The rut is on in Central Florida.

I had a grunting buck follow a doe into my small food plot on Saturday. He sucked up the smell of my smoking sticks from Deer Quest--- i'm only a satisfied customer. He stood there in the wide open not presenting a shot for 3-4 minutes.

The doe moved off to my left, he did a low limb lick, grunted a little more, then stood still continuing to face me in my ground blind. Then I hear another grunt behind me, I'm not getting greedy, I'm shooting the dude in the wide open.

The doe turns her ears up and bolts, the buck stands his ground, walks to my left and gets broadside. I put one in him but high and to the front---- another part of a deer you don't want with a bow.

He bolts, taking my arrow with him, a friend and I trail him 500 yards into a dried up creek bed. He finally laid down there, we found a blown out blood clot 4 hours later, but no deer.

I went back last nite and in that creek bed I found 2 bear skulls, bones from 3 different deer and several other critters. For the record, I will from now on remember wounded animals head for water.

Any thoughts?

First of im sorry to hear about your luck because when you hit them in the spot that you described i call it neverland its just meat and thats all.. however, i do think that you caught a lung or he wouldnt be blowin clots.. I made the same shot on a nice 8 point last year and never found him..... followed his blood and clots for about 1,000 yards and after about 2 days of trailing i dunno what happened i just gave up