Guys, you must not be listening. From the time I shot him, to the time I actually bumped him was well over 4 hours.

Aside from leaving him longer, one other thing I would have done is take the front on shot. Of course on a non-injured or non-mortally wounded deer I would never recommend this shot, but if you've got a gut shot deer I would've taken that shot in an effort to get another arrow in him.

Rod

I never had the opportunity for a frontal shot. He was always walking directly away from me. I'm definitley not fond of a frontal shot either.

I guess I could have taken a &quot;Texas heart shot&quot;. <img src=icon_smile_big.gif border=0 align=middle>

Your deer will not survive.

If you go back, he should be 100 yards or less from his last bed or where you saw him last. The last time he moved he either winded you or you were making eye contact with him which is a NO-NO.

I tracked a gut shot doe on September 28 [shot by a hunting buddy] and after a couple hours of tracking in the dark, we found her bedded. My friend tried for a second shot but she moved. At that point I advised that we go home and return in the morning and that we'd find her within 100 yards. According to my GPS in the morning we found her barely 52 yards from her first bed. She was not long dead and a report from my buddy was that the meat was EXCELLENT.

I have recovered several gut shot deer in my 39 years [only one mine] I prefer to track slowly, keeping an eye [with binoculars if you are as old as I am] out for the bedded deer and flag the drops as I go. I NEVER try to put the animal away at this time because it usually only makes matters worse. The instant I see him or see him otherwise move [I take great pains not to spook them out of their first bed] . . . it is usually just an ear, I immediately back off and WILL NOT EVEN LOOK AT HIM! It genrally takes a gut shot deer around 10 hours to expire so I mentally calculate the time of the shot and the time I should come back and I'll leave the area going to camp or home if I'm hunting locally. I've never tracked one of these critters more than 100 yards from the last bed.

Bowhunter

I wait 2 hours to recover. If the deer goes down in sight I wait an hour. If its a bad shot, I'll wait overnight or 8-10 hours. You just simply can't push it, let them expire.

Last year a buddy made a bad shot on a huge buck on my land. He didn't look for it right away. He called me 40 minutes after he shot it to see if I wanted to help him track it. I persuaded him to let it lay overnight. The next morning we went looking. It was a good thing we waited. The deer had traveled 500 yards and laid down several times. When we found it you could tell it had just died it was perfectly limp and not stiff yet. We would have pushed the deer and never found it if we hadn't waited.

To many bowhunters track their deer way to soon. Give them some time!

Good Luck next time Mike.

PRACTICE....PRACTICE....PRACTICE......SUCCESS!