In my opinion, if your shot and hit the deer, you owe it to the deer to give it your all to find him, whether the carcass is rotting or not. He did that. I know exactly how he feels, I shot a buck in October on my first blackpowder hunt, thompson center encore, nice buck at 80 yds, did not take my time and shot the deer high, looked to be just under the spine and over the lungs. How do I know, when the smoke cleared the buck made a circle ran right under my stand(I saw the bullet hole) with almost no blood coming from it. The deer ran out limping while i was reloading stopped, and trotted off. Never found a single drop of blood, not one, after following his track through a muddy swamp for 200 yds. Searched til dark, and the next day, and the next day(during midday so i wouldnt mess no one up, its public land) and a a week and a half later, constantly listening for buzzards or large birds...never found anything. I was depressed for a long time, and while i would not have been that happy to find my buck, it would have been better than not knowing. Whether he' ll be ok or not, maybe ill stumble over his rack before the end of this season, or maybe Ill shoot the deer next year, bigger than he was this year. All im saying is that alot of folks on here get on to folks when they ask for advice when they have made a less than perfect shot, and some people bash them and tell them to get out there and look and get off the internet. he was out there, and he found his buck. He should be proud.