Originally Posted by mainjet

Thanks guys.

Let's not get to hung up on if everyone has lost a deer or not. It really does not help the situation. It only turns the thread into a different argument.

I am leaving now with my daughter to search a bit more. I did walk circles yesterday trying to pick up any sort of blood or sign but came up with nothing. I was about 100 yards from the public land foundry which is the direction that they came from so if it went that way then I am out of luck.

Yea, I was super surprised and happy to find the ball. I was hoping to find it but I thought there was no way. Then I found the hair, then bone fragments, then I say the ball laying there. It didn't hit a tree or anything and man it was mushroomed out. So that was a heck of a hit no matter what. I did think possibly brisket due to the color of the blood, no bubbles and the hair I found. But with the bone fragments I found and the fact that there is lead on the back of the bone fragment, it leads me to believe that a slightly quartering away deer that looses bone from the opposite side of the deer then it could not have gone through brisket and hit bone on the opposite side. If I would have hit the leg with that much ball mushrooming then it would have destroyed her leg and I would have seen her hobbling away on three legs.

All I can do is put in a little more time and see if I can come up with something. I just feel with that much ball damage and bone and that much blood 30 yards away from standing there for 10-15 seconds I should have been able to see more blood and find her.

I hate this part about hunting This would be my first ML kill so I have no experience with this the way I do in reading an arrow after an archery kill.

Thanks for the help.