Well, I just have to hang my head. I looked again today and didn't find him. I want to thank fzzwhite and bloodtrail for coming out and helping me look Monday and Pea Ridge for coming out today. I really appreciate y'all spending a couple hours looking with me. I've spent over 10 hours looking for him and now its just a waiting game to see if some buzzards show up after we get out of this deep freeze. I'm am just sick to lose him. I don't think I ever gave any background on the shot so let me tell what happened. I was sitting on the edge of a thicket in some select cut pines. I spotted the buck working his way accross the ridge in front of me. I could see he was a deer I wanted to shoot and got the gun off my lap and tried to find him in the scope. It was pretty thick in front of me and I couldn't find him. I pull off the scope and am trying to see where he went when I see he has turned and was walking straight towards me and closing fast. I get a bead on him but he is steady walking towards me with his head down and I have no shot. Finally he starts up the side of the little bottom I'm on a raises his head. When he does he is within 40 uards, facing me head on, and pegs me immediately. So the deer is about to bolt, I put the crosshairs in the center of his chest and squeeze a round off. I immediately see that he is hit hard. He wheels and turns trying to get up the ridge and is having a rough time running. He angles back accross the ridge and goes out of sight. When he didn't fall within sight I was initially worried that there wouldnt be a blood trail because of the straight on shot. After picking up the blood I thought for sure I had a dead deer. The bloodtrail went for about 250 yards before I lost it. My guess after replaying this in my mind 109/times is that he might have been slightly quartering to me and I hit him just outside of center and only got one lung. In which case he could have went a long way. I hate to lose a deer and when I pulled the trigger on this buck at 40 yards I never would have thought I was taking a marginal shot.