did you find as many people as possible and make a search grid, were you on your hands and knees searching every hooftrack to it's source, looking on trees and plants it may have passed for blood? no joke, even tho this guy has a ton of money and his own large company he got his company chopper and flew around for 2 hours refueling and such untill he spotted his deer. that's dedication. you cant leave an animal that was out there to survive die just because your friend made an "iffy" shot on a deer. you dont stop just because, well, no more blood, lets go. no, get back out there buddy.

I will try and answer a couple of your questions so here goes. I shoot on the ground and off the top of a barn for pratice and I never see a noticable differance. Now mind you I never shoot straight down either. But in my uneducated days I shot a nice eight pointer that was only about five yards from base of tree, say ten to fifteen feet. The arrow went right were I aimed but did not understand the lung set up to do it right. Anyway, I only hit one lung but did not know it at the time. But when I got out of stand my arrow was covered in blood and had asmall trail for about ten feet and then nothing, not even a drop. But I did know enough not to push deer when shot so I left and came back next morning. The biggest mistake I think in not finding deer is that they were pushed when shot. Usally the hunter will go to there edges of property and stop there. Then the deer runs past that edge and dies just outside of the hunters area. When deer are hit they only run far if pushed. If not pushed they will only run fifty to say one hundred yards or so and then stop and die. But back to story, I came back next morning and deer was about seventy or so yards from stand and hardly any blood on ground by him, not pushed and laid down for his final dirt nap! As Squirrel said I have found the best method for finding deer is the grid search, one guy can do it, just takes longer, have found alot of deer with the grid. Also if you had good solid blood on arrow it was fatal! only wet heavy blood can come from lungs or main vains. As with my deer I hit high and only one lung. I think cause it was high the blood never ran out and just filled the cavity. One thing I have always noticed with my deer is that if the shot is in the lower half of the lungs I always find alot of blood. But if I hit high the blood gets less and less. I would say your friend got a one lung shot, pushed the deer away, and the deer bled out inside. If he hit muscle the arrow would have the red/clear smeared look. And gut shots, well you can get all kinds of stuff on that one. Also the bow is not at fault it him!

Thankyou hotburn for your time and explantation. Its greatly appreciated. I asked him a similar question regarding what he did after the shot, and he said after coming out of the stand he walked the trail out of the woods to the truck, which taking a shot at dusk or last available shooting light he would have been better suited to wait in the stand or pick an opposite direction out of the woods to not push the deer. We covered as large area of ground that next morning, but he must have pushed the deer when coming out. I regret asking the questions or even speaking of such a sore subject matter but its an unfortunatetruth about hunting. Thanks again. Doug

Don't foget what a shot from above like that will cause the arrow to hit ribs at a very oblique angle as opposed to almost perpendicular when you are on the ground. The very oblique angle may allow for a glancing hit and little to no penetration. Don't have any facts on this but it may be possible.

After tracking numerous wounded deer with a questionable shot made on it, I would have to say, "He didn't wait near long enough to go looking for it. Let the animal bed down and die or you jump it up and he goes to water and quickly renews his blood pressure and continues on to eloude you"
Sorry, but I've been it that boat beforeand it don't fish well. LOL
BBO

taking shot like that is reason he lost deer.very sad.i had in1972 in a field i hunted,over 19 deer walked in a single file under my apple tree.i was only up in tree 9 ft, yes,9ft. foolish when i hear how high some are getting to archery hunt.sorry i got off topic.in that group was 11 bucks, 1 was 22 inch spread 12 pointwhich we got in gun season. i could have shot this buck and many others BUT iknow better. not saying a straight down shot will not kill a deer, trust me, if you hit spine with a regular broadhead not those spitfires ,which i use.deer will go down. its a matter of pride to me to shoot a deer behind shoulder with arrow. no buck is worth losing to me. i have lost many because of not having clear shot or buck was turned wrong.thats fun of hunting ,not killing .am not bashing him but please tell him to not do this again and teach others he knows same.i would be sick to my stomach if that happened to me.

OK lets not get our drawers in a wad! When u say straight down shot then i get idea i am looking at deer's spine. I have killed a truck load of them like that. Now if yer saying it was broadside but u had steep angle looking down u may have gotten one lung. Or maybe a high shoulder shot that made a terrible wound that most likely will get infected and get fevered! Bad dael and a Bummer.[&o]

I think most of us have at one time or another taken a questionable shot but hopefully learned from the experience. I must admit to hitting a fat doe to far back and spending two days looking for her but never finding. It really is sad and a good hunter hates to wound and not recover. We certainly see the guys on TV take some very long questionable shots only to miss high but they don't show us the gut shot or poorly hit animals.I watched that guy Tred Barta taking running 40yd shots at Boo with a traditional set-up. He was not even close with his shots and it seemed very irresponsible. In my humble opinion, it is as often as not the gun hunters who are shooting at white flags. Geez. >>>>>>Whack!

Thats a big ditto there planter! Try not to worry about it to much doug. As planter said we all make mistakes as we learn the sport. You say you are new to the arrow side of things so at least you have been able to learn from your friend and not your own mistake. Hunting is all pleasure or all pain, not much middle ground in my opinion. Just one thing I like to see is guys that don't give up, even though it's too late, don't be afraid to go out and look some more and give the deer the find it deserves. Meat is bad but you can still give respect to the deer. But hey you never know, the deer could of had a lucky break and make it for another day. It's a learning experiance, try and remember.

Just wanted to thank everyone for the responses. Yesterday was my first day on this site/forum (what an intro). Trust me, its not much easier learning from the mistakes of another when you are their to witness it all unravel. When he and I spoke at the truck, he was over confident of his shot because of the looks of the arrow. He said he had not attempted any blood trailing but had seen the 2 drops at the shot site. Where we hunt in GA, that night the temperature was not going below 70 degrees, so his response to me was questioning spoilage of the meat if we did not recover the animal that night. The immediate area is relatively small and thick with open fields around it, so when we searched in the a.m. we covered pretty much every possible peice of ground we could. An incident such as this will not damper my opinion of archery hunting but it was a sad education. I hunted with a rifle all my life and killed a lot of deer, however my first bow kill was with my xbow last year and it was a feeling of accomplishment like no other. Thanks again for all the responses and good luck this year. When in doubt.....Let em walk. Doug