I hope the moderators will let this post stand even tho I shot the deer with a rifle. I don' t really post to the other boards and this message is about tracking anyway. So we' ll see...

So here' s the story, I shot my first buck (with a rifle). Got a quartering towards from the ground. According to my aim the bullet should have gone in the chest and out behind the should somewhere without going through all the inards. The deer took off and I let it go and waited. When I went to track I saw LOTS of blood. It looked like where' d he go to make another hop there' d be lots, and then when he' d be in the air there' d be drops... In one place he was spraying blood so good that it sprayed up on a tree about 2 1/2 feet up. Then the blood wasn' t so good, just drops for a little while. Then it was good again, then drops. I SAW NO FOOD OR STOMACH MESS ANYWHERE. So I' m tracking him, through the corner of an open field, and then back into the woods. In the woods I see one place where he bedded down (pool of smeared blood), then 10 yds and another, then 10-15 yds and another. So I found like 4 places where he layed down and then got up and went a short distance and layed down again. I thought this was good. Then I got to the last pool with the smeared blood and NOTHING. NO TRAIL leading away ANYWHERE! I circled it over and over and over again! Didn' t see a thing. I shot it at 1:00PM and looked until 5:30PM (after giving it about 1.25 hours).

What happened?

I' m sick to not have found the first buck that I shot... specialy after so much blood!!![:' (]