I feel we're having a lot of scenarios being lumped together. If you hit a deer not exactly where you wished to, if you haven't you're day is coming, and you search continuously for the animal for three plusdays and are able to recover the animal, you earned it and should be proud of it. Now if you arrow a deer and give up, wait for the crows to fly and walk over to your downed animal, that's another story. You still can be proud of the animal, but tell the story like it happened. When your buddys come over don't say, that's my 08 bow kill. That's the deer you wounded in 08 and found days/weeks later. I feel today hunters are judged by the inches of antler on the wall and not for the type of hunter you are and the desire to shoot big deer has turned into pressure to shoot big deer. I know a lot of hunters that would rather be home on the couch than hunting that have harvested some awesome whitetails. The animal just deserves the true story no matter how large it was and how good it would make you look.