Consensus on what happened

[406unltd]

Buck quartered away pretty hard giving me his right side. 32 yards away using my 40 and holding low. shot and killed many animals with this configuration for the last 7yrs and shoot a ton all year with this same configuration. Held last rib aiming for exit of front left leg. Held pin low where the white of the belly meets the grey. Seems almost impossible to hit brisket with my experience with this setup as it always hits high so my hold is low. Shot broke great, pin was rock solid, bubble was great shooting hinge like always. Stared at pin and where it broke so I did not see him duck, hunch up, mule kick, roll or nothing. Entire circumference of arrow, all four fletchings had blood on them no bubbles and no guts on arrow either. No blood at impact sight. Looked for 1.5 hrs went 100-125yds found four dime sized blood spots like this. Gave me direction with the top left edges of blood and that correlated with tracks. Rain started pouring and I looked in that direction for another 1.5hrs. Tracks and blood stopped. No buck. Had to return to work. Headed back Friday or Saturday. What do you guys think?

 

[Huntndog]

I think I would find someone with a tracking dog

 

[wildwilderness]

What broadhead?

I started filming all my shots with my iPhone on a simple holder and tripod. Has made a big difference in knowing what actually happens at the shot rather than what you think happened.

good luck with the search, but that looks like muscle blood to me

 

[406unltd]

Evolution outdoors head

 

[Beagle1]

A hard quartering away shot with a mechanical, my guess is a deflection low through the brisket. If the deflection was high you probably would have caught some lung and had better tracking blood but it also could have deflected very high and gone through just under the spine. I’ve been in your situation before. Not fun. All you can do is grid search it hard. If you don’t find him take a mental health day to get it out of your system then get back in the woods.

 

[NRA4LIFE]

Hit him low.