I shot at this buck the other day and i thought i completly missed. I ranged him at 36 yds and he was directly behind my stand so i was turned all the way around in my stand. it looked like the arrow went right under his stomach and was a clean miss( i guess i should have held my 30yd pin on the top of his back) he walked away as if nothing happend, as i mentally bashed myself for missing, that was the first deer i ever shot at. After an hour i got bored and decided to go look for my arrow. I found the buck was working his own scrape i never noticed. i also found my arrow broken in half and with little specks of blood on the shaft and a little bit of skin on the broadhead. then i noticed there was a little bit of a blood trail. i couldnt beleive this since i originally missed. to make a long story short i followed the trail for about 150yds. the trail was getting very hard to follow with little spots and then all of a sudden i ws seeing about 6in pools of bright red blood with a few bubbles here and there. i began to get excited and continued to follow. by this time my father came out to help me and we followed the trail in a big circle. the buck came around and crossed the original trail and kept circling to the point we couldnt differentiate between which way he went. we never found the deer and im left with the biggest feeling of dissapointment ever but also wonder if this deer is still alive. as we followed the trail he was rubbing saplings and checked some scrapes as well as leavings droppings on the trail. its like he went about his day as if nothing ever happend but as i mentioned before at one point it seemed like he was bleeding pretty good. as i mentioned before this is the first deer i ever shot at with a bow, i picked up a bow after the lame CT shotgun season left me empty handed 3 yrs in a row. so any insight from you guys would be appreciated as to whether or not this buck could possibly still be alive.

In my bowhunting experience, I have seen that a few times. If the arrow had spattered blood on it, not a good smear, you probably only caught him with one blade. That made the arrow dive and hit the ground and break. A little nick like that can bleed like heck for a little while and then clot up and nothing. It has been my experience that a deer that is still on its feet 1 hour after a hit is going to live. I mean by that it never went and layed down but kept moving. If you never jumped it or found a bed it is probably going to be OK. Now, having said that, I have seen a deer hit like that literally spill its guts from the wound. Intestines spill out and drag along. If that happens the deer is going to die, but it will bed down very quickly. It may get back up and if it does it will head to water. If you have a creek or a pond go walk the banks and look for the deer. My guess though would be you will see him again. I shot at a nice 9 point years ago as he walked along a creek, hit low, and spent the next day following the blood trail for a ways before it ended, it was not a good blood trail and I followed it on my hands and knees most of the distance I went. 1 week later to the day, same buck, same treestand, same exact shot, seriously he was walking step for step from the first time. Better shot placement, he went 60 yds and piled up. Had a perfect triangle wound that was healling well. Deer are tough. Buddy shot 1 4 years ago and I helped butcher it. This was a big buck and when I went to take the front leg off at the shoulder my knife hit something hard between the shoulder and the ribs, up high but below spine. I had to work around it but got it out and we found 4 inches of carbon arrow with a broadhead. It was all covered in gristle so it had been there a while, and his shot was a clean pass through. The amazing thing was the broadhead was stuck hard into the shoulder blade and it was pointed out, so the arrow had passed through 3/4 of the deer before it stopped. After seeing that, nothing surprises me when it comes to deer. Good luck and don't give up, you'll get one, maybe even him.

Thats tough, I've seen a doe go for 12 hrs on a 1 lung hit. Circling seems to be common on a wounded animal or has been in my experience. Not all but many do. Like mentioned if you have water around look there. Its possible he's still going they are tough animals and again as mentioned I've seen deer that have been shot survive. The circling though....I don't know I usually find them dead. Get some more people and grid search if ya can. Or blood trailin dog if ya have them available

just judging from your details i do not think he died. hopefully you will get another chance at hime later.

don't get discouraged however.

Sorry to hear, the bubbles make it sounds like you may have hit a lung, and the lack of blood right away would be the time the blood is pooling in the lung. But if its a one lung shot, they can still make it....

Tough luck, don't let it get you down though! Get back in the stand!

+1 on the circling and finding a dead animal. It may take awhile for the animal to expire.
If you found light colored bubbly blood that is a lung shot, period. A big buck may possibly survive getting hit in only one lung, maybe. You need to assemble some people and search everywhere on the property you are hunting on too look for him, hopefully he is down and out. If he is still alive you may still have a chance to stick another one in him and finish him off. Start looking where you last found a blood trail and if you are in hilly country start going down hill from that point. Injured deer very rarely go uphill, when they do it is only to get to the other side and head down into some very thick cober. Leave no stone unturned, a big deer can hide in a very little place, often times it is where you would LEAST expect it to be, close to a road or behind someones barn.

Three or four years ago my buddy put a single lung shot on a really nice buck and his blood trail was completey gone after 1/2 a mile or so. Luckily we had a hard frost and were able to stay on his trail. This may sound like total BS but it is the truth, we ran, literaly ran that deer down to the point he could not go any more and my buddy finished him off. We took turns chasing him and running after him not letting him bed down for long periods of time. With only having one lung working, some blood loss and us staying after him he only made it a couple of miles before we closed the deal.
By us keeping him up and moving his wound would open up from time to time mostly when he was running down hill and slamming weight on his front hooves and would spit out blood off his right side and even chuncks of his lung when he coughed and choked on his own blood.
Most of the time the general rule of thumb is to let them bed down and bleed internaly or externaly and wait overnight to go and find the wounded animal. I have found that to be sound advice in most circumstances.
On the flip side of that scenario I have also seen that by keeping them up and moving, for miles if need be, is the only way to get that deer to expire or to weaken to the point where you can finish him off.
It's a hard call.

yea i dunno guys. ive been in the same area a lot and never saw him or caught him on the trail cam. his scrapes have all been covered by leaves and not visited by any of the other deer. from what everyone had to say i would think i didnt mortally wound him but who knows. thanks for the encouragement though, i finally arrowed my first deer on tuesday, its a pretty cool deal when everything comes together.

Lets say you were out on the town looking for wimmenz. You find a real nice bar, with lots of good looking females, but just as you are about to make your move, you get hit with a sucker kidney punch from a guy you never saw. It drops you and you pee blood for a couple days. What are the chances you are going back to that bar? He could easily have moved on to less violent neighborhoods or somewhere with more does and less hunters.

guess deer are different than humans I'd be lookin for that SOB with a ball bat to make him piss blood for a month