You know I just read through both your stories here and first I want to say as far as the first one goes it happens, everyone makes a bad shot or fails to recover a deer at some point.
I had confidence BUT I was shaking out of my skin when I saw how big he was
He did not wind me but I could not be patient anymore.
His head was at a tree so I may have steered back further than I wanted but I do not know where I hit him
Ok, your excited, the shot seems to be there and things happen fast sometimes, again, I understand this far how it could happen, hell it happened to me earlier this week on a doe I shot.The arrow was in the ribs but further back then planned. I left her lay for 12 hours, and went back.The blood trail stopped after 70 yrds, and she got into 1800 acres of thick cattails.I looked for 5 hours but couldnt find her.But you go on to say....
Here are the things that I learned:
1. At 40yds and 309fps, the deer has 0.4 seconds to react. Which could be enough to drop a few inches. Anything over 25 yds, I will not be alerting the deer.
2. Patience, patience, patience no matter how big. More than likely he would have circled me for a perfect shot. Way too excited and impatient.
3. Respect for the animal.
And after that and the fact you choked on a buck the day before you continue with.
He was facing me but I was fairly confident on what I could do with the arrow. It hit high in the neck and ended with the heart. He ran 60 yards
Apparently you learned absolutely nothing from losing the big one.If you had learned a whitetails reaction time and understood the margin of error on a frontal shot you would not have taken it.You obviously didnt learn patience as you could have waited for a different shot angle or passed the shot alltogether but you didnt.And you certainly dont show respect for the animal by taking a low percentage shot where 9 times out 10 you wont recover the animal.The front of a whitetails a lot more solid than the side of a whitetail, you got muscle, bones, and fat stacked on top of each other.And you have the whole length of the deer to blow through or else you wind up with a single entrance hole, up high, that doesnt bleed much.Had you missed the heart which is a definite possibility with this shot you wind up with what?Maybe a single lung hit?Or you hit something solid and get lousy penetration.
I think you may need to work a little harder on the patience area of your hunt, or else your "confidence" is going to result in a lot more wounded deer in your future.