I have to disagree with those that say if you find it (no matter how long) it's a "recovery".
If you find it next spring, is it a recovery? Yes, taken to the illogical extreme...but where do you draw the line.
If you can't eat it, it was a failed recovery. No matter how hard you tried...no matter how long you looked...it's a failed recovery.
That DOES NOT make you a bad person/hunter...it just means you didn't get a succesfull recovery...that's all, nothing else.
ONLY YOU can decide if it was due to lack of ethics, or lack of luck (i.e. coyotes, crows, wolves etc).
Bowhunting isn't 100% succesfull no matter how hard you try, sometimes your NOT going to be succesfull...harvesting, recovering or whatever.
Obviously, you would (do?) feel bad about not finding it in time, and want to feel better by saying "At least I recovered it"...Feel good knowing to TRIED YOUR BEST....not that you recovered some scraps with antlers.
That MAY seem harsh, but we must live with our actions. We must see our actions as they TRUELY are.

"To see one's self truely, one need only look truely" KUNG FU