Well, I shot a 6 point in zone 10 just after first shooting light on opening day (Monday).... just haven't found it yet. 10 minutes after sitting in my stand, the buck walked to about 20 yards away. AFter I shot, he dropped immediately, kicked a few times, then lay still. He sure seemed dead to me. As soon as I began to climb down from my stand, the buck got up and, slowly at first but then gaining speed, took off. I went home and waited 45 minutes, then tracked him to and most of the way through a swamp, heavy blood sign the first 60 yards, including two spots where there were pools of blood, which progressively lessened. I lost the trail just as he exited the swamp. AFter looking a little further, I left for work thinking that I had a 9:30 call (which was later rescheduled to the afternoon), looked from 9:00 to midnight that night and again for two hours the next day and the following day. Of course, it began snowing just at dawn on Tuesday so any sign was covered from then on.

I will say that I had hunted pretty hard the last 3 weeks of bow season without seeing many deer (I think a total of two). I arrowed a buck week two of bow, and just missed taking a doe a couple days later (after I made some unnecssary noise just prior to release), but from then on very little. Besides the deer described above, my buddy, who was 120 or so yards away had a deeer under his stand before shooting light on Monday and saw three or four does over the next two hours.

I'm going out again tom. or Sat., to hunt (and look for the buck again), and I'm pretty optimistic with the cold weather that there will be good movement.

Best of luck.

A question,... we have had pretty cold weather since Monday, the temperature has seldom ventured above freezing except for a couple of hours during the day and has been really cold (in the teens at night). Assuming I find the buck before the temperature warms, what sort of condition would it be in if coyotes, fishers, or crows haven't gotten to it first.