Here is my long story short.
Was out with Bigdog253 this weekend in Eastern WA deer hunting. Saw a number of bucks and finally on the 3rd day came across an awesome 3 point mule deer buck in full velvet. He was a stud, tall and wide, perfectly symmetrical. It was the only buck I had a shot on, I would have been perfectly happy with any legal buck and it just happened to be that the buck I was able to get near was him.
I had a 35 yard quartering away (not too steep of an angle but enough to matter) shot and it all happened so fast. We both thought I made a perfect hit on him about half way up his body, 3 or 4 inches behind his front shoulder. After I hit him we saw the nock sticking out as he ran off, the last time we saw him he was standing on top of a hill looking back at us. As he looked back about 150 yards away we fully expected him to tip over right there. Instead, he started bounding off....
I shot him at 9am and we decided to wait 3 hours before looking for blood or the arrow. At noon we picked up the search and instantly found my arrow in two pieces. The the front half of the arrow was covered in fat and muscle tissue. The back half was bloody up to the fletching and arrow wrap. The fat and muscle tissue made me even more worried than I already was.
We never found a single drop of blood anywhere aside from the arrow. The landscape and vegetation didn't do us any favors in looking for drops of blood either. Ryan and I looked until it got dark in every spot we could imagine, multiple times over in a grid pattern. I even went back into the area the following day to look for ravens and turkey vultures and listen for coyotes that may have found him but had no luck.
In hindsight, I probably should have aimed about 6 inches further back on his body. The only conclusion I can come to is that the quartering away angle he was at must have been more than I compensated for and my arrow passed in front of his vitals. I punched my tag as soon as I found the arrow. I really hope its not a major injury that will cause him to suffer. The fact that he bound off instead of walked made me feel like the hit was not as significant as we initially thought and that he might end up being OK.
Definitely the lowest I've ever felt as a hunter.
