Great post Rob! I would like to add a few tips.
1. when you are going to wait a specific time it's best to check a watch. Time moves very slow while you are waiting and it's easy to tell yourself "it must be 2 hours already" when in fact it's only been 45 min.
2. weather conditions may force you to take the track early. impending rain or snow can erase all sign. this is a judgement call and makes knowing your shot placement important. If I think I got lungs and weather is coming I will take the track early.If I believe it was gut then I would wait anyway. Pushing a gut shot deer will only result in not getting it.In the case of gut shot and weather it's best to wait and do a body search the next day.
3. wounded deer will sometimes backtrack then jump off to the side and continue in a different direction. If you come to what seems like the end of the blood trail, go back and check off to the sides. This happened to me once.
4. others mentioned this but I will repeat it. Don't bring an army of people to help track. This is the worst thing you could poss. do. If you want help, get 1 person who has experience to help you. STAY OFF THE TRACK. mark your last blood and slowly move forward AFTER you spot more blood. Fight the urge to move forward without blood. Look for other sign such as leaves turned up or branches broken to help stay on track.
5. track during the day if at all poss. you will see much more sign than at night.
6. often times there is very little blood from the shot sight to the point where the deer slows down.
7.never determine how good the hit was based on the amount of blood you find. A friend double lunged a doe. It was a total pass thru shot. We both saw the hit. When we got on the track (on snow) there was hardly any blood. we couldn't believe the lack of blood. she ran about 100 yds and died on the run. I could have recreated the blood trail with a shot glass full of blood! When the arrow passed thru it pulled a hunk of fat in the exit wound and plugged it.
8. read the body language of the deer by the way it moves. A buddy of mine called me to track one once. The blood trail was poor. The way the blood trail went thru thick brush and was weaving I told him the deer was dead and we would find her if we could just keep on the trail. He said we weren't going to find it. We found it dead less then 50 yds from that spot.
9.don't quit looking until eithor you are sure the deer survived or you believe the meat is no longer good. I gut shot a deer and it rained that night. I got 4 guys and we did a body search. we did a grid search thru the swamps for the better part of the day. They gave up and went home. I continued to search and found him laying about 20 yds from the road we drove in on. Which brings me to #10
10. NOT ALL DEER GO TO WATER WHEN WOUNDED. Yes a lot of them do but look elsewhere if you don't find them there.
11. If you kick him up, back out quietly and wait at least a few more hours before taking the track again.