I have a Remington rangefinder and it gives me the yardage and the degree/angle that the rangefinder is facing.
I am up in a 15 or so foot stand and if a deer pops out and its not directly under me I dont now how to judge it.
Could anybody explain how to aim and judge where to aim at the animal?

I really don't think 15 feet of altitude is going to matter even a teeny bit. Just aim and shoot as if you were on flat ground. You didn't give us much info, so I don't know what else to tell you.

15' isn't going to change much out to 40yards.


But it will mess up your distance perception

I would still practice from that height at different yardages to make sure.

I must presume you are an archer, as I'd see no reason for anyone
with a rifle or shotgun to have a rangefinder and use it at 15yds
as the projectile would be below the line of sight at that range
even at a fairly steep angle...Were I an archer, I'd spend some time in a tree practiing on targets from the closest to the longest shot I felt I could safely make and be fairly assurred of taking an animal cleanly..If you are a rifle shooter, you apparently need to get away from the technolgy and spend more range time....I hope you do well..I also have a range finder which I play with..usually out past 300 yds..Don

If this is a static stand, set yardage markers around it that correspond with your sight pins.

Also, the hypotenuse is not the operative distance when adjusting for drop. For calculation and adjustment purposes, gravity only works over the distance a projectile travels that is perpendicular to the pull of gravity. Being elevated 15' would be close to negligible anyway, but if you measure 40 yards from the point on the ground directly under your bow to the target, then from your vantage point in the stand you would still use whatever aiming hold you normally use for 40 yards.

Well, heck...I didn't know he was one of those 'strings and sticks' guys. I was thinking rifle trajectory, not arrow trajectory.

I don't think he's bow-hunting. I think he's hunting with a rifle out of a 15-foot elevated stand and pondering where the target is relative to his bullet. In which case I think some trigonometry comes into play. For example, I have the first few 100-yard cosines for 30 degree angle shots memorized (rounded to 2 digits). At 100 yards the bullet travels 98 yards (cosine is .98). At 200 yards, the cosine is .94, and at 300 yards the cosine is .87. That means that a 200 yard shot, by a range finder, at a 30 degree angle is actually travelling only 188 yards. (200x0.94) After that it gets more drastic. For example, at 400 yards with a 30-degree angle the bullet only travels about 308 yards, cosine is .77. That's where you can seriously start missing stuff.

I wish I knew how to draw a picture on here... Look at a right-angle triangle with a 90-degree angle being the tree, and the top/left of that side being the stand, with the ground making up the bottom leg. The further out the target is from the stand, the more the bullet is effected by gravity. A deer 4 feet away from the tree may read 30 feet on the range finder, because it may in fact be 30 feet from the stand, but the bullet will only be effected by gravity for four feet. So, you'd hold as if the deer were four feet fom your muzzle. Take those ranges out a bit and apply the appropriate cosine and you'll see a 100 yard distance between perceived and actual range real quick.

Your range-finder is giving you valuable information. The base of the tree is point "A," the stand is point "B," and wherever the deer is standing determines point "C." Three points of a triangle. The ranged distance from stand to deer multiplied by the appropriate cosine for the angle you're shooting at gives actual range.

My head hurts now....

Actually, the bullet is never effected more or less by gravity, gravity is constant, it's just effected for a longer distance. Sorry.

If you REALLY want to screw your head up, figure what fps your bullet is travelling at at different yardages and factor that in.

If he's using a rifle, I go back to my original point...15 feet up just isn't going to matter enough to even worry about the math. That's an overcomplication of a non-issue.

And yes, gravity is constant, unless you dropped something that's really valuable. Then it drops in slow motion, giving you more time to agonize.

Love it! ^^^^ I'm using that in a class for sure, if it's alright with you if I borrow it.

I started off just letting the gent know I knew what he was asking, then I got carried away.

And actually at 15 feet up with the target 5 yards out, this becomes even more important to know. Well....if you care about where your bullet goes.