I' ve been actively bow hunting for about 10 years now. I can honestly state I cleanly missed a few deer my first few years thru my own errors. You feel pissed at first, but take those mistakes back home with you and practice, practice, practice. After making maybe 1-2 clean misses, I returned home to re-inact the hunt and tried to figure out what went wrong...making sure not to make the next mistake on my next hunt.

I then graduated clean misses and moved right up to shots that were not clean kills. But, this is yet another learning experience on how to track game and when and how to perform that tracking. I am happy to say I have only not recovered a deer once. This was disappointing, but again a good learning experience. Now, the past 5-7 years I make sure of my shot and my shot placement and have a 100% success rate.

Lesson to be learned: don' t get depressed, just learn from your mistakes and work on fixing those mistakes. Don' t also be embarrassed to consult other hunters or some pros at your local sporting shop for advice.