Begin rant. Pardon the rambling.

I took a long off spell from bowhunting. Last year I started back with my recurve. I didn't get a shot in my comfort range. I got a new PSE this year. I've been shooting it daily for the last 3 months. It's fine tuned. I haven't shot a deer with a bow in nearly 2 decades. I told my hunting buddies that the first legal deer that came in range, was getting an arrow in it. This afternoon a lone doe came out in a food plot. She was 60 yards when she came out, and feeding away from me. She fed around for 5 minutes or so, then she turned, and walked across the plot, stopped broadside to me at 35 yards and went back to feeding. I put my 30 yards pin just behind her shoulder and let one fly. The only way I could describe the sound of the arrow hitting the deer would be to imagine someone hitting a watermelon with a baseball bat. She ran down the plot, went into the woods, then crashed. Then she ran some more and crashed. DRT I figured. I still had good enough light to get down and start looking in the plot. The plot is dusty dry, so I had little to work with but did find good blood where she entered the woods. I did not find my arrow, where the deer was standing, nor did I find any hair. I figured the arrow was buried up in the dry powdery dust, and I could find it tomorrow. I came to the house and waited. I waited about an hour, and headed out with my 3 month old beagle puppy. I wanted Ginger to "find" her first deer. We tracked the deer about 75 yards, and there was the arrow. That nice new Grim Reaper was still CLOSED, just like it was when the arrow left the bow. There was no blood on the broadhead. The once white, wrap and fletchings were soaked in blood. I followed the blood for another 75 yards, then the blood trail stopped. I found where the deer had lost it's dinner in the woods. Fresh grass and rape. Not sure what that means, but I will go back in the morning and see if the deer maybe bedded down in the creek.

I'm damn sure not a fan of Grim Reaper heads. That deer was hit good, the broadhead should have opened. If it had, I would have the deer skinned by now and hanging in the barn. I WILL NEVER SHOOT ANOTHER MECHANICAL HEAD. I don't care how many deer have been killed with them. I don't care if the world record is killed with a Grim Reaper next week. I read all I could. I worked the blades by opening and closing them to loosen them up. The damn thing ABSOLUTELY FAILED.

Deer here are about as rare as hens teeth. It makes me sick to my stomach to know I lost one. I may find the deer in the morning, and the meat should be fine as cold as it is tonight, but I really doubt that I find it. I've followed more than one blood trail that stopped with no deer at the end of it. There is usually not a happy ending to those stories.