RE: how to fin wounded deer
I am pretty sure I did the same to the last buck I hit (Monday night). We looked for 1.5hr and found nothing. The next morning I spent an hour and then found the blood trail (Field shot, then ran 200yds). Tracked the blood trail for another 2 hours (another 200yds). He headed back into ravines and wild thickets, crawled under logs, into brush, for acres. Found the sleep spot (2ft of bloody leaves) and then nothing. Figure he was wounded and I drove him off the next morning searching. Bummer. After hours of tracking and random searches, I gave up, I was too mentaly and physically shot to go on. Like 5 shot, I figure I will smell him out there this week.<img src=icon_smile_angry.gif border=0 align=middle>
Sometimes takes a couple of hours sometimes to find the blood trail particulary if you are a shakey hand (like I am also...that was my second kill, first was opening Monday) cause you tend to "forget" exactly where it went, and where it turned into the woods exactly, and where the arrow went afterwards when you are "sure" you saw it go down.
I shoot pratice all the time, but it is so different from actually releasing on a deer. I can outshoot my more experienced bros on the foam deer everytime, but they can do much better in the woods with 5 or so kills each and many years experience. They know where they hit it and where it went.
My friend shot his first buck 10 yrs ago. He and one of my bro's looked for 4 hours that morning and sat down on a log to rest and put his bow behind him. When he got up he turned to get the bow and see's the rack on the ground...and the buck was behind him on the ground, it had crawled under the downed tree right up to that spot on the trunk.