Someone else asked, but I didn't see an answer. Mathewsboy, how long did you wait till you started to track him? This is important. If he was quarting towards you, you may of tagged one lung and went out through the liver. He could live for an hour or so. I just had a mature doe do this last week. Did you happen to find a bed with blood in it? The grainy stuff you described on your feathers will come from liver blood. Liver blood will sometimes "splat" onto the leaves, almost like a small paintball splatter. Liver will have a mild odor to it also.

Like I said, the real key here is how long you waited to track him. I've jumped them out of beds an hour or so after hitting them, backed off, then found them pretty close to where I jumped them a few hours later. If you nicked the intestine on the way out, you may of lost the blood because stomach/intestine matter is clogging the exit hole. You may of got just enough intestine to do this, but not enough to show up on the arrow, or wipe the liver blood off.

Was there meat on the arrow with the blood?