At sunset I shot a nice buck. I was watching a fawn with spots on it's butt when the buck came in. I didn't raise my bow till after I felt my pulse return to normal. I took my time and waited for him to present a full broadside/slightly quartering shot and hit him right behind the shoulders and about 3/4 of the way up his body. I was about 12 feel off the ground and 15 yards out. He jumped straight up (think bucking bronco where the whole thing goes up at once) kicked his hind legs and took off like a rocket. I took note of three things. First the sound. There was the loud noise of my bow..and another loud noise....that turned out the be the arrow hitting a log behind him after pass thru and breaking the broadhead out of the carbon arrow. Second I noticed the direction he ran. Third I noticed that he was running quite strong. He didn't look like there was anything wrong with him.
I waited 20 minutes before getting down. This is a fixed stand located close to my house, so it is minimal noise. I didn't check the arrow, I went in the house instead. After 30 minutes total I went out and checked the arrow. Nice bright blood covered the whole thing. No gut material. No bubbles like lung shots will sometimes produce. The arrow had passed all the way thru and the head was embedded in a log that was laying on the ground behind where I shot him. I walked about 15 feet in the direction he had traveled and found several spots of blood. I returned to the house, and had dinner. My 12 year old and I took off after avbout 45 minutes -1 hour from the shot. We methodically tracked the blood trail. At first it was just a few drops then it started to get more...spots about 6x8 inches on the ground... Not spewing but heavy blood trail. It went like this every 6-8 feet for abuout 150 yds, then it just dried up. It was also starting to rain but the blood we had already found didn't wash away so I think the other blood wouldn't either. About 2 hours after the shot we were walking around in large circles. We had found more blood about 75 yds from the last place we had lost the trail. I went back to the house and got my dog. He's a little house dog but he definately gave interest and seemed to follow the trail till it crossed a creek. After 3 hours, at 10 pm I was getting turned around and decided to give up till morning. He consistently ran downhill, and parallelled the creek. It was 63 degrees when I shot him, and 55 when I gave up. It's 48 degrees now. If he went down on the ground I am not sure if he will be good to eat or not. The temps have been about 75 during the day for the last week or so with very wet weather. It just cooled down last night. If he went down in water, I know it will be good to eat. I don't feel like the deer lost more than a cup or two of blood along the way when I was tracking him...my 12 year old noted that almost everywhere we found blood, there was also some clear fluid. (ants were always on the clear fluid....I have no idea what it was.) I know I took my time to make the shot. The arrow/bow/broadhead combo is tried and tru. 416 grain carbon arrow including muzzy 100 grain new broadhead shooting 240 FPS. That is 53 pounds of kinetic energy. More than enough. I have never NOT had a pass thru. I took my time and I believe my shot was good. I welcome criticism because I really hate not recovering a deer. The only thing I can figure is that perhaps my shot was too high and I missed the lungs.