A little more background: I left the woods at 10PM, went home and got a lantern but after 2 hours I was still unable to find her. After the front that moved through bringing rain to the area, I asked the forum for their opinion and headed out.

Bottom line no joy and I feel terrible about wasting that doe. I enjoy most aspects of the hunt but I' m not too crazy about the kill let alone killing an animal and letting it go to waste.

Lessons learned:
1) Always take the lantern.
2) Bring trail marking tape (that would have REALLY help giving me a line of bearing along the blood trail.)
3) I' ve read other posts regarding the Glow-sticks and I' m going to get some. Circling out from the last known blood, I often lost the last position. Glow stick would easily have solved this.

I do appreciate all the advice from all the more experienced bowhunters out there and vow that I will do my best to ensure that this doesn' t happen again. This would have been my first bow kill and now it' s tainted