Give you another example...I shot a hog at 20 yards exactly with my 20 yard pin dead behind his shoulder, about 4" up from the bottom. I hit him dead in the spine. This was standing up in a 16' ladder stand
for archery range is alot more critical I'll give you that, and I didn't used to move stands too much as I'd set up at least 3 and mark ranges with ribon or something so when hunting from them I wouldn't realy need the range finder. as for binocs I splurged when I had money and bought 2 pair of german glass a zeiss 10x40 and a pair of leica minis not much bigger when folded than a pack of cigarettes. and it seems I only use them at dawn and dusk as you said and usualy only bring them if hunting from a stand. now out west they are more important than your rifle. and after 12 years now I still praise myself everytime I look thru them for not cheaping out. and for archery I try not to shoot further than 20 yds, even though I know I could make a hit I just don't want to have to trail or drag very far AT ALL. I only have 1 sight pin on my bow set at 20yds and guestimate 10-25or 30 max if a trophy only.
I use my rangefinder everytime I hunt with my bow. I will range certain objects while Im just sitting in the tree that way if a deer slips in on me I have a 40 yard arc around the tree that I have ranged,its better in my opinion than tromping through your hunting area hanging ribbons spreading your scent all over the ground. One tip as far as rangefinders go sight your bow in using your rangefinder. If you have sighted in before using steps or whatever method it may be different enough to cause problems when the moment of truth presents itself. Take your target and range it until it says 20 yards and then set your 20 pin and so on,that way your pins and rangefinder correlate with one another. Also when in the tree ranging random objects pick a tree and range it at eye level, this will give you actual distance without the angle,it eliminates the need to get a rangefinder with arc.
So, what you're sayin is range at eye level and then aim a little lower than normal to compensate for the downward angle (all considering that the bow has been sighted in from a stand already). Hope I got that right. Now to figure out just how high it's shooting on the downangle so I can compensate accordingly.
When shooting high in stand you are shooting with less gravity pull against your arrow.When shooting ground level gravity is working on the horizontal plane of your arrow flight.The steeper the angle (higher in tree) the less length there is for gravity to work on until you start shooting longer ranges out.The speed of your arrow also plays a factor faster bows shooting lighter faster arrows will have less trajectory....
