Dont give up.
Had to track one this year and i would have never guessed it was hit 3 times. Me and another guy found 3 specks of blood for the last 300 yards. Luckily we could follow the tracks in a fresh skidder trail. I then heard him breathing up the hill where he was hiding in a tree top.
Crazy
.243? (Kidding)
haha. But is was a 30-06 with 150gr corelokts. It was a funny story. My buddy shot 7 times and ran out of shells. Calls his brother on the phone and he runs 200 yards and hands him his gun like a baton in a track relay race. Deer was gone by then. But we got a hell of a laugh out of it.
We were making a drive and 17 shots were fired. I was sitting on a log just laughing my azz off. After the 7 shot sequence I even yelled out. "shoot him again!"
killed 5 bucks and a doe. Reminded me of our drives in the 80's and 90's when we had lots of deer and less trophy hunters.