Deerslayer270...I feel your pain. I made a poor shot on a huge buck last year, hitting the right side behind the ribs. The arrow hung out half way until he jumped a fence (I could still see him), then fell out and left a nice blood trail. He walked very slowly, laid down a couple times within my sight, then dissapeared. I gave the deer an hour then pursued the blood that ended about 50 yards later. This was at 10AM, I searched the remainder of the day with no luck.
I learned two very important lessons from this expierence. 1. Don't pursue until the next day unless your 100% confident it was a perfect pass through shot in the lungs. It's just not worth it. 2. If your confident that it was alethal shot keep looking. For me it was the first day of a 7 day rut hunt, I convinced myself that I shouldn't wreck the woods searching all over for days. Truth be told, I think of it all the time and wish I had just kept looking, asked friends to help look and done everything I could to not loose this deer. Its not the trophy that counts, but you have to have more respect for such a beautiful animal. I'm sure I made a lethal shot, and a bad decision in the end.
So the moral of the story...your not alone, but learn from the expierence and don't make the same mistake again!