Glad you found him...at least now you know what became of him.

Now onto the learning aspect of this...

Make sure you study all details of this situation so you can learn from it. If you can, try to find where your bullet struck and why he died. Was it from the initial shot? Or did he simply die from infection later on? Look at where you found him....think about where he was when you shot....study the terrain inbetween and figure out why he ran where he did. How far did he travel? What features are around him? Thick cover? Water? Ridgeline? In an escape route? Bedding area? Make note of everything possible....then if (we all hope it never does, but sometimes it does) it happens again in the future you can think back to this buck and remember key aspects of why the deer behaved the way he did. It may just help you out later on.

Everytime I find a death bed in the woods, I study everything I can about it and put it away for future reference....its amazing what you can learn. I actually used this type of knowledge this year to find two does who bled very little....I thought about normal escape routes and where they went. I followed that intuition and found both deer.