Well, I am a bow technitian by trade, so analyzing what went wrong, and helping hunters prevent episodes such as this in the future is sort of what I do everyday. What I don't understand is how your arrow could be covered in blood, and the deer did not leave any sort of blood trail. I have seen deer shot with buckshot do this, but buckshot punches small holes that are easily plugged, broadheads don't really work that way. Sometimes if you hit a deer in the paunch with an arrow, you'll have intentinal coils cover up the entrance and exit holes, which effectively stops most of the bleeding (or at least stops blood from leaving the body, which is what a blood trail is). But, if you hit the deer too far back, your arrow likely wouldn't be covered in blood, it would be covered in gut and smell like... gut. I was just trying to figure out where you may have hit that doe. The equipment question is just part of the overall equation. In essence, I was wondering if the problem was the user, or the bow. I know that sounds a bit coarse, and I appologise, but I don't know of a better way of putting it. Sometimes when you come up short of something, I've found it helps to have someone else look at what happened and give a little feedback... isn't that all that message forums are about anyway?