so this past friday me and brothers were out at a friends farm near forestburg huntin. about 7:40am a nice 8 point walks out by my feeder. i put him in the scope when i notice he has a nice kicker coming off of his brow tine. i click the safefy off and squeeze the trigger. he took the shot and ran into the woods. i knew exactly where he was going so i knew it'd be a easy find. i give him about 30 minutes then climb down and start looking for blood. i follow the blood into the woods on a game trail. i go in about 50 yards following the blood when all of a sudden i hear the leaves rustle, look up and the buck is runnin off. i back out and give him another 30 mintues. go in and start following the blood again. i go about 100 yards when i get a call from my brother sayin to hold on and he'll come help so i go to meet him. about 45 kintues later we start in on the trail and continue to look again. we followed the blood off and on through the brush when i hear leaves rustling again! look up only to see the buck run off.. again... we kept on following the blood when we come to the spot where he was laying down. turns out it was a gut shot... i couldnt believe i had done that. we keep on following the trail but the blood turned into a clear liquid mixed with bloody corn. short time after that the trail went cold, couldnt find even the slightest drop of anything. needless to say after over 4 hours of looking we never found the buck... i feel horrible that i made a shot like that. i wouldve much rather have missed him completely than wounded him...
hope yall have had much better luck this season than i have

Might look up the number to someone that has a good tracking dog in that area. There are some people here on the forum that can point you in the right direction.

DO NOT give up, that buck is dead, it's just a matter of finding him. The buzzards have left my area, but I've found a lot of dead deer by following ravens and crows. Get a few guys together and y'all fan out to search the area again.

had this happen to my wife last week she is still sick its just part of the game we play we try to minimize it the best we can but sometimes S*** Happens good luck finding it

Sorry to hear this, but it happens to everyone if you hunt enough and shoot enough deer. You will find this deer dead. In hindsight when you found out the deer was gut shot, you needed to back out and give the deer about at least 6-8 hours to lay back down and stiffen up in the cold. When you bumped him the second time he probably ran a very long ways. If you can go back today or tomorrow and look for birds or listen for coyotes that is what I would do.

Yep I know that pain and it sucks. I never found mine or his carcass....ever. I still look the area over and it's been 3 years. He was a good one but I made a terrible shot. Best of luck to you.

had this same scenario years ago on a big buck .....
scope was way off ....(never did figure out why)
i hit him real low in the paunch.....
i find A drop of blood......some silly yankee with me says he is a tracker.....oh boy here we go .....
this ding dong refuses to go slow like i told him and goes trampin off in the woods while i look for the blood .....
i hear some major woods crashin 75 yards away and ......
he starts ....YELLIN HERE HE IS !.....
i sent him home and went back 4 hours later ,,,,
i crawled on my hands and knees with my 3 year old and wife ....they were way better trackers ....
3 more hours and we found him.....
and yes he went a very very long way before i found him
probably close to half a mile ...

Did you walk the fence line? Sometimes the fence will take care of the rest of him and he won't be 10 yards away.

thanks for all the advice!
only problem was we were only huntin there for the day. when we came back for the evening hunt i looked for buzzards or other birds but found nothing. i didnt go into the woods and look cause i didnt wanna mess up anyones hunt with me walkin around. next time i go out i plan to look around some more, hopefully find the rack or something.
i asked our friend if he knew anyone with dogs but he didnt. him and his grandkids hunt there all season so im hopin they will find something if theyre out and about.

i blame the shot on me, buck fever hit me quick, ha.. but i also think it was my scope. i plan on headin out to the range this week and practice, practice, practice.
glad to know im not the only one who has had this happen, sure is a bad thing to deal with but i can only learn from it for next time.
thanks yall

Does anyone ever blame their rifle cartridges? I honestly haven't missed one in 5 years (all dropped within 20-25 yards).

I normally use Remington Whitetail Pros, but this year, I'm using some old Monarch 270 rounds I found in a gear bag...and have missed twice. Tested my rifle on the Lead Sled and it's dead on. What the heck?

never thought about the blaming the round but i guess it does make sense. i would stick with the better rounds for huntin, leave the cheap stuff for just shooting for fun.

IMHO making any shot is just having confidence in your shot and all of the equipment you use. If there is ever a thought in your mind that something is wrong with your equipment then you had better fix or replace it.