My 7 year old's first deer- we can't find it???
My son shot his first deer saturday morning. He is 7 years old and shot what looked to be about a 100" give or take a few inches 8 pointer. It was about a 40 or so yard shot which is well within his range as he has been shooting for several months now. He was using a 22-250 which is not a large caliber, but it has taken many a deer down here in Texas and he is only 7 and I did not want him shooting to much gun. The shot looked like it was pretty good maybe slightly back. The deer jumpeda fence and went through a tree line on the other side of the fence. (From the shot to the fence and trees is about 10 yards) After the shot, I congratulated him and we waited for about 15 min. or so before we went to track him down. I went to the sight of the impact and there was no blood. I looked where he crossed the fence and went through the trees, still no blood. We walked around on the other side of the trees for about 30 min. and then found a pool of blood about the size of a dinner plate with two smaller pools (4" dia) within a foot of it (bright red with bubbles in it). I figured he ran through the trees into the open pasture, stopped to decide which way to go. We looked all around the blood out to about 25-30 yards all around it and found no blood trail leading any direction. He had gone through trees, so I could not see which way he went. We spent about 3 hours combing the pastures and entire area for about a 1/2 mile radius until I had to get back home for my wife to go to music practice at church. We did not find a deer, blood, nothing. We went back the next day after church and was able to use my brother in law's dad's polaris ranger and upped the search to a much larger area and comb through all the knee tall grass and cedar trees. Still no deer. I have no idea what to do other than wait a few days and go buzzard chasing, but also don't want to exaust the area for the rest of deer season (where we could get another deer that we would accually be able use the meat from.) Has anyone else had this happen? Did we do something wrong? Any recommendations?