Well I drew blood on my first ever archery shot at a deer. I had a giant (for south Alabama) cow-horn spike, still in full velvet, come right in like he read the playbook. Gave me a quartering away shot at 10 yards and I think I sent the arrow straight through his opposite side butt cheek, but that's pretty much based on where the arrow ended up in the dirt because I did not see at all where I hit him. After I drew back and as I was trying to settle my pins, I bumped my upper limb on an arrow in my quiver that I had stuck on a limb above me. When he turned and looked dead at me, I swear there was an earthquake. Or maybe just a bad case of the buck fever. I let it fly with all 4 of my pins right behind the shoulder crease (so could have hit him high that close and from 10 feet up a tree) and he sort of jumped then took off like a rocket when the arrow hit and definitely didn't run like he was hit in the guts. Never heard a crash and I thought I had clean missed him until I got down and saw blood on my arrow, regular not dark red or greenish, but not pink and bubbly blood. it smelled like regular blood and nothing else. Followed his known path for about 30 yards and suspected paths another 30-50 yards and then a sort of quick grid search, no blood other than on the arrow and a tiny piece of meat at the hit location that ants devoured before dark. I feel like I could have probably torqued the bow because I don't remember even looking at my level. And I can't figure out how the arrow ended up behind him like it did. Regardless, we looked until dark thirty for blood and not a single drop, but I'm going back tomorrow to resume the search for blood/buzzards, but at this point I am not optimistic.
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