I looked last night for 4 hours and this morning for another 5. Sorry to say, he wasn't found. I believe the thing to possibly even be alive. I found the arrow this morning 40 yards from where I shot him. The arrow had bits of meat on it and was drenched in bright red blood indicative of a muscle hit. My guess is I hit this deer higher than I thought - through the back strap but narrowly missing the spine and took no lung some how. The last blood was a big coagulated glob - no blood after that. That was at only 150-200 yards from where he was shot so my guess is that I didn't hit a major artery and the wound closed back up. I really don't believe in that so called "hollow spot", but geesh, how could I not have hit at least one lung at that angle? Sorry fellers, I suck I guess. He was a nice buck too, big bodied boy with neck all swollen. He came in sniffing the estrus doe pee I had dragged in. That stuff works good. Now if I could only learn how to shoot them.

Last year my buddy shot a buck and hit very high - same area I hit this one. It was a broadside shot so he got a pass through. The arrow looked much the same as mine - scraps of muscle drenched in bright red blood, no bubbles. We never found that deer as the blood trail ran dry. My buddy described this deer as a small fork with a limp on the front right. A week later from the same stand I saw his little buck - alive and well. I could see a black circle where the arrow entered directly behind the shoulder and just below the spine. He was shot from a stand so the angle would have to have hit the opposite side lung, but apparently didn't. Go figure. Maybe there's something to this legendary hollow zone.