Boy do I know THAT feeling Rock. I used to be a "pocket" shooter myself but I trained myself hard for the high shoulder shot a good bit ago because I found it so much easier than tracking heart hit deer leaving no blood till the cavity filled up most of the time. But it does take me a moment to bring my scope to the high shoulder and off the ribs. ESPECIALLY if it is right after Bow season. Cross training old dogs like me is pretty rough. Especially a hard headed stubborn old fart like myself

Its just something you have to learn on small properties. I mean people simply don't want you walking around their property looking for your deer during their 3 day gun season. Specially folks that paid $2000-$3000 to hunt.

Its a tough situation.

Do I want to let people go look for their deer? of course I do but can I afford to let them trample through the woods somebody is paying me to hunt? Not really.

6 one way half dozen the other.....somebodies going to be mad and its going to be my fault either way I do it.

I guess you'll probably be offended then when I tell you the OP was logged onto this site yesterday morning, again in the afternoon, and now again this AM. I guess being on the computer is more important than looking for that deer like we all feel he should have been doing. That's really a shame when a person obviously had the time for a much longer, meaningful followup and didn't do it!

Just saw this post on another website and found it interesting in that it's almost identical to the OP shot:

My buddy shot a doe with a 30-06 yesterday. The shot was at about 50 yards and went through both lungs. We had to track that deer for 400 yards. Good thing that we had snow. When I cleaned it out the lungs were just mush and it had been blowing out blood all the way. I've had bow killed deer act in the same way. I have been to Africa and seen that the critters there are tough, but nothing like a White tail in my book. They are one tough animal!

I guess you'll be surprised to know that I am logged into this site all the time. It's just faster for me.

Now for those who care, I have been very distracted by my father in law, who passed out a couple of days after this post, and was diagnosed with a brain tumor, that they suspected was cancer.

After the surgery this last Monday, he has required care and attention by my wife, leaving me the realities of family. I have been busy and focused.

So, if you don't like what I did or didn't do, too bad for you. I wouldn't stay up nights thinking on it, if I were you. Go ahead and stay up nights if you want to. I flat don't care.

I posted in hopes of getting some worthwhile info about this situation, as I have never been in it before. Started hunting in 1983 and have NEVER lost one until now.

My father in law is doing better, but has a long path.

Special thanks to those who sent me a supportive PM. Quite a bunch of understanding people. Too many know it all idiots around here.

I learned very little beyond that.

Baloney to what I bolded! You may have the site in your favorites, but you're not always logged onto the site as you have stated. All you have to do to verify if a person is on the site is look below their username to see if the circle is red or green. Green is when you're on and red when you're off, unless you deactivate that feature like I did mine and why mine is always white. Right now as I type this your username is red showing you aren't logged on. You can also tell the last time a person was on the site by merely clicking on their username and it tells you the date and time. That's how I knew what I stated in my post that you're contradicting and how I knew exactly when you had been on like I stated. I also know that this is the first time in several days that you've been logged on to the site to even see what's going on because you don't have to make a post and it still shows that last time you were logged on.

Now to the rest of your post! Sorry to hear of the serous family problems, but IMHO there was no reason to bring this thread back up the way you did to say anything more than news about your family. It's now obvious from your retorts that all of our comments trying to help you and tell you to go back out and how to look for that doe weren't listened to and that's too bad. PS: I don't lose sleep over anything, especially you and your muffed deer hunt!

TG 3006 your little dot is red at 5:34AM December 19th 2015, not white.

DJ fan best of luck with that cancer crap. Takes a lot out of people who are related to the ones who have it.
Daughter had it two years ago, brother a year and a half ago and dealing with it again now.

Al

Too bad about your father in law, I lost mine 5 years ago to heart disease. He never would go hunting with me and I now I know he did so because he had problems he kept to himself.

I would still recommend checking the zero on your rifle if you haven't yet.

DJfan my condolences for your family issues. Hopefully the situation will improve.

DJfan
It is what it is. Sometimes it happens even with our best efforts. I probably would have spent a little more time looking, but if you find no blood... that makes it tough, and you really begin to second guess everything about the shot/hit. Only thing I can think is maybe a paunch hit.. but even then, if you hit her anywhere there should be some blood somewhere, even if slight amounts.

Honestly I think for the majority of hunters - losing game is the last thing any of us wants to happen. But it does sometimes. Its been quite a while for me, but I have lost a few over the past 30yrs. I did my best to find them given the circumstances, and moved on.

I'm not gonna berate someone for what they did or didn't do. I wouldn't lose any sleep over it. If she died, the critters got supper... if not, well you weren't gonna find her anyhow. Sorry to hear about the health situation with family, been there. Hope it turns out for the best.