Im sick
 

Hey all. I'm sick to my stomach. Made what I thought was a great shot on a beautiful 8 this morning. Full passthru...15 drops of blood found.
I hate myself

Get back out and look some more, take a friend who is a good tracker. Lay markers where you found last blood, do circle searches until you exhaust all possibilities.

Yep marked last blood. Circled for close to 4 hours. Notified all surrounding properties. 3 different people looking for blood. We found 10 drops

I've looked for days on end for bucks I hit, and found almost every one too
all comes down to HOW far it went before it died,IF it died, and HOW willing you are to keep looking
4 hrs isn't all that much IMO
doing grid searches helps, possibly getting a tracking dog in can be a BIG help too

a deer can cover a LOT of ground in a short period of time, before expiring
I have recovered deer that went well over a mile, on little to NO blood, by just NOT giving up!
it sucks loosing a deer and it can happen to anyone
I feel your pain
BUT never hurts to look more?

Oh believe me I'm gonna keep looking but unfortunately it has to be done around my job. Pesky work keeps getting on the way.I've tracked deer miles before just to find them. And for multiple days but never with so little blood.
And update just found out that my neighbor shot at this same buck a week ago and missed. He's a tough nut.

Gut shot maybe? They tend to be the toughest tracking jobs. Unfortunately, I know how that feels.

Good luck. Hope you find him.

After many years of hunting and watching arrow hit deer both good and not so good shots and like you learned my lesson the hard way this is my current routine.
When I shoot a deer, unless I see him fall, whether I think it's a good shot or not I go to my truck and have a cup of coffee and stew for about an hour or so. That's if I think its a good shot. If the shot is iffy, I'll go have breakfast and wait at least 2-4 hours. If he's dead, he won't get any deader.
This has worked for me and I haven't lost any of my last 15 or so deer.

I'll add be sure to check around and even in water especially if you think it may have been gut shot. They always seem to search out water in that case.

I had one many years ago that went into a pond and died there, we searched and searched and then finally two antler tines were spotted sticking out of the pond which had frozen over the night I shot him. Took us quite a while to bust that ice, lasso and haul him out.

My nephew also just shot his first deer ever with a bow this past weekend, a really nice 10 point with three sticker points. He got a piece of the left lung, diaphram and a bit of gut and that deer went through one slough and then we finally found him lying at the edge of a pond.

As someone should have told you
 

Archers are made on the archery practice range.

I still don't know why shooters who miss use blood drops.
They could be looking for a whole deer laying there. Or don't use a compass to find a deer that is suppose to be laying 50 or 100 yards from getting shot. Of course, you have to make a good shot to do that.
Guess most know they made a poor shot and no deer is going to be found close by.

Huh???!!!!!

As usual, 100% horse pucky there. I've had perfect double lunged deer go as far as 500 yards. I've had perfectly hit double lunged with the top of the heart bisected go 250 yards. And then I've seen the same hits put them down in just a few yards. Using a compass is in no way whatsoever going to help find a downed animal. Animals don't go in any certain direction when injured so how in the hell could a compass help other than you knowing which direction you are going? I personally don't need a compass for that.

Another perfectly no sense answer. Just this past firearm season I shot a doe that was spooky, knew I was there in the pop up blind. I shot her at 71yds with my scoped .460 pistol with a 225grn Horn Flex-Tip at 1975fps with a slightly high, behind the shoulder shot, from shooting sticks while sitting down, saw the exit hole as she turned towards the woods. She jumped straight up and took off with the one next to her. Never went in a straight line at all. Zig zagged the whole way. No compass help there!!! It was 10 mins before end of shooting time. Several large lung clots at impact area, dwindled to drops within 10yds. Lost blood trail before she hit the timber 20yds away. Got dark and was quite cold. Went home and came back in the AM with back up. She was 75yds inside the timber, bottom of hill in wet lands. Lung/heart area blown to just red water.

I also do not kw what a compass has to do with finding wounded deer besides getting yourself out of the woods ! I have seen deer turn at right angles when running away---I have seen deer make a slight turn, After the initial run, especially with gut shot deer I have seen deer turn numerous times before laying down to die !

lol. that's just cause they forgot their compass

I swear sometimes the man is a genius. You would have to be pretty smart to come up with such outlandish and completely ridiculous ideas. Using a compass to find deer? Maybe if it had an EXTREMELY powerful magnet shoved up it's bum!! Other than that, what use would a compass or any other directional finding implement be? I can see using a GPS waypoint marker to mark last sign found, maybe establishing a pattern of flight but other than that, nope, nodda, nuttin, not a single use whatsoever of directional devices.