That's a good point. So what could I learn from this?

1. Don't alert the deer to your presence. I know you see this on all the hunting shows ("maaap - deer stops - perfect shot) but I'd rather wait for the deer to stop on its own. They usually do, and if they don't, oh well. Let em walk. Why put a whitetail on full alert and shoot them when they are staring at you? Your just asking for one to duck the arrow. I know better than that.

2. Check the dang forecast before you hunt. It's never a good idea to shoot a deer if rain is coming in the next hour. That's just common sense. How stupid was I to shoot 30 minutes before a 12 hour steady rain? God that was dumb. I can't believe I did that.

3.If you're going to hunt next to hundreds of yards of thick nasty bedding area, you'd better put a good hit on them so they don't go far and leave a huge blood trail. I thought I did that but I guess not.

I took the day off work yesterday to search all day. I will go out one more time tonight to look, even though the meat is already spoiled. I want to find the deer to know exactly where I hit it.