Sorry to hear you lost your first archery buck, that is a true bummer. However, you have to keep your head up and stop kicking yourself in the butt. Take what you can from this happening and try to learn from it, so it is not repeated in the future.

IMHO, this buck was lost not because of which BH you were using, but because you did not wait long enought to start the track after a so-so hit. I know how hard it can be to give an animal several hours and I fully understand the having to go to work in the morning thing, but you have to think of all that stuff before pulling the trigger. Nobody plans on making a less than perfect shot, but for me, that is a part of the equation in my determing if I am going to take the shot or not.

As far as your BH goes, I shot the Rage 2 blade last year, after shooting nothing but fixed blades. I was drawn to the HUGE cutting diameter and just knew they were going to leave unbelievable blood trails. I killed 7 deer with Rage last year and was disappointed with every blood trail I had. While none of the deer travel more than 50 yards after the shot and ended up very dead, I was not getting the blood on the ground that I thought I should have with a BH cutting 2". The final straw for me was when I shot my last bow deer (by best buck last year) and my arrow did not blow thru him and it was not a forward hit either. In fact I hit him about 2" farther back than I wanted (did not know this until he was recovered). As the deer ran off, I could see about half the arrow in him still, which made me believe I went forward and got into the shoulder. I shot him at around 3:30 in the afternoon, we started tracking around 10pm that evening (had to go to work just like you). We found him within 30 mins. The point is, if you are not 100% certain of the shot, give him all the time you can. Once pushed, your odds of recovery start decreasing.