Didn't want to say anything last night until I knew the outcome but I shot a big buck last night and was not able to recover him.
Yesterday at about 2:50pm I sat in the blind and wasn't really expecting to see anything until after 4:00 or so. At about 3:05 out of nowhere a huge bodied buck with a wide rack popped out of the brush at about 15 yards headed toward my corn pile. He continued past the corn pile so when he was at a good angle I stopped him at 35 yards, put the crosshair on him and let an arrow go. He jumped up and spun around and took off into the woods. I texted xbowguy and told him I just shot a big one. He called and talked to me for awhile while I waited to go look for my deer.
After about 30 minutes I got out of the blind and started looking for my arrow quietly. I couldn't find it so after probably 20 minutes of that I started slowly walking in the direction he headed looking for blood. Nothing. I circled around the area for almost an hour and finally saw a maple leaf covered with dark blood. Just as I saw that I heard something so turned and saw a big wide 10 point with his neck stretched out not 20 yards away sniffing the air. He started to come closer and I crouched down to try to take a picture of him, rustled some leaves and he took off. Don't think he saw me but he didn't like something about the situation and booked.
Anyway, looked around some more for blood and could not find any and by then it was getting dark so I backed out. Got a bunch of freaking snow overnight. Not much accumulation but enough to cover any blood that might have been visible. Went out at first light and looked for about another 2 hours and was getting sick, could not find a thing. Rick (xbowguy) was nice enough to come out and help and I think we spent another 2 hours or longer looking around the woodlot, checking possible exits, walking through the corn and we were just not able to track this deer. I truly believe he went into the corn and died but without a good trail we were not able to do anything but back out. Rick, I truly do appreciate the help- you're a good dude.
I am obviously pretty bummed out as this is the second time I have shot and wounded a big buck and not able to recover him. I don't think I did anything wrong and didn't take a bad shot but I guess "shit happens". Only thing left to do is shake it off and go shoot another one.