Sorry for the delay. Tracked until 1AM. No luck. Frustrating to say the least. I've spoken with a few of the dog trackers on here, all willing, but we've got a property line issue and I can't reach the owner of the property. The owner listed on ONx has passed away within the last year, so I have no idea where to start. Her name was Carol Lemon Roy if anyone has any affiliation with the area.

To rehash - shot around 8 am, buck had just been broadside and was now slightly quartered with its head down grazing. I did have to lean around a tree to shoot, but was steady for the shot. It punched him and he ran off crashing through woods. I suspected he was headed down. I waited a little bit, climbed down, packed up, etc. I walked to where I shot him, found no blood and was shocked. Went about 30 more yards and found a spec, then more, then more. When I say decent, I am saying enough to easily track at a brisk pace. Went back and looked at my GPS and I initially tracked somewhere between 80-100 yards. There were some chunks of meet, but no guts or odor. I pulled back out, waited five hours and went at it again. GPS showed second track was only about 200 yards way of the bird. Still blood where I eventually stopped the second track, but was going through a few places where it was only a few drops - the pine straw wasn't helping. Marked last blood and pulled out again. Buddy and I went back down around 9 last night, picked up for another couple hundred yards, but soon after we started blood was getting really thin, and it looked like he would throw a clot and bleed a little, then back to hardly any. Where we stopped it was down to a fleck every 4-6 ft., then we lost it all together. Spent 30 mins at last spot carefully looking and just couldn't find anymore. He was headed toward water and the thick(er) stuff. At one point, about 20 yards before the blood ran out, there was an 8-10" circle of a number of good blood drops, like he stopped and stood for a minute. The blood was thinner than the other as if it was coughed up or dripping, but he never laid down. Didn't smell of guts. Frustrating.