buck_hunter, how long did you wait before you started trailing the deer? How long did you look for the deer? If the blood was bright red it probably was a muscle hit which could be in a lot of places. On suggestion for you would be to read the entire thread on " What to do after the shot" , this thread is full of a ton of excellent advice from how long to wait after the shot to how to tell from the arrow what kind of hit you got to actually trailing a hit deer.