Congrats on your extraordinary efforts to recover him, You do however own it to yourself and the buck to get it mounted, Right now you feel sick but you stuck with it and found him, Good Job ! You'll look back and remember that hunt every time you look at him once you have him mounted.

Don't get down on yourself. You did everything you could possibly do and didn't give up hope.

All I can say is you are the man. 3 days looking for him. WOW. You should get him mounted just to show others the benefits of KEEPING AT IT. Sorry you made the bad shot.Those things happen but you get my vote for man of the year just to keep looking.

Not much I can say that has not been said. Congrats on the recovery of a great buck.

Mount it!There is no way that Iwouldn't mount that deer. You made a bad shot....and looked your butt off till you found him. Nothing wrong with that, infact kudos to you for doing it. The exact same outcome (deer eaten) could have happened on a perfect shot left overnight. Congrats on your deer, that is an awesome buck.

Hold your head up. You did the right thing and hunted him down. We all make bad shots. That is just more incentive to practice harder for next season. Congrats on a fine buck.

way to stick it out and find your trophy..Most would have gave up and never gave it much more thought. It's very cool you didnt give up.....

Congrats for hanging in there and finding your deer long after a lot of others would have given up.

IMHO you owe it to the deer to have it mounted.

x2.
Congrats on finding your buck, kudos for searching that long.

These things happen, there is nothing you can do about it now. Just put it in the past and use it as a guide and correct yourself for the future. I understand the feelings, but don't let something like that ruin your season, there are more important things in life that you can screw up. Feel blessed that you found him... not finding him would have been the worst outsome. Enjoy the kill, because you did indeed harvest a beautiful buck.