kickin_buck- you're right. I don't have permission to be on the land to the south. In fact, I shouldn't have been on much of the land I searched to the west.I've got a call in to the landowner to see if he will give me permission to look for him. Fortunately one guy owns pretty much everything around there so we'll see. Hopefully he calls me back. I could probably get away with just going but if I piss someone off, I'll never get permission.
Dopler- the stand is only about 15 ft up and it is pretty flat ground. I don't see how it could have hit him at any sort of steep angle. It is possible that it was just a really low shot. I thought I had my 30 yd pin on him, but it was getting pretty dark and my brain tends to go a little haywire when I'm in the presence ofof a bucklike that.
Assuming I can get permission from the adjacent landowner, and given the fact that the blood dried up as he was entering an open field,he could be anywhere across a couple hundred acres. I have a feeling this one will haunt me for a long long time.