petasux

Went out tonight and got in my stand.Bout 45 minutes before dark a string of does come out of the slough near my stand.I let one walk, then another, and finally the third one came up and stopped about 15 yrds out.More or less broadside she stood there and I drew and shot.I watched the arrow hit, it was maybe 6 inches behind the shoulder and looked like a good shot, the deer spun and ran about 15 yrds out into the plowing where she stopped.Time seemed to slow down as I watcnhed her, first her head dropped and she seemed ready to go down but never did.She stood there for probably 15 minutes and never dropped, never moved, just stood there.Finally she walked up to the fenceline and stopped again.This time I could see her stumble sideways 3 different times never once lifting her head up.I kept thinking shes gotta go down and yet she stood there.Another deer came down the fenceline and walked up about 15 yrds from her and stood there.She took a few steps towards it and stopped again, the other deer came up to her and they both stood there as daylight ran out and I could no longer see them.

I didnt want to run her outta the field by climbing down so I sat there for another half hour shivering in the dark and texted my kid to bring the truck down and get me.He showed up about 15 minutes later and there were no more deer standing around.I had no idea if she laid down, took off, or what so we made a quick inspection of where she had been standing {I thought, it looked different in the dark} and found nothing, no blood, no arrow, no anything.Not wanting to push her any we got in and drove away.Tommorrow morning I will go back and look around but I got a bad feeling about this as blood wont show up in the dirt plowing and I have no idea what direction she even went.

I have no idea why she didnt die, everything looked good, she acted like she wanted to drop, but she stayed up and walked off.This really sucks, i know it happens but she never even laid down like a gut shot deer would, I cant figure it out.