Yeah I agree with Iowa Hunter... At least an hour if you think it was a good shot... If you hit a huge buck, and it's cold just wait until morning... Not worth losing a great deer... But usually an hour is a good amount of time... but still use caution when tracking and try to be quite... cause you could still jump him up after that amount of time, and more then likley it will be a long day trying to find him... if you are that lucky....