I can't believe I'm sitting here, having to type this...

Anyway, on Friday I left work about 11:30am to make the evening hunt in NW Oklahoma. I met my friends at about 2:30, showered and headed to my favorite tree (yes Buckeye... the same tree). I had to hang my stand becausedifferent circumstances have kept us from making it up there this year. By 5:30 I'm hung, strapped in 23' above the groundand ready to go.

I had seen several deer early but no mature does offered a shot, just before the sun went down behind the trees I saw that familiar "white shine" about 300 yards on the opposite side of the creek (on the photo below, that is where the white line starts). Immediately I knew he was a shooter, and as I followed him down into the creek I saw more (different) tines in the creek. A quick survey through the binos revealed a very tall, narrow,light antlered deer with excellent tine length. The second buck was an exceptionally clean eight... this deer had the ENTIRE package. I won't discuss scores since I can't show him to you... but you get the idea.Anyway, the deer (five bucks total) cross the creek and head towards me (again this is the white trail on the photo). The two larger deer gave a "whoopin" to about 6 trees in their 300 yard journey to my stand. The little bucks crossed the fence first and were followed by the two bigger deer. They milled around for a couple of minutes and the tall buck took the lead and stopped to look back where they had come from. At this point all 5 deer turned and looked directly away from me. I calmly drew back and settled my 30 yard pin behind the shoulder of the big 8pt, and curled my finger around the trigger.

My slick trick went in high, directly above the "pocket" behind the shoulderand lodged into the offside shoulder, immediately I was sick. The deer left in pretty much the same direction they had come (the green line represents the path my deer took when he left). I knew that I had punctured the offside lung but wasn't sure if I had gotten the front lung. As I watched him reach about 200 yards, I knew I didn't get both and the sick feeling really kicked in. I lost him before he got to the creek and was hoping that he had bedded down next to the creek.

For the next 45 minutes I sat replaying the scenario through my mind... over and over and over. "What did I do wrong?" Saturday morning I ranged the spot and it was about 26-27 yards depending on the exact spot he was standing. I knew to back out and not push, "if he's dead now, he'll be dead in the morning" I told myself. So the next morning I climbed in the stand without my bow and waited for daylight as my buddies were still hunting. I said a quick prayer and repelled down the tree to begin the search.

I found the arrow about 30 yards across the fence, broke off about 8" from the end. I followed tracks for another 50 yards where I found excellent blood. I was able to walk at full stride for another 50 yards and the blood stopped, completely. I followed his tracks another 30 yards until I found some blood, muscle tissue, and hair on a thorny bush. Then I followed his tracks across the creek and up into the shinery on the other side, still no blood. I lost his tracks when he got into the hard ground with grass. My buddy and I searched all morning to no avail. Saturday evening I sat in a ground blind a couple hundred yards from the creek hoping to year some coyotes or something, and again no luck.


Then this morning my buddy offered to give up his hunt to help me find my deer, so we grid searched for 5 hours over a huge area and came up empty handed.Before daylight I snuck in andsat up on top of a big sand/sage hill hoping to see coyotes as the sun came up or buzzards or crows and again nothing.

Again needless to say, I still feel sick.Not only is it disappointing to lose the deer, butknowing that Iprepared correctly shooting 1000's of arrows a year and backing out after seeing the hit, and searching for 2 full days is eating me alive. I understand that it happens, but man... this sucks! I know these threads aren't looked upon very highly, but I had to get it off my chest a little. What did I do wrong? Any suggestions? I'd show an aerial of the area but it doesn't come in clear in on google earth.