Charlie p . I did not see he was posting this at 10 am without looking for it yet I was assuming he would have gone and found it by sunrise. My apoligies if I sounded gruff.

Jersey, No problem, That' s the problem with this mode of communication.

This reminded me of something that happened two years ago the day before Thanksgiving. A buddy of mine calls me to help him find one a couple hours after dark. We looked for about three hours the deer circled and we had lost the trail. We were debating waiting till morning when I start getting a whiff of something musky. The doe was lieing about 15 feet from us in high weeds. First time I ever used my nose to find one.

LuckyLindy, We' re waiting for an update. What happened? Did you retrieve it or just chalked it up to a loss?

And so it starts
I' d have continued the search more through the night, had I felt the deer was dead and not waiting on it to die. Get better lights or something. Also he should have been out there at first light, not still typing on a computer at 10AM. Never give up on a deer assuming its bad, find it and find out for yourself.

I hope in my reply I didn' t sound like he should give up. In no way would I intend that. I was just relating to my experience in which I had recoverd a deer that was spoiled. If the deer had expired right away then the chances are some of the meat could spoil in those temps. But if it died say early in the morning he may be alright and get some good meat off her pending a gut shot or not. Now lets say they tracked for a while in the morning and found her four hours later, that is enough time for the fly' s to make there move. Just a worst case scenario to be cautious of. Bacteria and insects are not something to fool with that is all that is being said. Find that deer if possible and make the judgement from there.

Good Luck

A little more background: I left the woods at 10PM, went home and got a lantern but after 2 hours I was still unable to find her. After the front that moved through bringing rain to the area, I asked the forum for their opinion and headed out.

Bottom line no joy and I feel terrible about wasting that doe. I enjoy most aspects of the hunt but I' m not too crazy about the kill let alone killing an animal and letting it go to waste.

Lessons learned:
1) Always take the lantern.
2) Bring trail marking tape (that would have REALLY help giving me a line of bearing along the blood trail.)
3) I' ve read other posts regarding the Glow-sticks and I' m going to get some. Circling out from the last known blood, I often lost the last position. Glow stick would easily have solved this.

I do appreciate all the advice from all the more experienced bowhunters out there and vow that I will do my best to ensure that this doesn' t happen again. This would have been my first bow kill and now it' s tainted

my experience from last year. i shot a doe about 15 minutes from dark at about 5 yards from my tree. i got down and looked at my arrow and found it to be covered with guts. i couldn' t believe that i paunch shot her. i tracked her about 10 yards and lost blood. i decided to back out and come back in the morning at first light. the overnight temp was around 60 degrees. the next morning my neighbor and i searched for her and found her about 35 yards from my stand. she was back tracking from the big woods to the clearcut edge i was hunting. i was so excited. i noticed the bad aroma of guts from her. i skined her and butchered her myself. the whole time the meat smelled like gut juice. i packed her up and froze her. the first time we cooked some steaks they tasted and smelt awful. lesson learned from this old gal. My shot was a single lung hit that came out the bottom of the stomach due to the steep angle I shot her from. lesson learned here too. best advice is to use your nose. if meat smells bad then it is bad and dont waste time processing it.