I feel terrible

[anglinarcher]

Listen for magpie's.

[NW-Eric]

thats to bad bro... but it will happen to everyone sooner or later

[DOUBLELUNG]

Sounds to me like you hit him in the shoulder blade, broke the shaft when he ran past something.  Poorly vascularized area, he may well live. 

[ellsworth]

Sounds to me like you hit him in the shoulder blade, broke the shaft when he ran past something.  Poorly vascularized area, he may well live. 

Id second that.

If you only got about 5 inches, the deer is probably gone.  I bet he's got a little pain but it should heal up good.  Lots of guys hit high, if seen lots of bucks in WI with wound channels from high arrows, they heal up pretty fast.

If you didn't push him far, and can't find him now, I would rest assured that he's probably walking around somewhere.

Hopefully, by my stand 

[Tony 270WSM]

I had a deer get away after I jumped him while tracking his blood. Couldn't find him and was getting dark fast. Took my gear back, got a couple dogs and went for a hike. They went straight to it and they're not hunting dogs at all, just muts that sat around the yard all day and went for a hike every chance they got. Don't know if that was legal (about 10 years ago), but seemed like the right thing to do.

[MuleySniper]

Man that sucks. I lost a bull I shot last year at 30 yards. Clean pass through with my arrow. It was covered in nice red blood. I gave him about 45 minutes before I even went looking for him. My dad, wastickslinger and I spent a whole day tracking that guy. We followed him to the point we were on our hands and knees and finding only tiny specs of blood 30 yards apart. He was traveling parallel with the hillside with two cows and no signs of going down hill. I still feel sick to my stomach every time I think of it. The only thing that eases me  is I know we gave a hundred and ten percent to try to find that bull. Its a bad feeling.
MS