Slightly quartering away, dang BobCo, you're starting to make me think I should quit my job and get back out there to look.
I will definately buy the book, I'll be in a bookstore x-mas shopping soon and will pick it up.

sounds a lot like the hit i put on a spring bear this year. big boar. same exact story almost, except for the snow on the ground. From the sounds of it, deer should be fine, and hopefully around another year. I know the bear is, got trail cam pics to prove. good luck. tryKING.

The bad news is it happens. You took the shot and maybe you hit him good or maybe ya didn't. Its in the past. You can't beat yourself up about it. Its part of our sport. First deer I ever shot was like that. Some how we didn't find it. You do the best you can to make a responsible shot and make a kill quickly. You did the responsible thing and took ample amount of time to search the area. Thats all you can do. Sorry to hear it was such a nice deer. But hey. We all learn from our mistakes, next time see if you can get him to come closer and give you a primo shot.

Unfortunatly it will eventually happen more than likely in this sport. You did everything you should have, asked permission before searching the next property, waiting a decent amount of time before looking, searching for hours, I dont see where you could have done much more besides the obvious overzealous shot. Learn from it and pass your knowledge along to someone else.

You did all you could after the shot. Don't be so hard on yourself. The deer is still alive or you would have found him by now.

It was a tough shot. It sounds like you rushed the shot a bit after you stopped him. It also didn't help that he was 5 yards past your limit of 30 yards.

I did the exact same thing 2 weeks ago. Biggest buck of my life at 35 yards. My limit was 30. I stopped him between 2 trees with a mouth grunt and had to shoot quick (I probably had more time than I thought). I gutshot him and found him 2 days later. My point is that's a tough shot under those circumstances. I can make that shot but I definitely rushed it thinking the deer was about to bolt.

Good luck on the rest of your season. Don't let this ruin your season.

Didn't mean to. And didn't mean to imply anything negative against you at all. Sorry if I did. I know it's tough when you loose one. But this stuff interests me.Ifind myselflearning and gaining experiencefrom talking to others as well.