So, this morning at about 7:00AM, my wife put a 4 blade 125gr Muzzy broadhead into the side of a nice little deer. Just slightly quartering away, but still a pretty clean shot. Found nice little air bubbles in the bright red blood, and figured this looked pretty good. Waited half an hour (by the watch). Then, off to follow the blood trail we go, which was mostly pretty easy - the deer was bleeding good.
Over a kilometer later, still plenty of blood, but we're thinking this is not so good. After running that far (over a kilometer), the deer went up a really harsh hill (almost killed me getting up it, going very slow). We're like 5 hours into tracking this thing at this point. Found where it had laid down at the top and bled a nice little pool of blood, but this happened a long time ago (possibly 5 hours ago), because the blood is all but dry (and about a half inch deep).
We think - great, deer must be close. We fan out and search several hundred yards in any direction, and no deer.
Back to the blood pool, and start searching, and found a very faint blood trail going off again. We followed that for maybe a hundred yards. Blood trail ends. No deer. Bush is wide open and clear, easy to see. We walked it off for about half a kilometer in any direction. Nothing... Followed the last game trail the animal was on for about a kilometer. Nothing... Almost 9 hours of tracking and searching, and it's gone like a ghost.
So, my question to all you more experienced bowhunters - what's the deal? Do you have to get a perfect heart or double lung shot if you actually want to retrieve your animal? This deer got an arrow through at least one lung (or so I assume because of the bubbles in the blood), and it goes that far, and then up a hill - and still going when the blood trail ran out? How often has something like this ever happened to you? (if ever?)
I'm about "this close" to giving up bowhunting right now - this is two for two animals shot and not retrieveable since The Wife (tm) and I took it up for this year. Is this common, or are we just having a bad time of it?
Thanks...