high as absolutely possible. A couple tulip poplars on my old land lended themselves to 40+ feet off the ground. The terrain then lended itself to 700 yards of visibility. I have never taken a shot over 350 from a tree stand. BUT I watched them come in from over 700. 355 yards was the property line, I would give them 5 yards and then they would die of acute lead poisoning. On the other hand, with a Crossbow last year I only climbed about 15 feet twice, most of where I hunted the back cover was 8-15 foot.
 
When you climb you should ask yourself how well you can see and utilize your weapon, and how well the deer can see. This will dictate whether you should climb at all and how how you need to go.
Definitely. I used to always put my stands right in the heart of the timber where you are lucky if you can see the edge because that is how I was brought up. Everyone in our group had cheap 12ga shotguns and rarely took shots over 40 yards, so this made sense I guess? As I got older and obtained my own knowledge I started realizing that if I set my stand up toward the edge of the timber I could see farther and have a better view of what was coming. Add to that my 20ga has an effective range of 200+ yards it only made even more sense, though I have yet to shoot at an animal more than 100 yards out.
 
Depends on the woods for sure I like to climb to cover if that means 40 foot so be it
 
What? This smells fishy.....
Savage 220 with 3 inch Federal Trophy Coppers, one bad mama jamma. My scope is zeroed at 160, the ballistics are such that there is only 5.5 inches of vertical travel in that distance. I haven't tested it's full potential with the BDC reticle ($3 a shot and hard to find right now), but with the -11 MOA it should theoretically be zeroed at 280.

However, as I stated above I have not taken a shot on an animal past 100 yards. I am confident out to 160 though.
 
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A lot of the 20ga slugs on the market are very capable of 200 yard shots.
As long as you KNOW your distance and your particular slugs trajectory to the Tee...

Yep

My muzzleloader shoots good at 200yds with the same exact diameter and weight bullet that is loaded into some 20g slugs


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