First off, I agree with 308, lets keep dirty laundry as our personal learning experience. Hopefully any true hunter, that respects the animals, will learn from a mistake. I know that even the most prepared can have a bad day though. 4 years ago, I double lunged a cow at 25 yards, watched the arrow stick in the ground and her run off. My 8 year old(at the time) son and I recovered the arrow, waited 30 and then followed the double blood trail about 100 yards to twin pools of blood. At that point, blood stopped. I spent about a total of 16 hours in the next 2 days looking for her. Unfortunately it snowed that first night so grid searched to no avail. Problem was, she had doubled back, uphill and made it about 200 more yards onto private property that the owner had said no entry allowed so I never crossed his line in my search. Cow found 4 days after the shot by neighbor, said it looked like a good shot. This was in my 21st year of bow hunting, I practice a lot, with broadheads( destroy a lot of target though) and I did my Master Hunter shooting test with my bow. That said, this year, 2 days left on my Peaches archery tag, I had a small 5x5 at about 15 yards but due to the branches, I did not take the shot. I would never want to wound or loose another animal in my hunting career. Tag soup on a Bull tag does not taste good, but hopefully a nice cow will fill my freezer come November. And yes, many new, non disciplined archery hunters in the woods any more.
