Response to a bad hit?

[Redman232]

I shot at a doe this weekend with my recurve, 12 yards quartering away. Generally this would be a chip shot for me, it wasn't. I hit a small limb/ leaves about half way to the doe. The arrow trajectory went from kill zone to the front 1/2 of the hind quarter. I got very poor penetration, looked like less than 6". The doe ran about 15 yards stopped, stood still for about 30 seconds, blew and ran hard for 40 yds out of site. It was obvious it was a terrible shot, I waited 1/2 hr got down and left. I returned Sunday morning, hunted until a 1/2 after sunrise, then got down and took up the search. I didn't have high hopes of finding the deer, but I new there was a chance that I got the femoral artery. After getting to the spot where she stood still, there was just a few drops of blood and it became pretty obvious in the next 20 yards it was a muscle hit and I didn't get the artery. So now I setup a mental grid, in case I got into the guts (none of the sign indicated this but just to be safe I checked). The property has planted pine trees so following the grid was easy, but I found no additional sign or my arrow. After 1.5 hours of search the grid and the adjacent creek bottom I stopped. Naturally I'm not happy, my shot attempts at does are much more calculated than bucks, because I know I'm going to get another shot if I don't this time. I will wait for slam dunks with does (though I screwed this one up). A buck on the other hand I'll shoot the first good opportunity I get. Right now I'm frustrated and want to put an arrow in the first doe I see. How do you all respond after missing/poorly hitting an animal? This is the first deer I've lost after hitting in 6 years so I'm a little out of practice dealing with this situation.

[MOBIGBUCKS]

Man, it's tough, but stuff happens out there in the woods. We are not all robots and we do make errors in judgment when the adrenalin is pumping. It sounds like you did your best and that is all that matters in the end.

[Brad]

We've all been there, I try and figure out what went wrong and then work to eliminate it in the future. Anyone that hasn't wounded a deer and not recovered them hasn't hunted very long. It sucks, but it does happen from time to time.

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