Bad news bears. I didn’t have any luck this morning. I started at the shot sight, and again could not find any sign of a hit. Looking from where my arrow was, to where I was in the tree, there were two small saplings almost right in the line of flight.
I thought she ran nearly due south away from me last night. I started searching in that direction, which took me down a super thick little ditch. 250 yards down and nothing. I doubled back on the ridge west of me, still nothing. Back to the shot site I went. I am 100% positive I marked her heading away on the deer trail after I shot. The trail split 3 ways, and I’d already searched in 2 directions. The third direction looped back around in front of me, through heavy brush.
I started along that path and came to a downed log. I noticed a freshly broken branch and then found blood. Not much, but more than a pin prick. Marked that, and crossed the log. About 10 yards further I found two more drips, one the diameter of a pencil eraser, and the other a pin head. And that was it. I searched on hands and knees from there in all directions and couldn’t turn up anything else.
There was another doe last night that I saw about 10 minutes after I shot. She came from the direction that the one I hit apparently ended up going. About the same body size and maturity. I didn’t see anything more than that. Thinking back, and now looking at the path, it could have been the same deer. Maybe.
$hit way to start the season. I think I may have deflected off one of those saplings and had a poor hit. I dont know for sure, but based on the evidence, I don’t think it was fatal. I definitely made a good call to back out last night. There was no way I would have found that blood in the dark.
Gonna try to put that one behind me and think positively. It was opening day, so plenty of season left. But damn it sucks drawing blood and not finding the deer.