Range finder questions

[crappyice]

How ESSENTIAL is a range finder to YOUR bow hunting season?  What's the best, least expensive one(that's the tough part!), out there that you would feel confident with in a treestand?

[burmjohn]

I only got a rangefinder this year, a bushnell, off ebay for 175.  But, there isnt a need, you could just measure out from the stand and put markers up, which is what I did regardless of having the rangefinder.

[solon]

there are work arounds - like marking trees - but i hunt several properties with several diff stands - so it's become very essential to me - it makes me feel much more comfortable when I can measure the landmarks and store it in my head - the older I get the more i forget

[Fantail]

I use a Bushnell yardagepro, had it for 2-3 years now. It was about 150$. It's good for basic rangefinding. If I'm hitting a familiar stand then it usually dosen't go with me. But I like to have it on a new stand or if I haven't been in one for a while. For example I'll hit a few trees in lanes to eliminate guess work.

[fasteddie]

I have a rangefinder but I don't use it for bowhunting . I don't shoot beyond 35 yards .

[Doc]

It's an essential piece of equipment for me and I've had one since sometime in the 80's. I started off with the Ranging version(focusing the two images together) and just recently went to the laser version. I really am a terrible judge of distance, and there is a nasty feeling of lacking confidence if I don't tie that one variable down. I figure that there's enough other things that can go wrong without adding distance judging to the mix.

Doc

[fasteddie]

Hey Doc , I still have my old "Ranging" Range Finders .

[Doc]

I had two of the bigger ones and one of the smaller ones. Ranging used to be in East Rochester, and back in the 80's a few of us guys got an invite to tour their plant from the owner. We each got some free samples. I guess eventually they sold out (to who I don't know). I have a buddy whose picture showed up in their national advertising along with a nice buck he got over in Wyoming County.

They were pretty well made units, but I did manage to screw one of the big ones up. I gave away the smaller rangefinder to my son, and keep the last one for emergencies in case something happens to my Nikon.

Doc

[crappyice]

So it sounds like the rangefinders are used more as a scouting/pre-hunt tool (pre-deer arrival).  So all those hunting shows that we all love so much flashing the yardage on the deer seconds before the shot is most likely Hollywood at work. Does anyone actually range their deer prior to the shot?

[UpStateRedNeck]

Crappyice-

Last year was my first year, and if you switch stands as much as me (7 to choose from), you really do want a range finder.  I missed a nice 6 clean underneath last year because I thought 50 yards was ~35.  It's easy to misjudge the distance it seems.

I got a leupold RX 6X from Cabelas for 200$, and though it almost cost me my life when I got home to the wife, it was worth it.

[Doc]

So it sounds like the rangefinders are used more as a scouting/pre-hunt tool (pre-deer arrival).  So all those hunting shows that we all love so much flashing the yardage on the deer seconds before the shot is most likely Hollywood at work. Does anyone actually range their deer prior to the shot?

I don't know about those guys, but I sure don't usually have time to rangefind on the fly. What I do is use my rangefinder to find the distances to various trees or other features around my stand. If I could get a deer to just stop and stand there while I checked the distance, then pulled up and tried to take the shot, I'd do that. But really, how often are the deer that cooperative? My guess would be that if you had a deer grazing in a food plot or hay field or something, you probably would have time to range the distance, realtime. But trail hunting, I don't think so.

Doc

[crappyice]

I may have a golf buddy who could lone me his range finder he uses on the course. How different are the range finders for golf vs. the range finders for hunting?