ORIGINAL: BuckAlley

Phade, I guess by sounds with what little blood you had you did all you could, and he'll probably survive. Must'vebeen a real low hit, and not struck anything vital. Although I have seen vital shots, and the deer never laid down. But there was more sign than what you had.
Last fall my brother hit a nice buck, high. He nicked at least 1 lung. We tracked him from 9am well into the dark. Only breaking 1x for a quick sandwich. He backtracked on us 1x, and had us stumped for 3hrs looking for any spots. I finally found a set of running tracks, going back the way he'd came from, and figured had to be him. Almost 100yds away I found a pinhead size spot of blood. After that we found blood clots he musta been blowing out his nose. We tracked into the night, and lost last blood. He was close to 1 mile from where my brother hit him. I went back the next morning alone, my brother had to go to work. I found only a couple more spots, and led me to posted land. I didn't dare go any further not knowing the owners, and learned they weren't from that area so I couldn't even get permission to continue. The next wknd my brother found the owners, and told him they'd found a dead buck the wknd before, and the coyotes had gotten it. The same morning I'd been looking alone. They said he could go look to see if was in same direction his had gone, and sure enough 100yards into their land from that posted line was his deer. But somebody else had cut off the rack alreadly. He saw the hit spot, and it was high just like he thought. That deer never laid down 1x or slowed up for squat. But he also bleed more too. Sometimes I guess ya just never know what these darn deer are capable of. Just amazing what they can do, and recover from.