Here's the situation, shot a doe last night at 4:55. Quartering away, pass through, bright red blood and some white hair at the shot site. Waited an hour went to the hit site with a friend (jroot on this board). Followed a blood trail that was sparse for 20 yds then picked up. Lots of blood, but not a ton like some I've seen. The blood trail was inconsistent, there was lots of blood in places then not much blood at all, then it would pick up again. After about 130 yds or so we heard a deer take off on our right side, bad sign. This was about 2 hours after the shot.

Now the doe had 2 off spring with her so we thought maybe that was one of them and she would be up there. We talked it over and decided if the trail turned right we would back out for the night. we followed the trail about another 20 yds and then it just stopped. We backed out for the night and when I went out this morning I found blood ( a lot of blood) for about another 10 yds from where we stopped and then nothing, not a thing. I did widening circles, nothing. I went down hill towards water thinking I might find her, nothing. I'm not done looking by a long shot but I wanted your opinions on this.

Lay of the land: The trail we were following was along a ridgetop (when I say ridgetop in MD terms it means a small hill, but running in a ridge formation none the less) there is a stream fairly close on the right side (80-100 yds) and another on the left that is farther away (200 + yds.) both down hill. It is very thick every where in there so "checking the thick stuff" is not an option. If you follow the ridge further it crosses a logging road and then more woods. On the right, at the head of the stream, are some houses.

Her path: She ran pretty much straight away the entire time then made a '?' type of pattern at the end. I'm guessing this is where we jumped her and we're not finding blood because she ran a ways. She stayed on the top of the ridge mostly and her last straight line (10 yds) was headed along the ridge. The last 30 yds or so were the top of the '?'. So she could have 1) ran staright 2) completed the '?' and doubled back.

If anyone has any other ideas and/or suggestions I'd appreciate it. I'm planning on doing widening circles (again) when I get back out there and hope I find something. If after that I can't find any blood I guess I'll just start doing grid patterns trying to find her. I want to aviod this though becuase it's so thick. There are places where you can't see 10 yds and you would have to practically be on top of her to see her.

Thanks for the help, sorry the post was so long.