Thanks guys for all the kind words. Yea there were some sleepless nights wondering what the heck happened. As far as a score I rough scored him at 192" whitetail style. I guess I knew that way he would get all four mass measurements. Don't know if that is the right way or not for an official measurement for mule deer. He is exactly 31" wide.
I shot the buck mid-morning, he was quartering away down hill 65yds. Right at the shot he jumped the string and turned right into my arrow. I initially thought I had missed because it didn't sound like a hit. I thought I had hit the rocky hillside behind him. I can only assume he took the arrow high in the left shoulder and then glanced up under his spine above the vitals. Again only an assumption. Upon finding a little blood & no arrow, we gave him an hour or more and slowly went on to tracking. He was only bleeding on his left side, therefore no exit hole. Anyways the tracking was very, very slow mostly following tracks and very little blood. We spent over 5 hours and covered around a 1.5 miles or so and the buck never laid down once. He also was very smart, fish hooking and checking his back trail the whole time. We ran out of blood and tracks. I honestly didn't have much hope after those 5 hours. The only hope was that he could still be packing the arrow. Anyways to make a long story short I ended up down the ridge about 1/2 mile from where we lost him just meandering around just giving myself a chance I guess. Oh ya I forgot to mention it poured the morning after the hit and washed all sign of any blood away. I don't even realize how lucky I am to find this deer. Sorry, back to the story I was just out on the end of a ridge and had actually turned back and was heading back to the truck. I sat down to take a break and was overlooking a pretty good canyon and the other side was somewhat open and I happened to see a hawk fly over the ridge. So I put up my bino's and about 400 yds across and down the canyon I instantly spotted a ray of sunshine illuminating a rib cage in the shadows. I couldn't believe it. For sure an act of the buck gods. Had I been there 1/2 earlier or later the sun would not have been able to illuminate it. Lesson learned, "Give yourself a chance". just plain lucky!
jdh