I've been pretty fortunate/lucky in the past several years in that most of the deer I shoot drop quickly in sight. Those that went out of my sight were easily recovered.
Yesterday I had a very interesting experience. I went up pretty high in my climber. (I had my reasons for the height) There is a dry creek bed that the deer were using. According to my non-arc rangefinder this creek bed was 11 yards away. I hoped the deer didn't come right down the creek bed because it would have been a really steep angle for a shot.
Well of course the only deer I see, a small doe, comes down the creek bed. She's slightly quartering toward me but not enough to worry about. My shoulder and elbow pop loudly when I draw, she snaps her hed up at me. I can't believe she heard it but somehow she picked me off. In a split second I put my 20 yard pin on her chest and send an arrow on it's way.
20 yard pin... 11 yards.. Oops. My arrow, with it's bright firenock appears to skim right over her back. She bounds off, apparently unscathed. I kick myself repeatedly. This is an earn-a-buck property. Does can be hard to come by and there are 50-60 other hunters on this property all looking for does too.
Anyhow, use the range finder to look at the arrow. The feathers look bright and clean. I see no hair or blood.
I climb down about 20 minutes before last light. To my surprise, there is some hair and a very scant amount of blood and fat on the arrow. Very scant.
Pictures of the arrow.
Not much can be gleaned from the broadhead as it sank deeply in the dirt.
Only a very, very slight amount of blood/meat/fat on the shaft.
There is bit more blood on the shaft toward the feathers. Still not much.
Feathers with just light amount of blood. (on a solid chest hit, these are drenched and flattened with blood)
Near the nock there is some amount blood.
There is no blood where the deer was standing. No hair on the ground.
She bounded off like she was simply spooked. No hard run. She stopped about 75 yards away, looked back at me and the bounded off out of sight.
I was 99.99999 positive that I simply skimmed her back. How many here would think the same thing?