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Where should one hold for shooting squirrels in short range/high angle situations?

I spend more time hunting squirrels with my dog and a .22 than any other kind of hunting. For those of you that aren’t fortunate enough to have a squirrel dog, she’s responsible for finding the trees with the squirrels in them and I responsible for finding the squirrels in the tree and shooting them down to her. I’m usually 20 to 25 yards from the tree. The squirrel may be way up there somewhere but the horizontal distances aren’t that far.

I’m sighted in to be dead on at 25 yards and it’s still basically dead on out to 50 yards. I’m wondering what you “gunwriters” think about where to aim on those occasions when I’m pretty close to the tree, maybe 10 yards or so but the squirrel is up high in the tree. For the longest time I’ve been thinking to aim based on the horizontal distance to the target. Just recently it occurred to me that this isn’t the same as shooting mountain goats, and I should aim based on the actual distance to the squirrel.

From what little I know about ballistics and Plan Geometry, I'd aim just a tad high.

At distances you are talking, you should be O.K. to aim dead on, maybe a little low if you are closer than your site-in distance. However, when shooting up or down hill, the linear distance (parallel to the earth) is shorter than is the actual distance (up or down hill). It is the linear distance you must take in to account. Consequently, one would aim low whether shooting up or down at an angle.

Yep. Not a gun writer, and my squirrel hunting days have been pretty much over since I moved away from Texas for the last time, about 30 years ago. Before that, however, I hunted them a lot using a Ruger 10/22 with a 4X scope and an aftermarket trigger. Sighted in at 25 yards, I held just a hair below their heads, even for those in the tops of the really tall water oaks in the Neches and Angelina River bottoms. Using high-speed ammo that grouped well in my rifle, I hit way more than I missed.

If you're right under the tree, the bullet will hit high, just about the distance between the bore of your rifle and the center of the barrel of your scope. This distance on my 10/22 is a smidgen less than one inch. If you're using open sights, hold where you want to hit, or maybe a smidgen lower, and you'll be fine.

See, this is exactly what got me thinking about the question of where to aim.

Hold a skosh low, because… gravity won’t be pulling the bullet down as much as you think it will?
Hold a skosh high because at 10 yards horizontal distance the bullet is still climbing and will hit low.
Hold dead on because at ten yards horizontal distance and 25 yards vertical the squirrel is about 27 yards away.

Clearly the answer is go shoot more. But I can’t do that until after Christmas.

Not necessarily low but LOWER than you would than the slant range would indicate. Your aim point is based only on the horizontal distance.

So if your rifle is zeroed right on at fifty yards and you shoot at a squirrel 100 feet up in a tall tree that is fifty yards away (on the horizontal) you would hold right on just as you would if the squirrel was sitting at the base of that tree.

Dead on at that angle