I' m sorry you lost the deer. Take some buddies out and try to find the deer again if you can. The deer is most likely very dead and should be in the area somewhere.

I question the hit. I' m not flaming you so please don' t take it that way. I have killed many deer with a rifle and if you hit the deer as described that buck should have died in very short order and been real easy to find. On a quartering towards with a gun you can just go ahead and take out the shoulder and drive the bullet on through. You dont have to mess around with shooting behind the shoulder like with your bow. I suspect you hit further back than what you think and maybe took out one lung then got guts. I know you didn' t find and matter that would indicate a gut hit but sometimes it just doesn' t show up too good on the ground.

As far as the other guys finding the deer and taking him. It' s possible I suppose, but there should have been drag marks, boot prints and lots of disturbed ground.

Try to round up some friends if you can.