RE: 5th Annual, Recovery, What to do after the shot.
She had come right under my tree stand and was only about 15 yds away. I was using Wasp mechanicals. I went out the next day and bought Muzzy heads as best as I could figure it was the mechanical that maybe hit a rib and deflected when one of the blades opened up. I shoot carbon over alum Cabela's arrows and am shooting 65#. Where I lost her trail in the field there were so many other fresh tracks that I could not keep track of her specific prints. There was corn in the field last year and many of the stalks were still laying around. When I would find a spot of blood, I would stick a cornstalk up to mark it. That way I could look back down the field to try and get a sense of where she was going. She passed up many good places along the edge of the field to bed; briars and brambles too thick to walk through. Near where I shot her she entered a small creek (drainage) and walked in the water up it for about 30 yds before crossing over and continuing out of the woods into the field where I lost her tracks. I could see blood on the big sycamore leaves floating in the drainage ditch. I never found the front part of my arrow but I did find about 8 inches of the fletching and shaft. There was no intestinal material other than dried blood with a few white hairs stuck to it. I found this part of the arrow near where the blood trail petered out. The intial blood was good and plenty and was dark red.