elkman30

After reading the OP's posts, it sounds like he made a good faith effort (6 hours) to find his buck and turned to HNI with his phone to see if anybody had any other ideas he could try. Not everybody uses tapatalk or some other method that indicates they are on their cell phone instead of a desktop computer somewhere. Kudos to the OP for going that extra step not to waste an animal. Best of luck with the rest of your season.

mrbb

Well I am late to add anything to help recover this deer, but something I think a LOT of hunters don't consider is using a tracking dog(where legal that is)
there are many these days that offer this service, and it can be a BIG help to a other wise LOST deer
I have hunted a lot of places and BEFORE heading to out of state hunts I have always looked and found a tracker(again where legal) JUST in case
I have never needed to use one yet, but its nice to know I have a back up pl;an if needed! MY homke state for GOD know's why its illegal to use one to recover a deer, which I think is Silly and dumb!
but is what the law currently is there!

Bocajnala

Mrbb for some reason I thought you were a PA resident. Tracking dogs are legal for PA deer now.

And that's a very good suggestion. Dogs can find deer that most people have no chance of finding .

Look up United blood trackers
​online they have lists of dogs for each state

-Jake

Oldtimr

After reading his post I suspect that the OP missed. Had he hit hit the deer he should at least found hair at the spot where the arrow hit the deer. I have had deer blow at me after they crashed into the woods when I surprised them walking to my stand in the dark along a field edge. They continued to blow for a while afterwards and made noise moving about in the dark.

Champlain Islander

I too would guess he missed. I have killed a bunch of deer with a bow and can't recall one time that I didn't hear the hit. That telltale thwack always tells me I hit it. I have on occasion had very little blood and no visible hair that I found but an arrow hitting a deer will always leave something at the site. In all likelihood he could have missed high and the arrow deflected away from a branch. I never had a hit deer blow at me.

MudderChuck

I've had them take off running, stop and blow and look behind themselves to see if they are followed, then take off again.

Blood trails can be iffy, sometimes the drops of blood are tiny. Sometimes there is more on the leaves in the brush than on the ground.

I'm really not good at tracking, iffy eyes, they just aren't as sharp as they used to be. My Dog on a long leash will follow the tiniest blood trail by scent. In fact Deer blood often drives many Dogs a little nuts and holding them back is a chore.

Some of tracking is experience, the likely outcomes, the Deer hunkers down and hides, it takes off as far and fast as possible, it heads for deep cover or my favorite is it doubles back on itself. An old timer explained that double back thing, if a Deer is in strange territory the only safe place it knows is where it just came from.

I go to the last sighting and start searching in a fairly tight spiral outwards, that way you cover all the possibilities. I've found some Deer by tripping over them, they can be way close, in a slight depression in the grass and be almost invisible.

Burke8810

elkman30

Still an E ticket ride. And that's why we call it hunting.

Jack Ryan

That right there is the biggest part of your problem. You are confident up to 40 yards but you are missing, wounding and losing deer you shoot at 30 yards.

Stevyrob

By the sounds of what you are describing I too would be suggesting a miss.