Wounded deer questions.....
I shot a very nice buck yesterday evening with my muzzleloader. He came in at about 30-40 yards broadside. Right as I was squeezing off the trigger he began to run. The crosshairs were about mid body. I assume liver hit. The deer bolted hard but was running "hurt" running over dead trees etc. where the deer stodd there was lots of hair and lots of very dark almost purple blood with small pieces of meat (looked like liver). I thought I heard the deer go down so I took up the trail. Blood was everywhere! I tracked him about 75-85 yards with a blood trail a blind man could follow when I heard a deer blow (very softly) I looked up and saw the buck bound off. I figured I'd walk to where it was standing and mark that spot and leave for the evening when half way there he jumped again only running a few yards before walking very "heavy footed". It was WAY to thick to shoot so a follow up shot was out of the question. It has rained all day yesterday so a deer walking shouldn't have made much noise so when it last walked away it was obviously hurt bad by the sounds it was making. I went home and have been up ALL night worried sick. As soon as my sister comes to watch my daughter this morning I am heading out. If someone were to tell me that story and ask my advice I would think "the deer was jumped twice and only went a short distance, he's hurt, go back the next morning and get your dead buck!". But since this ones mine I'm having lots of doubts. What do you guys think? Btw I was using a 54 cal t/c hawken with a .530" round ball ball pushed by 90 grains of FFG.