How often has anything like this happend to you?

[huntwriter]

brotherjack- it is a fluke, the worst thing that can happen now is that you get disdiscuraged and end up loosing your confidence. In hunting and especially in bowhunting, after all is said and done it is confidence in you and your equipment that will make you suceesful.
Now before someone gets hung up on this, read again, (after all is said and done). Meaning, you practiced the weapon of your choice, you know where to shot and you did scout.

Usually any shot in the goody box (chest) will kill an animal, double lung, single lung and heart. These are the preferred killing shots. The undesirable but still killing shots are, liver, bounch (stomach) and even the hindleg and of course the spine, which I conceder a lucky shot.

The problem is that a deer shot with a bow does not die of shock but of blood loss. If the blood loss is not rapid it can travel quite far, one reason why I never let an animal rest and thus bleed slowely (animals blood has the ability to instant clogging) I push them and keep their hearts pounding and pumping blood out. After the shot I am within minutes after them quietly stalking them. If I see them still alive I try to get another shot off. If they see me and run good too the more it runs the faster it will bleed and I watch it and hear where it runs and keep following quietly. Never lost a deer since I do that, an old trick I learned in Tennessee where the leave litter can be a foot high and a search on hand and knees brings your nose only inches away from rattle snakes .

Mortally injured animals seek a place to hide, instictievly they know that they are very vulnerable, they seek out the thikest brush to hinde in. You will be surpriced how little a deer needs to completly vanish from sight. I once recovered a buck in a clump of high grass not much bigger than the dog house in my back yard.

Someone here mentiond something about cross bows. It really does not matter what weapon you use to hunt with. Rifle, Muzzleloader, Slug Gun, Crossbow, Traditional Bow or Compound Bow, I hunt with all of these and they are all accurate killing machines. What's important is to know the limitations of each weapon and your limitations. If you are capable to shoot each arrow in the bulls eye at 50 yards on the range then that does not mean you will be able to do that under hunting conditions maybe 25 to 30 yards.

Someone else mentions treestand height. The higher you hang a treestand the more critical shot placement will become. If your stand hangs 30 ft of the ground then the actual target becomes very small plus there will be a lot of bone to get trough. Also the shot will be streight down, meaning the arrow will enter high and exit under the animals belly, if you get an exit wound. The exit wound will clog up with organs preventing blood from comming out. The cavity of the animal will have to fill up with blood to exit trough the entry hole but no animal has that much blood. No blodd trail! If the deer stands only 20 yards from your stand and your stand is 30 feet up a tree the actual distance is not 20 yards but 35 yards the arrow has to travel. in all my years I have never found any need to hang a stand higher than between 12 and 20 feet of the ground and in America I hunted some pretty spooky and nervous deer on heavily hunted public land where even during bow season every other tree has a hunter sitting in it, go figure. More important than stand height is background cover, the higher you climb the more likely you are sky lighted deer will see you from far away and wont come any closer to investigate that dark blob on the tree. Same with scent control, some hunters say the higher you climb the less likely deer will smell you. That is why for me every hunting trip begins with a shower and a set of fresh clothing I do not worri about scent I worry about the wind and it makes no difference if the deer can smell you 50 or 200 yards away, again, they will not come closer to investigate.

This has become an unusual long post but I want to make sure you understand that these things can and will happen to all of us. If you hunt long enough it will happen, it is not a pleasant feeling but it happens and you carry on that is life and has nothing to do with "ethics" or "morals" it's nature and as my wife pointendly says it. "Nature dosen't give a dam."